A commentary on the Holy Scriptures: critical, doctrinal, and homiletical, with special reference to ministers and students

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COMMENTARY

ON THE

HOLT SCEIPTUEES:

CRITICAL, DOCTRINAL, AND HOMILETICAL,

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MINISTERS AND STUDENTS.

BY

.TOHIN PETEE LANGE, D.D.,

a CONNECTION WITH A NUMBER OF EMINENT EUROPEAN DIVINES.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, AND EDITED, WITH ADDITIONS,

BY

PHILIP SOHAFF, D.D.,

W CONNBCTION WITH AMERICAN SCHOLARS OF VARIOUS EVANGELICAL DENOMINATIONS,

70L [. Of THE OLD TESTAMENT: CONTAINING A GENERAL INTRODUCTION,
AND THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

NEW TOEK:
CHAELES SCEIBNEE'S SONS,

1884.

G- E N E S I S.

OK,

THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

TOGETHER WITH A GENERAL THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL
INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

BY

JOHN PETEE LANGE, D.D.,

PBOFX8S0R IN OEDINART OF THEOLOQT IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BOSN.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, WITH ADDITIONS,

BY

Pbof. TAYLER lewis, LL.D.,

8CHENBCTADT, N. Y.,
AND

A. GOSMAN, D.D.,

LAWRENCEVILLE, N. J.

NEW TOEK:

CHAELES SOEIBNEE'S SONS,

1884.

Ektbsed, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, l>y

CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District

of New York.

Trow*s
Printing and Bookbinding Company,
205-213 Ttast 12M St,t

NEW YORK.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTOES

TO THE CRITICAL, DOCTRINAL, AND HOMILETICAL COMMEN-
TARY ON THE BIBLE.

GENERAL EDITORS:

Rev. JOHANN PETER LANGB, D.D.,
Ccmsistorial Counselor and Professor of Theology in the

Rev. PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D.,
Professor of Sacred Literature in the Union Theological

of Bonn.
, New York.

I. CONTRIBUTORS TO THE GERMAN EDITION.

Rev. C. A. AUBBBLBN, Ph.D., D.D.,

Professor of Theology in the tTniversity of Basle,
Switzerland.

Eev. KARL CHR. W. F. BAHR, D.D.,

Ministerial Counselor at Carlsruhe.

Eev. KABL BRATJNB, D.D.,
General Superintendent at Altenburg, Saxony.

Rev. PATJLUS CASSBL, Ph.D.,
Professor in Berlin.

Eer. CHR. FR. DAVID BRDMANN, D.D.,

G«n. Superintendent of Silesia, and Prof. Honorarius of

, Theology in the TTniversity of Breslau.

Bev. P. R. FAT,
Pastor in Crefeld, Prussia.

Rev. Q. P. C. PRONMXfLLBR, Ph.D.,
Pastor at Kemnath, Wiirtemberg.

Rev. KABL OEROK, D.D.,
Prelate and Chief Chaplain of the Court, Stuttgart,

Rev. PATIL KLBINERT, Ph.D., B.D.,

Professor of Old Testament Bxegesis in the University

of Berlin.

Rev. CHRIST. PB. KLINQ, D.D.,
Dean of Marbach on the Neckar, 'Wurtemberg.

Rev. GOTTHABD VICTOE LBCHLBR, D.D.,
Professor of Theology, and Superintendent at Leipiig.

Rev. CABL BEBNHARD MOLL, D.D.,
General Superintendent in Konigsberg.

Rev. 0. W. EDWARD NABGELSBACH, PhuD.,
Dean at Bayreuth, Bavaria.

Rev. J. J. VAN OOSTEBZEE, D.D.,
Professor of Theology in the University of TJtrecht,

Rev. 0. J. BIGGBNBACH, D.D.,
Professor of Theology in the University of Basil.

Rev. OTTO SCHMOLLBB, Ph.D., B.D.,
Urach, Wurtemberg.

Rev. FB. JULIUS SCHROBDBB, D.D.,

Pastor at Elberfeld, Prussia.

Rev. FR. W. SCHULTZ, D.D.,

Professor of Theology in Breslaa.

Rev. OTTO ZOECKLEB, D.D.,

Professor of Theology in the University at Greifswall

II. CONTRIBUTORS TO THE ANGLO-AMERICAN EDITION.

Rev. CHARLES A. AIKEN, Ph.D., D.D.,

Professor of Christian Ethics and Apologetics at

Princeton, N. J.

Rev. SAMUEL EALPH ASBURY, M.A.,
Philadelphia.

EDWIN CONE BISSBLL, D.D.
Professor in the Theol. Seminary at Hartford, Ct.

Rev. GEORGE B. BLISS, D.D.,
Professor in Orozer Theological Seminary, Upland, Pa.

Rev. CHAS. A. BRIGGS, D.D.,

Professor of Oriental Languages in the Union Theological

Seminary, New Torlc.

Rev. JOHN A. BBOADUS, D.D..
Professor of New Testament Exegesis at Louisville, Ky.

Rev. TALBOT W. CHAMBERS, D.D.,

Pastor of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church,

New York.

Rev. THOMAS J. CONANT, D.D.,
Brooklyn, N. Y.

Rev. B. E. CRAVEN, D.D.,
Newark, N. J.

Rev. HOWARD CROSBY, D.D., LL.D.,
Chancellor of the University of New York.

LIST OP O0NTRIBUT0B8.

Hev. GEO. B, DAT, D.D.,
Professor in Tale Divinity School, New Haven, Conn*

Rev. CHAS. ELLIOTT, D.D.,
Professor of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, CMcago, El.

Rev. L. J. EVANS, D.D.,

Professor of New Test. Exegesis in Lane TheoL Seminary,

Cincinnati.

Rev. PATRICK PAIBBAIRN, D.D.,

Principal and Professor of Divinity in the Pree Chnrch

CoUiSfee, Glasgow.

Rev. WILLIAM PINDLAT, M.A,,
Pastor of the Free Chnrch, Larkhall, Scotland.

Rev. JOHN FORSTTH, D.D., LL.D.,

Chaplain and Prof, of Ethics and Law in IT. S. Military

Academy, West Point, N. T.

Rev. PRBDBEIC GARDINER, D.D.,

Prot of the Literature of the O. T. In Berkeley Divinity

School, Middletown, Ct.

Rev. ABRAHAM GOSMAN, D.D.,
Lawrenceville, N. J.

Rev. W. HBNRT GREEN, D.D., LL.D.,

Professor of Oriental Literature in the Theol. Seminary at

Princeton, N. J.

Rev. JAMES B. HAMMOND, M.A.,
New Tork.

Hev. HORATIO B. HACKETT, D.D ,

Professor of Biblical Exegesis in the Theological Seminary,

Rochester, N. Y.

Rev. EDWIN HARWOOD, D.D.,
Rector of Trinity Church, New Haven, Conn.

Rev. W. H. HORNBLOWBR, D.D.,

Professor of Sacred Rhetoric, etc., in the Theol. Seminary

at Alleghany, Pa.

Rev. JOHN P. HTJRST, D.D.,

President of the Drew Theological Seminary,

Madison, N. J.

Rev. A. 0. KENDRICK, D.D., LL.D.,
Professor of Greek in the University of Rochester, N. T.

TATLER LEWIS, LL.D.,

Professor of Oriental Languages in Union College,

Schenectady, N. T.

Eev. JOHN LILLIE, D.D,
Kingston, N. T.

Eev. SAMTTBL T. LOWRIE, D.D.,
Philadelphia, Fa.

Rev. J. FRED. McCTJRDT, M.A.,

Aas't Professor of the Hebrew Language in the TheoL Sem.

at Princeton, N.J.

Rev. CHARLES M. MBAD, Ph.D.,

PkofeBtox of the Hebrew Language and Literature la the

XheoL Sem.| Andover, Masa,

Rev. J. ISADOR MOMBERT, D, D.,
Philadelphia, Pa.

Eev. DUNLOP MOORE, D.D.,
New Brighton, Pa.

Miss EVELINA MOORB,
Newark, N. J.

JAMES G. MURPHT, LL.D.,

Professor in the Greneral Assembly's and the Queen's

College at Belfast.

Rev. HOWARD OSGOOD, D.D.,

Professor of the Interpretation of the Old Test, in the

Theol. Sem., Rochester, N. T.

Rev. JOSEPH PACKARD, D.D.

Professor of Biblical Literature in the Theological

Seminary at Alexandria, Va.

Rev. DANIEL W. POOR, D.D.,

Professor of Church History in the Theological Seminary

at San Francisco, Cal.

Rev. MATTHEW B. RIDDLE, D.D.,

Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the Theol,

Seminary at Hartford, Conn.

Rev. CHAS. P. SCHABFPER, D.D.,
Professor of Theology in the Evangelical Lutheran
Seminary at Philadelphia-
Rev. WILLIAM G. T. SHBDD, D.D., LL.D.,
Professor of Systematic Theology in the Union Theological
Seminary, New York.

Rev. CHAS. C. STABBUCK, M.A.,
Formerly Tutor in the Theological Seminary at Andoven,

Rev. P. H. STEENSTHA,
Professor of Biblical Literature at Cambridge, Mass.

Rev. JAMES STRONG, D.D.,

Professor of Exegetical Theology in the Drew Theological

Seminary, Madison, N. J.

Rev. W. G. SUMNER, M.A.,
Professor in Yale College, New Haven, Conn.

Rev. C. H. TOT, D.D.,

Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Eev. B. A. WASHBURN, D.D., LL.D.,
Rector of Calvary Chrn-ch, New Tork.

WILLIAM WELLS, M.A., LL.D.,

Professor of Modern Languages in Union College

New York.

Eev. 0. P. WING, D.D.,
CarUale, Pa.

Bev. E. D. YEOMANS, D.D.,
Orange, K. i.

PREFACE OF THE GEI^ERAL EDITOR.

Thk favor with which the volumes of the New-Testament division of Dr. Langb's " Bib «•
work " have been received by the American public, has encouraged the editor and publisheri
tr undertake also the preparation of the Old-Testament division, on the same principles of
enlargement and adaptation to the wants of the English reader. A good theological and homi-
letical commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures is even more needed than on the Greek Testament.
Of the German work, the following parts of the Old Testament have so far appeared, and
have been assigned to competent American scholars :
Genesis ; by Dr. Lange. 1864.
Deuteeonomt ; by W. J. Sohbodbb. 1866.
Judges and Ruth ; by Prof. Paulus Gassel. 1865.
The Peoveebs ; by Dr. 0. Zookleb. 1867.
Besides these,

Tlie Books of Kings ; by Dr. Bahb,
The Psalms ; by Dr. Moll,
Jeeemiah ; by Dr. Nagelsbaoh,

EooLKSiASTES and the Song of Solomon ; by Dr. Zookleb,
are in the hands of the printer, and will soon be published.

The Commentary on Genesis, which is now presented to the English reader, involves a vast
amount of labor both on the part of the author and on the part of the translators, and will, no
doubt, command, in no ordinary degree, the respectful attention of biblical scholars. No
other book of the Bible stands more in need of an exhaustive commentary just at this time.
No one is so much exposed to the attacks of modern science in its temporary conflict with
revealed truth. We say, tempora/ry conflict ; for there can be no essential or ultimate discord
between science and religion, philosophy and theology. The God of reason and the God of
revelation is one and the same, and cannot contradict himself The difficulty lies only in our
imperfect knowledge and comprehension of tlie book of nature, or of the Bible, or of both.*

The mighty problems which the interpretation of Genesis involves, are here discussed in a
manly and earnest spirit ; and I venture to assert that no single commentary on this book pre-
sents so much original thought and research as the combined labors of the author and the
translators of this volume.

Professor Taylee Lewis prepared the Special Introduction and the Commentary on Cb.
i.-xi., and Ch. xxxvii.-l. Dr. Gosman translated the General Introduction and the Commentary
on Ch. xii.-xxxvi. The original work numbers Ixxxii and 460, in all 542 pages. The English
cd.tion has 665 pages, or fully one fourth more; the English pages being a little larger than the

• " The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of feith, but the confession of despair, Beason and reverence are
natural allies, though untoward circumstances may sometimes interpose and divorce them."— J. B. Lioutfoot, D. D.,
8t FauVa Epistle to tlie Qalatiuns, 2d ed., London and Cambridge, 1866. Preface, p. xi.

PEEFACE OF THE GENERAL EDITOR.

German. Both translators have embodied the results of their independent study and extract!
from works not noticed by Dr. Lange.

Prof. Tatlee Lewis, so long and well known as one of the ablest and most learned classical
and biblical scholars of America, has scattered through this volume the fruits of long-continued
study, with a freshness and vigor of thought and style that is truly surprising in one whose
feeble health has made such a work peculiarly difficult and laborious. For the convenience of
the reader I present a list of his principal additions, which touch upon the most interesting
and most difficult questions in the interpretation of Genesis :

Special Introduction to the First Chapter, consisting of five parts: I. Essential Ideas of Creation.
II. The Hexaemeron in its Order. III. Creation in the Psalms, Job, and the Prophets. IV. Bible Ideal
of Nature and the Supernatural. V. How was the Creation-Account Revealed? pp. 125-159.

1. Excursus on the Paradise Kivers, 217-222.

2. Excursus on the Flood, its subjective truthfulness, its partial extent, 314-322.

3. Excursus on the Hebrew Chronology. Condition of the Primitive Man. The Rapid Beginnings of
History, 852-358.

4. Excursus on the Confusion of Languages and the Dispersion — a true supernatural event, 873-380.

5. The Relation of the First Verse in Genesis to the Rest. The Chasm-Theory, 167.

6. The Creation-Sabbath, 196.

7. The Jehovistic and the Elohistic Distinction, Int. 107.

8. Astronomical Objection to the Bible, 182.

9. Scriptural Heavens and Earth, 185.

10. The Creation-Summary, or the Account of the Second Chapter, 201.

11. Time-Successions of the Sixth Day, 210.

12. Idea of Future Life in the Old Testament, 214.

13. Abel's Blood Crying, 257.

14. Earliest Ideas of Death. Case of Enoch, 278.

15. The Spirit and the Flesh, Ch. vi., 285.

16. Early Announcement of Human Depravity. Psychological Distinctions made in Ch. vi. 5, 887.

17. The Divine Repentings, 288.

18. The Bible Idea of Covenant, 300.

19. The Week and the Seven-Day Observance in the Ark, 811.

20. The Noachian Sacrifice, 324.

21. The Noachian Blessings and Cursings, 835.

22. The Law of Homicide, 332.

23. Arabian and other Oriental Traditions on the Destruction of Sodom, 440-442.

24. The Rainbow and its Appointment as a Sign, 328.

25. Development of the Idea of Sheol. Jacob's Language, Ch. xxxvi. 85, 584-587.

26. The Interview between Jacob and Pharaoh. The Patriarchal Theology. The Idea of the Ea'Jil;
Life as a Pilgrimage, Ch. xlvi., xlvii., 637-640.

27. Jacob's Blessings, Ch. xlix.

28. Interpretation of the Words Goel, Malak-Haggoel, Redeemer, Angel-Redeemer, Ch. xlviil 16, 646 647.

29. Jacob's Dying Vision of the Tribes and the Messiah, Ch. xlix. 1-33, 651-654.

Besides, the translators have added a large number of marginal notes, many of which might
have been placed in the body of the pages, and copious text-notes on Hebrew words and
phrases, with illustrations from a rich store of oriental and classical learning.

I congratulate my esteemed co-laborers on the successful completion of their difficult task
and commit this first volume of the Old-Testament division of the " Biblework " to the blessing
of God, and the use of His ministers in the study and application of this most ancient and
wonderful book.

PHE^IP SOHATF.
5 BiBLB-HoneE, Few Yoek, March 10, 1868.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

Thb author has been much longer occupied in the preparation of Genesis for th»
"Biblework," than he at first supposed would be necessary; and this, together with the
detention in reference to two of the New-Testament books, has seemed to bring the whole
work to a stand for a time. This delay, however, has only been apparent and transient, since,
in the meantime, difierent well-approved co-workers have carried on the work in the Old-
Testament divisions, and will now, right soon, it is hoped, present the public with the long-
wished-for results of their labors, while, at the same time, several New-Testament books are
again in course of preparation. * * •

I was especially detained npon the Introduction. The want of scientific method in the
culture of biblical theology which has prevailed until the present time, appeared to me to
make it imperative that the questions necessarily belonging to the Introduction should be
treated under the form of this branch of theological science, — presenting the points, however,
for the most part, merely in outline, with a reference to the authorities, but treating more
fully and thoroughly the great theological life-questions of the day. * * * In the preparatory ,
introduction, I believed that a proper view and statement of the character of the people of
Israel should occupy the very first place in archaeology, since an archeology which leaves
oat of view the one vital, unifying, central point, the life of the people in question, must be a
mere lifeless, conglomerate mass of knowledge. Thus, e. g., no one can have a true conception
and estimate of the chronology of the people of Israel, who has not first rightly conceived
and appreciated the characteristics of the people itself. I was especially anxious to open the
question of Old-Testament hermeneutios, since the great and destructive errors, as to the
fundamental principles of biblical, and particularly Old-Testament hermeneutios, threaten to
make a very Babel of our modern Exegesis. The Sacred Scriptures never leave a doubt as to
the fact that they communicate to us only words of life, and thus facts and doctrines which find
their expression in the light of their religious idea ; but this key to all exposition of the Scrip-
tures is thrust aside by both theological extremes. The letter is not only put under pressure,
but even strangled, lest it should say something more than it appeared to express according
to the most restricted and limited interpretation. In this thought the two extremes rival
each other in the effort to make a mere natural astronomical day of twenty-four hours oct
of the divine days of the creation (Gen. 1.). The one side thus seeks to secure the most
complete orthodox locus of the creation, the other to make the Bible begin with a fictitious
legendary description of the creation, under the form of the Jewish sabbath-institution.*

• Bishop Colenso repreBents tMs antithesis in one theological life ; first serving the letter with an orthodox porposa,
fid then using it for mere critical ends.

Tiii iTJTHOR'S PREFACE.

If I have succeeded merely in giving an impulse tovrards a proper and satisfactory revisioc
of hei-meneatics, I shall hope for a special blessing from this part of my labor.

In the preparation of my work I have consulted particularly the commentaries of Db
LITZ8CH, Keil, and Knobel, and, whenever it appeared necessary, those of Von Bohlbn and
others. I have frequently allowed the authors to speak for themselves ; whenever, indeed,
the briefest explanation of important remarks, or the peculiar characteristic expression of tha
commentators made it proper and best. In this respect, also, the "Biblework" must be
many-sided. But in the exposition I have never si>ared myself the labor necessary to ao
quire and state my own personal views ; and unprejudiced readers and critics wUl find that
the work is not without its calling, nor without its influence as one among the independent
laborers in this exegetical iield. I have nut permitted myself to be swayed by the singulai
and strong prejudice of the moment, which regards the sons of God (Gen. vi.) as angels,
and the Maleach Jehovah as a mere creature-angel. In regard to both these questions I am
brought into conflict with the interpretation of Kurtz. * * *

In the practical division of the work, as in the theoretical, we have found it necessary
to practise the utmost restraint in the use of helps. In this respect the work of J. Soheodeb
upon Genesis (Berlin, 1846) has been of essential service, partly through its well-chosen
extracts, and partly from the judicious remarks of the author ; we have often, indeed, been
embarrassed by the very richness of its contents.

May this "Biblework," in its Old-Testament division, meet with the same reception,
and enter upon the same path of usefulness, which the New-Testament divisions have
already found; may this work upon Genesis introduce a series of commentaries by ster-
ling and valued co-laborers, and stimulate the progress and completion of the joint work,
waich is faithfully devoted to the service of the Church and the glory of the Lort*

Bonn, May 12, 18<U

THEOLOGICAL MD HOMILETICAL INTRODUCTION.

TO

THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Peeliminaet Rbmaeks.

THE RELATION OF THIS INTRODUCTION TO THE INTRODUCTION TO TUS

NEW TESTAMENT.

Wb prefixed to the Commentary on Matthew a sketch of the General Introdan
tion to the Holy Scripture, since for Christians the New Testament is the key to the
Old (Lange's Matthew, pp. 1-20, Am. ed.). But it is necessary, in preparing a Special
Introduction to the Old Testament, that we should again proceed upon a survey
of the whole field of Biblical Science and Biblical Theology. For the Introduction
to the Old Testament, necessarily points back to the Introduction to the New. In
the Introduction to the New Testament, moreover, particular points were simply
alluded to, which must now be more thoroughly discussed. But to explain these
points in their systematic order, we shall have to make a general statement of the
questions of Introduction ; only so far, however, that we- shall merely refer to
points already explained. The Introduction to the New Testament was modelled
upon the definition of Exegetics. For our present purpose it seems better to fol-
low the outline of a living Biblical Theology. We shall, however, overutep the
ordinary limits of Biblical Theology, and embrace the Sciences of Introduction
which Biblical Theology viewed by itself presupposes. For the Litera ture, the
following works may be consulted, in addition to those referred to in Matthew
(Lakgb's Matthew, Am. ed. p. 17).

1. Introduction to the Bible. — Schumann;
Prahtische Einleiiung in's AlleundNeue Testament;
Steglich : Bibelkunde, Leipzig (1853) ; Staudt : Fin-
geneige in den Inhalt und Zusammenhang der Hei-
ligen Schrift, Stuttgart (1854) ; Wetzel : Die Spror
the Lathers in seiner Bibelubersetzung, Stuttgart
(1859); The Bible and its History, 11th edition,
with a preface by F. W. K-EUMMAOher, Elberfeld
(1858) ; Watson : Apology for the Bible, Letters to
Paine, New York ; Kikohhofer : Leitfaden zur Bi-
belhmde, M ed., Stuttgart (1860). Similar works
by Haoenbaoh, Leipzig (1850) ; Hollenbeeq, Ber-
lin (1854); Schneider, Bielefeld (1860); Lisco:
Mnleitimg in die Bibel, Berlin (1861) ; Bibelwegwei-
•er, Einleiiung »i die Heilige Schrift, Calw (1861);
V

Bleek : Einleitung in's Alle und Nt^*i Testament,
Berlin (1860-'62); Nasi: Critical Mid Practical
Commentary, Cincinnati (1860), [HaraENiCK's /«-
traduction, Edinburgh Translation (1 Jo2) ; Hoene's
Introduction, New York (1860); DAnnsON's Intro-
duction ; Jahn's Introduction, with Eeferuivces by
S. H. Turner.— A. G.]

2. Directions for Reading ttie Bible.— W.
Hoffmann : Ueber den rechten Gebraitch der Bil ),
Berlin (1854) ; Ostertag: Ziigeausdem Werke der
Bibeherbreitung, Stuttgart (I S57); Seelbach : 5iM.
ssjrm, Bielefeld (1851-55); Hollenbeeq: Enmm-
terung und Anleitung zum Bibellesen, Berlin (1862^;
[Feancke's Chmde to the. Study of the Scriptures,
Talbot's Bible; Locke's Commonplace- Book

INTEODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Townsend's Arrangement ; the Paragraph Bibles ;
Collter: The Sacred Interpreter, OiSotA (1831);
Companion, to the Bible, Phila. (1852). — A. G.]

3. General and Special Bibleworks. — See
Langk's Matthew, Am. Ed. pp. 19 ; Stabke ; Allge-
meines liec/ister iiber die funf Tlieile seines Bibel-
werkes, pp. 1-46 ; Walch : Bihliotlieca Theol. iv.
pp. 182, 379. Danz: Cniversal-Worterbuch, pp. 126,
134 ff. ; Winer, i. p. 33 sqq. 162, Appendix,
1». 9.

We call special attention to the well-known works
of earlier dates. Polus : Tlie Critici Sacri ; Die
Berlenbdrger BiBEL, Hew ed., Stuttgart (1856);
Das Bibelwerk von L. Maistre de Sact ; Seiler :
Das grosse biblische Erbauungsbuch, Erlangen (1788-
*92), in 1 7 vols. ; Die Wuvtemberger Summarien, Niim-
berg (1859). Die Prediger Bibel by Eisoheb and

WoHLFAHRT, marks the transition to our time. The
antagonistic works by Dinter and Brandt. The
Bibleworks of Richter, Lisco, Gerlach : Calweb
Handbuch ; the unfinished Biblewerk by Bunsen ; Tht,
Historical and Tlieological Bibelwerk, by Weber,
Schaffhausen (1860) ; the newly published Wcrterbuch
of Oetingee; Die Bibel, an article from Eksch's and
Grubeb's Encyclopedia ; IjTna^n's Explanations of tin
Holy Scriptures, selected from his Expository Works,
Berlin. [Besides the Commentaries of Henry and
Scott, we may refer to those of J. Gill, Adam Clabke,
Patrick Lowth and WniTBy, Bueder's Scripture
Exposition, Poole's Annotations, the Biblical Com-
merdary, by Keil and Delitzsch, now in course of
pubMcation and translation in Clarke's foreign library.
D'Oylt and Mant : The Holy Bible, loith Notes, crit-
ical and explanatory, Loudon (1856). — A. G.]

FIRST DIVISION.

THEOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTA.
MENT UPON THE PLAN OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY.

Peefatokt Remaeks

Definition and Structure of JUhlical Theology.

Biblical Theology, embracing the doctrines and ethics of the Holy Scripture, in
their unity as the biblical rule of life, is an historical science; the history,?', e., of the
actual and periodic development of Biblical doctrine from its earliest form to its
canonical completion.

Its sources are the canonical books of the Holy Scriptures ; with which we may
connect the Old Testament Apocrypha, as a historical auxiliary, which furnishes us
with the knowledge of biblical doctrine during its transition period, from its Old
Testament form to its New Testament completion. But to assign it its true worth
and position, we must compare the Bible with its surroundings ; a. with the Apo.
crypha, b. with the Apostolical Fathers, c. with the Talmud, and the Old Testament
text with the Septuagint. It occupies in Theology the transition ground between
Exegesis and Church History. Its last antecedent is Biblical History, its nearest
result the History of Dogmas.

As to its origin and history, it springs out of the total development of The-
ology. The way was opened for it through the whole Theology before the Ref-
ormation, through the biblical character of the doctrines of the Reformers, through
the dicta probantia which marked the Dogmatics of the I'/th century, and through
the effort of the Pietistic school to confine the Chrisil.m dogmas to -!-heir Scriptural

THE SCRIPTUKES IN THEIR DIVINE ASPECT.

basis. In the second half of the 18th century it became an independent science^
formed at first upon the loci theologlci, then regarded as purely historical, finally
assumed the form of an historical science, conditioned upon the grand norm or prin
ciple of Christian doctrine and of the Scriptures. [Upon the idea of the God-Man
— the Incarnation. — A. G.]

Biblical Theology is the history of Biblical doctrine in its unity, and iu
its particular doctrines. It may be divided therefore into General and Special
but these are united again by the Christological principle, the idea of the God-man,
which is the fundamental thought of Holy Scripture. We have the reflection
of the God-Man, i. e., the unity of the eternal divine being and its finite human
manifestation, of the one and absolute Spirit and the manifold life, in Biblical doc-
trine as in Biblical History. It follows, of course, that General Biblical Theology
treats 1. of the divine unity of Holy Scripture, 2. of the human diversities of
Holy Scripture, 3. of the divine-human, Christological theology of ^he Holy Scrip
ture, and its course of development. Accordingly Special Biblical Theology
embraces 1. the history of the Biblical doctrine of God, in its Christological form,
2. the history of the Biblical doctrine of Man, 3. the history of the Biblical doctrine
of the God-Man, and his redeeming work, 4. the history of the expansion of the life
of Christ in his Kingdom ; or Theocratology, the doctrine of the Kingdom of God,
to its Eschatological completion.

For the position of Biblical Theology in the system of Theological Sciences, see
Langb's Matthew, Am. ed., p. 11. It must be observed here, however, that Biblical
Theology, with its parallel science. Biblical History, is the result and crowning glory
of Exegetical Theology ; and further, that Biblical Theology is no more to be con-
founded with systematic biblical Dogmatics {i. e., the ground of Ecclesiastical Dog-
matics), than Biblical History with the history of the Kingdom of God, which latter
embraces the entire history of the Church and the world, to the end of time. We
must, therefore, avoid confounding with each other the periods of the history of the
Kino-dom of God, of Biblical History, and of Biblical religion, which is still often
the case.

For the literature of Biblical History, see Danz:
Universal- Worterbuch, p. 135. Also the Biblical
Histories of Hubner, Rauschenbusch, Kohleadsch
Zahh. Biblical History \s ofesn treated under the
name of the History of the Kingdom of God. See

Gettbe : Characterbilder der heiligen Schrift, Leip-
zig (18S3).

For the History and Literature of Biblical Theol-
ogy, see Hagenbaoh : Theol. Encyclopedia, p.
101.

FIEST SECTION.

THE CANONICAL CHARACTER OR DIVINE ASPECT OF THE HOLY
SCRIPTURES, ESPECIALLY OP THE OLD TESTAMENT, OR THE
UNITY OF BIBLICAL DOCTRINE.

§1.

THE SACRED WRITINGS AS THE HOLY SCRIPTURE.

The records of Revelation, especially of the Old Testament Revelation, or tfu

INTEODTTCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

sacred writings, notwithstanding tbeir endless diversity, as to authors, time, form,
language, constitute one Holy Scripture perfectly consistent with itself, and per
fectly distinct from all other writings ; yet entering into such a relation and inter-
change with them as to manifest as perfect a unity of spirit as if they had been
written by one pen, sprung from one fundamental thought, in one year, in a single
moment. This unity of the Holy Scripture rests upon the unity of its eternal Spirit,
of its eternal norm or principle, its eternal contents, its eternal object. What-
ever is eternal forms a living, concrete unity under the diversities of time ; and thus
the eternal divine purpose of redemption in Christ — the soul of the Holy Scripture-
forms its living unity under the diversities of the sacred writings.

§2.
THE ONE PEEVABING SUBJECT OF THE HOLT SCRIPTURE IN ITS OBJECTIVE iSPECT

The Holy Scripture in its objective aspect is one only through its one pervading
idea of God, or rather through the living revelation of the one personal God o<
revelation which runs through the Old and New Testaments. When, therefore, on
the one hand the Gnostics make the God of the Old Testament a subordinate deity
(Marcion : 5eos SiKaios), or a God of a lower nature, a Demiurge, or even an Evil
Spirit (the Ophites), and the Rationalists distinguish the Old Testament Jehovah,
as a Jewish national Deity, from the New Testament God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ ; and on the other hand the Jews in the God of the New Testament,
the Ebionites in the God of Paul, could not recognize the Jehovah of the Old Tes-
tament, they simply failed to perceive — owing to their spiritual blindness — the
one grand common life, underneath the great objective antithesis between the Old
and New Testaments.

The God of the Old Testament as well as that of the New is the absolute Spirit,
the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the world, above the world and yet in it, the
God of all nations, the God of love, grace, and redemption ; although in a peculiar
sense the God of Israel, and although omnipotence, holiness, and righteousness are
the predominant features in his earlier revelation.

The God of the New Testament, on the other hand, is a God viewed in his
relations to man, the God of the Elect, primarily of the Meet One, as the God and
Father of our Ijord Jesus Christ, the God of his own people, the Holy One, in his
justice a consuming fire (Heb. xii. 29), while love, grace, and mercy predominate in
his final and complete revelation.

The Jehovah of the Old Covenant is more illustriously revealed in the God
Amen of the New Covenant (Rev. iii. 14).

As the one biblical idea of God — imparting unity to the Scriptures — is thus en-
tirely consistent with itself, so it is clearly distinguished from the h-eathen idea oi
God, from all pure abstract Monotheism, post-Christian Judaism, and Mohammed-
anism (see Melanchthon's loci, the preface).

Compare the mythological systems, the Talmud, the Cabbalah, and the Koran

§ 6. THE OPPOSITIONS OP SCRIPTURE.

§3.

THE ONE PERVADING SUBJECT OP HOLY SCRIPTURE IN ITS SUBJECTIVE ASPECT.

The Holy Scripture in its subjective aspect is animated by one pervading, pecu
liar religious consciousness — Faith, Faith, as here used, is the knowledge of God
awakened by the self-revelation of God, and corresponding to it, of God not as exist-
ing merely, but as manifesting himself vividly afar off and near at hand ; and the con-
fidence in him having its root in this knowledge and agreeing with it, a confidence not
resting upon him in his general character, but upon him in the promise of salvation
in his word. In this confidence, as it includes the yielding of the will to the will and
Providence of God — not to any arbitrary human will — and thus to a living obe-
dience to the commands of God, lies the root of love and of all virtue. In this sense
the faith of Abraham and Paul are the same. Indeed, Abraham is the father of be-
lievers (Rom. iv. 1) ; although his faith both in its objective and subjective aspecta
was the first living seed which, under the 'New Covenant, unfolded itself to the
perfect fruit of saving faith.

As the biblical idea of God is clearly distinguished from all untheocratio concep-
tions of the Deity, so this religious consciousness or the faith of the theocratic people,
is clearly distinguished from all heathen, Jewish, or Mohammedan forms of this
consciousness.

THE ONE PERVADING THEANTHROPIC SUBJECT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, CHRIST AND THE

KINGDOM OP GOD.

Both the personal aspect of the Kingdom of God, the expectation of the Mes-
siah, until his appearance, and until the hope of his second coming, and the univer.
sal aspect of the Messiah; the old promise of the Messianic Kingdom, confirmed in
the covenant of God with Abraham and Israel, and the new promise of his appearing
in glory — after his appearance in the form of the crucified — confirmed in the cove-
nant of God with believers, runs throughout the Scriptures as the grand constituent
principle, and final aim of Revelation and the Holy Scripture. Still, there is an
endless development which lies between the paradisaic destination of man in Genesis
(chap, i.), especially in title Protevangelium (chap, iii.) and the completed City of
God of the Apocalypse (Rev. chap. xxi. xxii.)

The Kingdom of God, as the Kingdom of Christ, as the synthesis of the glory of
God and the blessedness of his children (since the glory of God shines in their bles-
sedness, and their blessedness consists in the open vision of his glory), is distinct
as possible from all the religious conceptions of the future of heathenism, Judaism
and Mohammedanism. It rests upon the eternal covenant of God with humanity,
which was prefigured in the old covenant, and fulfilled in the new. The Bible,
therefore, is the record of this eternal covenant in its twofold form.

§5.
THE OPPOSITIONS OF SCRIPTURE.

The revealed religion of the Bible stands in tne most direct and irrecoucilabl*

INTKODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

opposition to the various unscriptural religions, considered in their darker aspect
i. e., so far as they are the false religions of false gods (Elilim) ; or dead, lifeless con
ceptions of God; but in a relation of friendship, as to the divine elementp oi
those truths, they may embrace. This will define its relation to the different my
thologies, to the Talmud, and the Koran.

The recorded expression of this revelatic n in the Bible, stands in a specific op
position to all the derived forms, statements, and outgrowths of this revelation.
This is the relation which the Old Testament sustains to the Septuagint, and the
N"ew Testament to the Apostolical Fathers, leaving out of view in one case the Old
Testament Apocrypha, and in the other the New Testament Apocrypha and the tra-
ditions of the Church.

But by virtue of its inexhaustible riches of life, embracing the whole history of
the world and eternity, the Holy Scripture itself is distinguished into the harmo-
nious antithesis of the Old and New Testaments : the Old, which points on to the
New, into which it passes and finds its fulfilment ; the New, which is ever referring
to the Old, and in a historical sense is grounded in it.

IMPORT OF THE UNITY OF THE BIBLE IN ITS DIVERSITY.

The unity of the Holy Scripture according to its divine, theanthropic origin,
rests upon its Inspiration. (Lange's Matthew, Am. ed. p. 11.)

Recent writers upon Inspiration, e. g., Bunsen, Rothe, and others, have not
sufficiently considered the Bible as to its full, harmonious, perfect teleology, through
which all its individual utterances are conditioned, and which binds all into one.
The perfect adaptation to its design points clearly to a perfect origin. The whole
Bible teleologically considered culminates in the New Testament, emphatically in
Christ : each particular book in its fundamental idea. To wrest any part out of its
connection, for subordinate purposes, is a misconception of the Bible. In its per-
fectly definite design and end, agreeably to its sacred origin and contents, it is the
Holy Scripture.

The unity of the Holy Scripture according to its divine, theanthropic contents,
constitutes it the Canon. {See Lange's Matthew, Am. ed. p. 13.)

The Bible is beyond question the canon, but not merely the canon, not a canon
m the sense of a law-book. The canonical, as a rule and direction, always points to
that which is above itself, the principle of life, and the life of the principle ; to the
source of free love, free life, and free blessedness from which it flows.

Viewing the Holy Scripture as to its effects, its unity proves it to be the word
of God. It exerts a power within and beyond itself; it sheds light upon itself; it
radiates its light from its mighty living centre — the world-redeeming Christ — to
every part, and reflects it from each part to every other, and back upon the central
truth itself Thus by virtue of the analogy of faith, and the analogy of Scripture
the Bible is the one indivisible word of God, in its total impression and operation
more fully the word of God, than in its particular words or utterances.

Hence its external efficiency is pure and perfect. As a body of records it points
back from itself to its origin, the living revelation. As a word of life it points
beyond itself, to the living Christ. It is no idol which fetters the hearts of men to
itself in a slavish manner. Neither is it a mere canon, a writing of genuine author-

§ 8. THE RlCujfiO Or iJtfE SCKIPTURES IN THEIR ENDLESS DIVERSITY. -j

ity, which simply as a law, fixes the rule what we are to believe, and how we should
live. As the word of God, it is the book of life, in the authentic form of writing
which gives testimony to the book of life in the hand of God — the purpose of re-
demption— to the book of life in the heart of the Churcli — Christ in us ; and awakens,
strengthens and enriches the life from God through Christ. It is not only the ground
upon which the Cultus of the Church rests, but the book through which it edifies
itself, and fulfils its great mission to the world.

The unity of the Holy Scripture in the harmony of its great opposition con-
stitutes it the one book of the Covenant, or the Eternal Testament, in the opposition
of the Old and New Testaments.

THE BIBLE AS THE BOOK OF BOOKS.

The Bible then, as the Book of Books, is as the sun in the centre of all other re-
ligious records; the Kings of the Chinese, the Vedas of India, the Zendavesta of the
Persians, the Eddas of the Germans, the Jewish Talmud, and the Mohammedan
Koran ; judging all that is hostile in them, reconciling and bringing into liberty
whatever elements of truth they may contain.

It stands also, with a like repelling and attracting force in the centre of all
literature, as well as of Theology. In the same power and dignity it exercises its
critical authority upon all historical traditions.

As the ideal Cosmos of the revelation of Salvation, it forms with the Cosmos of
the general revelation of God an organic unity (Ps. viii. ; xix. ; civ.). It is the key of
the World-Cosmos, while this again is the living illustration of the Cosmos of the
Scripture.

But as that is subordinate to the living God, as an organ of his manifestation, so
IS the Bible to the living Christ. It holds the same relation to him as the copy to
the original, and is coordinate with the eternal word of Christ in the total life of
the Church — as a fully accordant testimony. But whoever will utter anything from
that mystical writing in the heart of the church, must derive his credentials from
the written word.

§8.
THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES IN THEIR ENDLESS DIVERSITY.

The grand opposition of the Old and New Testaments, upon a closer view,
branches itself into an endless number of oppositions, distinctions, and differences,
which meet us not only in the Old Testament generally, but in its particular
divisions, and also in the New.

In this human aspect the Bible appears as an historical growth, and is open to
an historical examination and criticism. In this aspect is is connected with human
imperfections. But in this aspect alone, the endless riches of its all-pervading
divine fulness unfolds itself to our view.

From the reciprocal influence of the divine unity of the Scriptures, and its human
diversities, results the living force or movement in the development of Biblical

INTEODtrCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

\

Theology; and thus it comes to he the authentic copy of the advent and life o/
Chi-ist, flowing out of the connection between the God of revelation And believing
humanity.

SECOND SECTION.

INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, ISAGOGICS, OR THE
DIVERSITIES AND HISTORICAL GROWTH OF BIBLICAL DOCTRINE.

§1-

Biblical Introduction treats of the Scriptures in their historical aspect. If we
distinguish between a preparatory (taking that word in its widest sense) and an
historical and critical introduction (which regarded as general includes both parts,
but as special only the latter), there is no room for the question which has been
agitated (Hagenbach's Encyclopedia, p. 140), whether the literary history oi
the Scriptures as a whole and in their individual parts alone, or the scientific aids to
Exegesis also, properly belong to such ar introduction.*

FIRST CHAPTER.

Preparatory Introduction.

§ 2.
ITS CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS.

The direct auxiliaries to the Explanation of the Scriptures are biblical antiquities,
and the sacred languages ; and as regards the present form of the text, biblical
criticism and hermeneutics. Exegesis presupposes all these sciences, and they in
turn presuppose exegesis. The circle which is involved in this statement is not
logical but real, i. e., science must learn to know the particular through the uni-
versal, and the universal through the particular. From the central point between
the universal and the particular, it oscillates between the two extremes, which intui
tion harmonizes.

SECOND CHAPTER.

Preparatory Introduction : Its constituetit parts so far as the text is concerned.

L The Old Testament Aech^ologt.

§ 3.

BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

It is defined mainly by the forming principle which constitutes its unity : here,

• For a general survey of the development of the sciences of Old Testament Introduction, see "Bleek, hiriUitungi P* f

§4. THE ISRAELITISH PEOPLE AJ^TD SURROUNDING NATIONS.

the character of the Jewish people. Regarding this people in its local relations
we have Biblical Geography (especially physical), and in its relations to time
Biblical Chronology ; then in its relations to nature, the physical science of the Bible,
and in its relation to the race. Biblical Ethnography ; then in its more vital relations
the Theocracy, embracing the history of the Biblical Cultus and Civilization ; and
lastly in its relations to History, biblical history and international relations.

Fcfr the literature of the Old Testament Antiquities :
De Wette : Lehrbuch der hebraisch-jUdischen Arch-
Bologie (1842). — Ewald : Die Alterthumer des Volkes
Israel, 1848, 1864. [This is a very suggestive work.
—A. G.] Keil : Handbuch der biblischen Archdologie,
1888. Beriheau : Zur Oeschichte der Israelitm,

1842 ; Hagenbaoh's Encyclopedia, p. 136 ; and iu
Keil, p. 13. Lange's Matthew, Am. ed. p. Iv.
Archeology, [Pkeston : Student's Theological Matv
ual, London, 1850. Jahn's Biblical Archmology^
translated by Upham, New York, 1863. — A. G.]

THE ISRAELITISH PEOPLE AND SURROUNDING NATIONS.

Heathen nations, in their pride and presumption, trace their origin back througn
vai'ious steps to the Gods, or demigods (Tuisko, Brahma, Deucalion, &c. ); but tha
Israelitish people is satisfied to trace its origin from Abraham, the Friend of God.
Because it enters into the history of the world as the people of faith, therefore, also
as the people marked by humility in its claims.

Heathen nations speak of ancient historical glory which is entirely fabulous ;
the people of Israel with a far truer historical sense, acknowledges the comparatively
recent date of its origin. According to Jewish tradition and history Abraham
lived about 2000 years B. C. China and Egypt were then thoroughly developed,
well-known historical kingdoms, with the traditions of a thousand years in the ii-m.-

In their historical name, as they are known in the language of other nations the
Israelites are Hebrews (ni-ias) ; according to Ewald, Lengerke and others, from
the Patriarch Heber (Gen. x. 25 ; xi. 16) ; but according to Hengstenberg, Kurtz
(Geschichte des Alten Bundes, p. 132), they were called by this name since they
came from the other side, i. e., across the Euphrates (las the land upon the other
side, here the other side of the Euphrates). It may be urged in favor of this
derivation that they were so called by foreign nations, who would naturally be
better acquainted with their geographical, than their genealogical origin. They
always called themselves after the theocratic honored name of their ancestor
Israel. They were a people who wrestled with God in faith and prayer. After
the exile, the name Jews passed from the tribe of Judah to the whole people, of
whom that tribe was the central point, and they were usually so called by foreign
nations.

See "WiNEK : Article Hebrews. Bleek : Einleitung Kirchen-lexikon vcn Wetzer und Welie. Article
tVs Alte Testament, p. 72. An article protesting Hebraer.
against the prevailing view, may be found in the

The Israelites, as Hebrews, or immigrants into Canaan, may have exchanged
their original Aramaic tongue for the Hebrew as their first historical language.
(BiiEEK's Einleitung, p. 61.)

This would be only in accordance with what actually occurred under the New
Covenant, when the Hebrew Christians exchanged their own language for the
elassic language of the Greek and Roman world. In both cases, is the appropriated

10 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

language moulded into an entirely new language, through the power of the religiom
spirit. We leave it undetermined however how far this question must be regarded
as already settled.

[Tbere is a very able article in the 2d vol of lue Uiblical Repertory in whicli the author defends th«
antiquity of the Hebrew language. — A. G.]

As to their genealogy, the descent of Israel n-om Abraham, and more remotely
fi-om Shem, forms the very kernel and soul of their authentic traditions ; while tha
relation of other Semitic tribes to their ancestors is involved in uncertainty.

See Genealogical table Gen. Ch. 10. Eheiz : Siston/ of the Old Covenant. The origin of the Corenani
people, i. p. 129.

The essential question here is this : what is the fundamental characteristic, the
distinguishing feature of the Israelitish people. When God chose this people as his
own, although it was a stiif-necked people (Ex. xxxii. 9 ; xxxiii. 3) ; although it
possessed no art, science, political system, like that of the Greeks and Romans (see
Introduction to Rohr's Geography of Palestine) ; it does not follow that the choice
was arbitrary, without a reason in the divine mind. Corresponding to the divine
choice, there was a human disposition or quality, which God from eternity had
designed, for the individual or people of his choice, and which he actually communi-
cated in its origin.

The striking peculiarity of Israel is the great prommence of the religious (Semitic;
element in reference to God, vrhich is found in its highest and most genial form in
this people ; in contrast to the prominence of the Ethical (Japhetic) element in refer-
ence to the world. Israel therefore is preeminently a people of religion, not of art
and science like the Greeks, nor of politics and law like the Romans. We may say
indeed that it is a people of dynamic, not of dead formal forces ov principles. As
the people of God, which out of a profounder originality, introduces and unfolds
among the hoary nations a new life, it places its living religion in oisposition to the
formal and lifeless Cultus of the heathen ; its dynamic poetry, and its science of the
one all pervading principle of the world, to the formal poetry and science of the
Greeks ; and its warfare and politics, animated and exalted by the great principles
which actuate them, to the technical and unmeaning Roman politics and warfare.
As it is itself an element of regeneration to the nations, so are its gifts for the gifts
and arts of the nations. Hence it follows that Israel must possess that comprehensive
nationality, in which all the peculiarities of the different nations must be mixed.
Thus it was destined and prepared to be the maternal breast for the Son of Man, the
man from heaven, the head of all nations. Thus for the fathers' sake, who repre-
sent its profoundest peculiarities, and for the root of Jesse, which shall bear the
flower of humanity, it is the beloved people, the Elect One, Jeshurun, the favorite of
heaven, the Apple of God's eye, the typical Son of God, the type of the true Son of
God to come, who is the fulfilling of its deepest faith and desire. Hence too in its
darker aspect, its falls and crimes, it must represent the darkest side of humanity,
and its worst characters, just as in its peculiarly chosen ones, its patriarchs and
prophets, it may claim the noblest and most heroic spiiits of the race. [See Lai^ge's
Verfinsterung der Welt, p. 119.)

The most distorted features of the Hebrew Nation- Jewish State ; in Feuerbach : Tractate upon th,
al Character are found in Hitzig: Introduction to Nature of Christianity. The old heathen utterances
Isiiah; in Leo: Prelections on the History of the of contempt for the Jews are recorded in Rauvier's

§ 5. THE LAND OF CANAAN AND ITS POSITION ON THE EARTH. U

Palestine, p. 396. Herdbk, Hegel in Ms Prelections
upon the Philosophy of Religion, 2d part, pp. 42, SY.
EwALD, and others have contributed to a more
correct estimate of the Israelitiah people. Fkanki's

Lihanon, the family booh of poetry, forma a coUee
tion of the poetical glories, and exalted estimate fa
the Jewish people (1855).

The people of Israel must therefore from its very destination come into contact
with the most diverse nations, with the astrological Chaldees from whom the family
of Abraham sprang (Ur, Light in Chaldea. Abraham, in the starry night. Gen.
XV. 5); with the Babylonians and Syrians, ever oscillating between pleasure and
despair (devotee's of lust and moloch) ; with the cultivated but depraved Cauaanitea
(Kurtz: History of the Old Covenant, i p. 120) ; with the wisdom and lifeless Cultua
of the Egyptians ; with the excitable and prudent Midianites ; with the kindred but
still dangerously hostile Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites and Samaritans ; with the
haughty and contracted Philistines (for whose origin, see Kurtz, p. 185); with the
skilful and ingenious Phoenician; with the pride and haughtiness of the Assyrian and
Babylonian monarchies ; with the moral intuitions, and tolerant spirit of the Persian
world-power ; with the culture and reason-worship of the Greek ; and at last with the
fateful, mighty, and cruel power of Rome. Upon this, as its fatal rock, after it had,
under all these interchanges and influences, unfolded its whole character, in both
good and evil, it broke to pieces as to its historical form or nationality, in an exter-
minating contest between the Judaic religious, legal spirit, and the strong political,
and legal spirit of the Roman power.

§ 5.
THE LAND OF CANAAN AND ITS POSITION ON THE EARTH

The land of Canaan, or the lowlands of Syria, in opposition to A]-am or the high-
lands (Gesenius, Lexicon, 1?33), the promised land, the Holy land, designated by many
names (Raumer's Palestine, p. 32), was appropriated as the chosen home of the chosen
people, as the land holding a central geographical position, connected with the
different countries of the civilized world by the Mediterranean sea, and yet insulated
from them (C. Rittee : Der Jordan und die Beschiffung des Todten Meeres, Berlin,
1850); central also as to climate, lying midway between the debilitating tropical
heats, and those colder climates within which life is supported only by hard labor; and
central further as to its physical qualities between paradisaic fruitfulness, and sterile
wastes. But so much has been written upon this land, in so many respects different
from Asia, Africa, Europe, and yet so closely connected with them all, that we need
only refer to the literature here.

We would call special notice to the article upon
Palestine in Heezog's Real-Encyclopedia. Eeil;
ffandbucJi dcr Biblischen ArchHoloriie, p. 15 ff. The
Holy Land, by C. Tischendorp (1862). Lange's
Bihlework upon Joshua. [Robinson: Researches,
with the maps. The articles by the same in the
Bibliotheoa-Sacra. The articles upon Palestine by
Thomson and Porter in the same periodical. Colb
MAN : Biblical 0-eography, Text-book and Atlas,
Wall-map by Coleman. Thomson : The Land ana
the Book. Article Geography in Angus' Hand-Booh.
Wilson : Lands of the Bible. Kitto : History of
Palestine. Travels by Olin, Durbin, Bausmanm

Hagenbaoh: Encyclopedia, -p. \Z5. Ton Rau-
mek : Palestine, p. 2. The Bible Atlas of Weiland
and ACKERMAN, 2d ed. (1845). Bernatz : Album
des heiligen Landes (1856). Bible A&as, by Kiepeet
(1858.) The plates, plans of Jerusalem, alluded to
in Raumer's Palestine. Also the Periodicals upon
this subject. The Lands and States of Holy Scripture,
in selected engravings with an explariatory text by
Frsd'k and Otto Strauss (1861). The description
of the land in Kurtz's History of the Old Covenant,
I. p. 103. Zahn : Das Reich Gottes, i. Thl. p. 105.
Lange : Life of Christ, ii. i. p. 24. Bible Dictiort-
nriea by Winer and Zeller.

12

INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Baetlett: Walks about Jerusalem. Aiton: 27ie
Laiuls of the Memah, London (1864). Bonak : The
desert of Sinai. Hackett : Illustrations of Scrip-

ture. Rohr's Palesii'ie, Edia (1843). Btahixx,

Sinai and Palestine. — A. G.]

§6.
CHEONOLOGT OF THE HISTORY OF THE OLD COVENANT, OR OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE

See Gatterer's, Idelek's, Brinkmeyer's Chrono-
logie. Die Biographien der Bibel (1858). Horr-
MANN : Aegyptuche und fsraelitische Zeitrechnung
(1847). Archinard: A la Chronologie sacree, hasee
sur les decouvertes de Champollion (1841). Bibli-
sche Chronologie mit Forisetzung bis auf unsere Zeit,
Tiibingen (1851). Becker: Chart of Chronology,
Leipzig (1857). Beitrdge zur Qeschichte des Alien
Orients, by A, TON Gutschmid, Leipzig (1857).
Ewald: Geschichte des Volkes Israel, i. p. 274.

The Article Year in "Winee's BiUe Lexicon. Bunsen I
Bibelwerk, i. p. 201 ff. Biblische Jahrbiicher odef
Vergleichende Zeittafeln fur die Alttestamentlichen
Geschiehien vom Auszug der Israeliten aus Aegypten
bis auf Alexander den Orossen, Keil : Archaologie
i. p. 345. [Browne : Ordo Sceclorum. Walton :
Prolegomena. Bedford ; Scripture Chronology.
The Chronologies of Usher, Hales, and Chrono-
logy, as Introductory to his Church History, bj
Jartis. — A. G.]

The Chronology of the Old Testament, as it lies in the records, was not intended for
the purposes of Science, but determined throughout by the religious point of view, to
which all geographical, astronomical, and scientific interests are held subservient. Hence
it has been said by the author of the Biographies of the Bible, " that among the
mistakes of those who would iind everything in the Bible, no one is more dangerous
and wide-spread, than the attempt to construct a chronology from its pages." In his
later investigations, however, he has seen reason to modify his judgment, and says
" In the Bible, Genealogy has far greater importance, and occupies much more space
than Chronology. The value which the Hebrews placed upon their genealogical
tables harmonizes with the whole system of their religion and law, and with their
expectation of the Messiah. They had their genealogists, from the time that they
became a definitely formed state, and this remarkable feature in their customs baa
acquired such a prominence, that they sometimes used the same word to denote
genealogy and history."

It is this very remarkable feature which imparts its distinguishing character, its
Hpecific religious worth, its perfection even, to Biblical Chronology. In regard to thia
character the New Testament also in its dates holds closely to the Chronological
key-note of the Old Testament ; although in the Evangelists and Acts it frequently
connects the Biographical Chronology of primitive Christianity, with the Chronological
dates of contemporary general history.

We can thus speak of a scientific imperfection of Biblical Chronology, which is
perfectly consistent with its religious perfection, and which on this very account is
of great service to the chronology of p^eneral history.

The first imperfection is the want of an unbroken series of dates by years, starting
from some fixed point in the history. The second, is the absence of a reference of the dates
in the history of Israel, to the contemporary dates of general history. The particular
enumeration of years of the Israelites are fragments, which are only joined together
with difiiculty. The references of Israelitish dates to those of foreign nations, especi-
ally of the Egyptians, sustain the most diverse combinations. Hence the results of
the later determinations of Jewish Chronology differ so widely. It is only subse-
quent to the exile that the Jews have placed their mode of computation in connection
with the chronology of general history by connecting with that of the Seleucidse

§6. CHRONOLOGY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. ig

But in this precisely, consists the religious superiority of the Jewish Chronology
that it is throughout genealogical, just as the whole biblical monotheism is grounded
in the principle of personality. The Israelitish history proceeds upon the assumptior
that persons, (we might say e\en personal freedom), are the prime forming elements
of history ; that the persons determined the facts, and not the facts the persons
Every nation, as indeed every religion, has its characteristic computation of time
through which it manifests its peculiar nature. Hence the Greek computes his
time after the Olympiads, the Roman ah tirbe cwidiia, the Mohammedan from th«
flight of the prophet, with which the success of his religion was insured. The Israelite
computes time by the genealogy of the Fathers of the race (ri-isin), by the ages
of the Patriarchs, by the life of Moses, by the reigns of the kings. In addition tc
this there appear in the history general genealogies. But when all the Christiar
world reckons time from the birth of Christ, it only raises to its highest power the
Old Testament principle of personality ; since the years of redemption are the years
of the universal life of Christ ; a continuous fulfilment of the word, " who shah
declare his generation ? "

But in this peculiarity the Jewish chronology has been of essential service to
the chronology of general history. Just as generally the Old Testament has
given the death blow to heathen mythology, so the Old Testament chronology, by
fixing the antiquity of the human race to about 4000 years B. C. (for the different
computations see the Biblical chronology, Tubingen, 1851, Preface, p. 1), has forever
refuted the fabulous chronology of various heathen nations, e.g., the Indian, Chinese,
Egyptian. The general historical view of the periods of the development of the
human race before Christ confirms the correctness of the biblical assumption as to
the remoteness of its origin.

In Ewald's view, the determination of the yearly feasts, which was in the hands
of the priests, is of great aid in perfecting the Jewish method of computation.
To the determination of particular years, was added the regulation of the periods
of years, the Sabbath year (7 years) ; the year of Jubilee, which probably began
with the fiftieth year {see Note 3, Ewald, p. 276). Then the Exodus from Egypt
became a starting point for a continuous era, and (1 Kings vi. 1) 480 years were
counted from the Exodus to the founding of the temple in the fourth year of the
reign of Solomon. So the residence in Egypt was fixed at 430 years (Ex. xii. 40).
In establishing these points the Israelites could avail themselves of the guidance
of the Egyptian method of computation. According to Ewald, these two periods,
the residence in Egypt, and the interval between the Exodus and the building of
the temple, form the axes about which all the other determinations revolve. But
as to the relations of the ancient Israelitish history to the history of other nations,
Ewald points to the Egyptian Era of Manethon. To this Egyptian parallel Bun-
sen adds that of the Babylonian and Assyrian. After the exile the Jewish era runs
in close connection with the Persian, through the reckoning of the reigns of the
kings (E2xa iv. 24 ; vi. 15). Since the Syrian Empire the Jews fall more com-
pletely within the era of the Seleucidse (1 Mace. i. 10).

It is not our purpose to form a new chronological system of the history of the
Old Testament, but rather to vindicate the idea of Old Testament chronology.
We throw out here however some brief remarks upon the method of ascertaining
feme of the general points just alluded to.

1. It is deciJedly in.jorrect for the author of "The Dates of the Bible," in

l4 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

regard to ttt chronology of the Old Testament, to place the Samaritan text of the
Old Testament, and the Septuagint, by the side of the Hebrew text, so that from
their great diversities, he might infer that the biblical chronology was in the same
degree unreliable. It is impossible that the Septuagint should rest upon traditions
Trhich will bear comparison with those of the Hebrew text. The same is true of
the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Hebrew text has throughout the priority, and
must therefore have the preference in any case in which they may be com-
pared.

2. It is incorrect again to attempt to rectify Old Testament declarations by
what are supposed to he different declarations of the New Testament, as has been
done by Usher, Ludov. Capellus and others, more recently by Becker, in his Chart
of biblical chronology. The declaration of Paul (Gal. iii. 17) agrees with that
made (Ex. xii. 40), if we take into account that thej^romise was not only confirmed
to Abraham, but to Isaac and Jacob. The 430 years would thus date from the
origin of the Israelitish people, after the death of Jacob, to the Exodus. It is
more difficult to explain the relation of the 450 years which the Apostle (Acts
xiii. 20) defines as the period of the Judges, to the declaration (1 Kings vi. 1),
that the period from the Exodus to the erection of the temple was about 480 years.
A diversity exists here in the Jewish tradition, since even Josephus (Antiq, yiii.
3, 1) reckons 592 years from the Exodus to the building of the temple : thus as-
signing 443 years as the period of the Judges, while 1 Kings vi. 1 fixes 331
years as the length of that period. Either the Apostle intimates in the oi?, that he
fell in with the traditional indefinite reckoning, or the declaration reaches back, and
includes Moses and Joshua among the Judges, (as they in fact were,) as it reaches
forwards, and includes Samuel. In the determination of the bondage in Egypt to
400 years in the speech of Stephen, it is probable that, according to the promise,
(Gen. XV. 13), the round number of 30 years at the beginning of the residence in
Egypt, was fixed as the period of the happy existence of the Israelites there, and
must be subtracted from the entire period of their residence.

3. It is not our province, nor are we in a position to criticise the assertions which
Bunsen makes in regard to the Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian chronologies
(compare the criticism by Gutschmid). In any case he has performed a great service
in bringing the Jewish era in relation with these chronologies ; which he has done at
a vast expense of learning and toil. We must, however, bring out more clearly the
doubt which a more complete scientific determination has to remove. In the first
place, it seems without any adequate foundation that a chronology beyond the influence
of the Theocracy should be presented as an infallible measure for the biblical decla-
rations, as much so indeed, as if generally an unquestioned right should be conceded
to Josephus against the Old Testament, and Evangelic history. In the second place,
the determination upon this ground of the dates of Jewish history seems to us, to a
great extent, questionable. In the third place, it is a result which no one should
hastily concede, when the 480 years (1 Kings vi. 1), from the Exodus to the founding
of the temple are here reduced to less than 352 years. "We must leave it to a speciEd
investigation, to ascertain these points more certainly.

The most certain dates for the determination of Jewish Chronology, are those oi
Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus. The conquest of Jerusalem by the former moi.arch, or
the beginning of the Babylonian captivity, is assigned, not only by Bunseji, but by
Scheuchzer and Brinkmeyer, to the year fiSe (not 588) B. C The return of the

§ 6. CHKOKOLOGT 01 THE JEWISH PEOPLE.

Jews from Babylon, according to the ordinary computation, took place 530 B. C
according to Bunsen and Scheuchzer 538.

From that time downwards, the Jewish computation is determined by the Era of
the Seleuoidae, which follows the era from the beginning of the Captivity in Babylon,
or the destruction of the first temple. It begins with the year 312 B. C. A follow
ing era, reckoning from the deliverance in 143 B. C, givoS place igain to thr- com
putation used under the Seleucidas, upon which follows the present computiicion of
the Jews, the world era, beginning 3761 B. C, and divided into three great periods,
the first reaching to the Babylonian Captivity, the second from that event to the
destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the third from that time to the present.

From the Babylonian Captivity, going backwards, we reach the first point in the
Jewish computation, through the sum of the reigns of the Jewish Kings. It has usually
been fixed at 387 years, and the beginning of the reign of Rehoboam placed at 975
B. C. Bunsen places it in 968, and thus, if we follow his method of determinations,
as it seems to be confirmed by the Egyptian dates of King Shishak (Sisak, who
plundered Jerusalem in the third year of Rehobcxiii,) we bring out the round number
of 382 years for the reigns of the Kings. Solomon reigned forty years, and laid the
foundation of the temple in the fourth of his reign (1 Kings vi.) Tliis would give 1004
as the date of the founding of the temple. Connecting the 480 years, the interval
mentioned between the Exodus and the founding of the temple, and the Exodus
must have occurred about 1484 B. C. It is usually placed in round numbers at 1500,
but more accurately at 1493. Bunsen, however, places the Exodus between the years
1324-1328, more definitely 1326, (Lepsius 1314.) But the confidence with which
this determination is fixed, is based principally upon the fabulous narrative by Man-
etho, of the events in the reign of the Egyptian King Men6phthah, (Bunsen, p. ccxii.)
It is not credible that the simple, sober narratives of the Old Testament, are to be
corrected by such a fabulous record as this (see Gutsohmid, pp. 2, 10, 11, and 103, also,
Knobel, Exodus, 112, 116 S. ; upon the more extended argument of Bunsen, 215, see
Gutschmid, p. 23). If we add the period of the residence in Egypt (Ex. xii. 40), 430
years, to the number (1 Kings vi. 1), the entrance into Egypt, or the death of Jacob
must have happened 1914 B. C. For the residence of the patriarchs in Canaan,
according to Knobel's computation, we may allow 190, or at the most 215 years.
Abraham must therefore have entered Canaan about 2129. Knobel is inchned to
reduce the 215 years, since in his view, the age of the patriarchs is placed too high,
but, with Beer, Koppe, Ewald, and others, defends the 430 years, as the period of
the residence in Egypt, against those chronologists, who follow the reckoning of the
later Jews, and especially of Josephus, in whose view the residence in Egypt was
only 215 years, with this remark, "that in these diverging computations too much
stress has been laid upon uncertain genealogies.''

The date of the entrance of Abraham into Canaan points to a period still more
remote, which may be fixed with considerable accuracy, through the declarations in
Genesis as to the lives of the Patriarchs, and which, beyond question, gives a vastly
more probable age of the race than 20,000 years, assumed by Bunsen.

For the lunar year of the Ancient laraelitea, see WiNER'a Real- 'Worterhich, Article Tear. For tka
months, the article Months. Also Bkihkmeteb, pp. 43, 44

16

DfTKODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

§7.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PALESTINE (PHTSICA SACRA).

Upon this subject we refer to the works at hand.
Von Raumer's Palestine, p. 69 ; Keil, p. 23, and
other Geographical works. For the literature, see
Hageneach's Encyclopedia, p. 2S9.

Die Calwer Bihlische Naturgescldchte may be rec-
oaunended for its lively and popular style. [Robin-

son : Researches ; The Land and the Booh, by ThoX'
son, a very interesting and instructive book ; Deu
Stanley's work. Upon this and all other kindred
subjects, the valuable Bible Dictionary by Smith, 3
vols. ; Harris : Natural History of tke Bible ; Ob-
BORN : Plants of the Holy Land. — A. G.]

§ 8.
BIBLICAL ETHNOGRAPHY.
3ie above, § 4. EtiRTz : History of the Old Covenant, ii. p. 444. Lisco : 0. T., p. 206, Volkershaa.

THE THEOCRACY.

We cannot comprehend the history of Israelitish civilization, without emhracing
the history of its worship, which lies at its foundation ; nor this again without a prior
view of the common root, out of which spring both branches, the history both of
the worship and civilization of Israel, i. e.,the Theocracy.

It is the faith of Abraham, that faith by which he left his home (Gen. xii. 1), not
knowing whither he went, which makes him an historical personage. Israel, also, from
nameless, unhistorical, servile tribes, became the most glorious people of history through
the reception of the legally developed Theocracy at the hands of Mospr. The obe-
dience of faith was the constituent principle of the people. Hence it is tht type of the
church, that one people which the gospel has gathered out of all nations. Josephus
ascribes the founding of the Theocracy, or the reign of God over Israel, to Moses ( Con-
tra Apionem ii. 1, 6, see de Wette's Archaologie, p. 1V9). But Moses stands to the
Theocracy, or the religious community of the Old Covenant imder the immediate
guidance and control of Jehovah, just as he does to the Old Covenant itself, i. e.,
he is not the starting-point or founder, but one who develops it under its legal form :
who introduces for the people the grand theocratic principles, in the form of the fun-
damental laws of the Theocracy. The Old Covenant law or right, according to which
the Church of God, at its very beginning, recognized its conscious dependence upon
the Divine Providence, and entrusted itself with entire confidence to His marvellous
care, while it walked in the obedienffe to His commands which faith prompts and
works, began with Abraham, with whom the Old Covenant itself began. The symbols
of .this supernatural order of things, are the starry heavens over the house of Abra-
ham, and circumcision, the religious and profoundly significant rite of his house. Abra-
ham was justified by his faith in the word of promise, and in this begins the germ-
like organic growth of the Kingdom of God, which hitherto only in sporadic portents,
like individual stars in the night,~in the saints of the earlier times — had irradiated
the night of the old world. Hence the term Theoobaot, as Aristocracy, Democracy,
;ttnd similar terms, designates the principle of the government, not its form ;* which is

• Comp. Chappdi 3 T? Vancimt Testa. Lausanne, 1838. p. 79. Lasob'b opening addroBS at Zurich treats of the Batn«
diitlnctton.

§ 10. EELIGION AND WORSHIP OF ISRAEL AND OP SURROUNDING NATIONS. \n

designated by the terms Monarchy, Hierarchy, Oligarchy. It is not the outward forra
of a political power or government. We cannot say, therefore, that the Theocracy
ceased in Israel with the erection of the Kingdom. The division of Jewisli history
into the reign of God, the reigns of the Kings, and the reigns of the Priests, rests upon
an error, which confounds the distinction between the immutable Old Testament prin-
ciple of government, and the mutable political forms under which it appears. Tha
reign of God does not exclude the reign of the Kings, as a form in which it appears ;
on the contra,ry it blooms and flowers in its representation through the regal power of
David and Solomon, as before in its representation through the prophetical and judi-
cial power of Moses and Joshua, and in later times in its representation through the
priestly dominion of the Maccabean Judas and Simon. The organic principle of the
divine dominion branches itself into the three fundamental forms under which Israel
was led ; the prophetic, kingly and priestly. Hence the Providential leading of Israel,
we may say indeed, the consciousness of the dominion and leading of Jehovah, endured
in Israel, under the Kings as under the Judges, in the Kingdom of the ten tribes as in
Judah, by the rivers of Babylon as in Canaan, however much the prevailing unbelief
and apostasy of the many couid transiently obscure that consciousness; and it was
only when Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus, that despair filled the hearts of the
people, in the consciousness that for some long, indefinite period, it had been rejected
by Jehovah. But the typical forra of the Old Testament theocracy, as it was estab-
lished by Moses (Ex. xix. 6), has now passed into the real New Testament Kingdom
of God, the /Saa-iXeia tuiv ovpavuyv, which had been already predicted by the prophets,
especially by Daniel (chap. ii. and vii.). The typical appearance of a people formed
by God to the obedience of faith through His revealed word, led and protected by
Him, has reached its fulfilment in the people of God, founded by His saving virtue
and power, a holy commonwealth ; and in truth, by the word of God, united in a hu-
man, spiritual life, and led to an eternal glorious Kingdom, which, in its introductory
forra, is begun here, and has its continuous, eificient organ in the Christian Church.

Thus Abrahara, in his righteousness of faith, stands as the living type of the King
dom of God, but the type of the whole theocratic cultus is its altar, as the type oi
the whole theocratic civilization is the shepherd's tent.

§10.

RELIGION AND WORSHIP OF ISRAEL AND OP SURROUNDING NATIONS.

Abraham appears as an historical personage only through his religion, and the Ts-
raelitish people takes its origin from religion. Other nations have formed their own
human religions in their own way, but here the divine religion, viewed in its relation
to general history, makes its own point of departure, the father of the faithful, and
the organ of its growth— the people of Israel. As the Greek tribes were formed into
a people through their Hellenic culture, and the Roman tribes through the city of
Rome and the Roman State, so in a more marked way has Israel grown to be a his-
torical j^.'iople through its reUgious calling. Even its natural origin was conditioned
through faith (Gen. xv.).

It IS not our purpose here to dwell particularly upon the faith of Abraham an
Isaac ; we will only give those periods which are noticeable in in archaeological j,o:nt
of view. In the first place faith itself.
2

18

INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

1. Monotheism and the Apostasy, or Symbolism
«nd its heathen form, Mythology.

2. Calling of Abraham and the heathen, or
Symbolical' Typology, and Symbolical Mythology.
Abraham separated from the people for their sal
Tation.

8. The Patriarchal faith in its development, and
heathenism in its ramifications.

4. The Mosaic legal institutions, and their couiv
terpart in the Heathen world.

5. The development of the Mosaic law, and th«
idolatrous service of the surrounding na,tions.

6. The Prophetic elevation of the national spiriC
and the Apostasy.

7. The rending of the common public religion
spirit, and its true concentration.

Then follows the more direct solemn expression of faith, the Cultus : its pre-con
dition circumcision, its central point the sacrifice, its spiritual consecration prayer and
instruction.

The different stages of the Cultus are marked by the temporary and constantly
moving tents of the Patriarchs (simple sacrifice), the tabernacle of Moses (the legal
sacrificial system), the temple of Solomon (the fully developed liturgy), the second
temple (the martyr sorrows of the people pointing on to the real sacrifice).

All these points will be more thoroughly treated in
their proper places. For the literature of Biblical
History, see Ha&enbaoh : Encyclopedia, pp. 189, 194,

and 191 ; for the hterature of Biblical Theology, p.
200. Also Kkil : Archwoloqy, p. 47.

§11.
SACRED ART.

We have already designated the sacred art as dynamic. It is clear, therefore, that
Poetry must here hold the first place, and after this the Song and Music : and then
the Sacred Chorus or religious dances. Symbolical Architecture and Sculpture close
the series, as painting seems to have been almost entirely neglected.

For a correct estimate of Theocratic Art, the following points are of importance :
1. The religious element always outweighs and controls the moral. It is framed for
the purpose of worship, not civilization. 2. The dynamic principle, as in all the theo-
cratic relations of life, is of far greater moment than the formal. 3. All Symbolic
Art has a typical signification, i. e., it not only serves the purpose of an aesthetic ritual,
and of philosophic contemplation, but by virtue of a real eificient principle, of a seed
of true spiritual life, ever strives to give the beautiful appearance or representation
its complete corresponding reality in life.

For the literature of Hebrew Art and Music, see
Haoenbach : Encyclopedia, p. 139. Keil : Archae-
ology, 2d vol. p. 182. Compare the articles Music
and Musical Instruments in Winee. Also the articles
upon the temple.

For the Hebrew Architecture, see the article upon
that subject in Haoenbach : Encyclopedia; Schnaase

Oessch.ich.te der bildenden Kutiste, i. 241. [The ai>
tides Music and Musical Instruments in Kitto : En-
cyclopedia. Smith : Bible Dictionary. Also the Bibla
dictionaries of the American Tract Society, Presby-
terian Boards and Sunday Schoo. CTnion ; Jahn : Ar-
A. G.]

§12.

THEOCRATIC LAW AND JURISPRUDESjI.

The fundamental principle of theocratic law and jurisprudence, is that estimata
of personal life grounded in the vivid knowledge of a personal God, which leads first
to a recognition of the fully developed personal Tfe (personal rights), then to the pra-

§ 14. THE HISTORY OF ISBAELITISH CIVILIZATION.

It

tection and culture of the undeveloped, oi' as a matter of histoi y, outraged (marriage
rights), then to the awakening of the suppressed (rights of strangers), and lastly to
the judgment upon those individuals and tribes who, through their unnatural sins and
abominations, have subjected themselves as persons to the curse and destruction.

See Haqenbach, p. 189, under the heading, Staats-
verf'asung {Michaelis, Hullmann, Saalschutz) ; J.
BoHNSLL : Das israelitische Recht in seinen Orund-
zilgen dargestelU, Baael (1853). Compare Keil :
ArchcBologie^ ii. p. 196. [^Commentaries on the Laws
of Motes, J. D. MiOHAELis, English Translation, Lon-

don (1814), Commentaries on the Laws of the An
eient Hebrews, by B. G. Wines, 2d edition. New
York. The Biblical Encyclopedia and Diotionariea,
Jahn : Hebrew Commonwealth, translated by C.
E. Stowe, Andover and London ; Lowkie : The Ht-
brew Lawgiver, — A. G.]

J 13.

ISRAELITISH WISDOM AND SCIENCE.

In no region is it clearer that all the developments of life among the Israelites are
preeminently dynamic, than in the intellectual. The wisdom of the Hebrews has
upon its theocratic grounds failed to reach the true science, as Greek science, upon
its merely human grounds, has failed to reach the last and highest principles of true
wisdom. But the theocratic faith, working in its dynamic direction, has laid the
ground for the new birth of the ante-Christian, heathen science, as it has thoroughly
refuted the theory of two eternal principles, of the eternity of matter, or as it has estab
lished that one profound, all-pervading view of the world which rests upon the living
synthesis of the ideal and real, upon the assumption of the absolute personality. Since
science is the striving after the highest intellectual or ideal unity, it cannot dispense
with the Old Testament, if it would attain to its perfect freedom under the New Tes-
tament.

We must be careful not to confound the relation 1 science, with each other. For the Jewish science, set
of Theocratic Judaism, and post-Christian Judaism to I Keil : Archceology, ii. p. 162 ; Hagenbach, p. 134.

14.

THE HISTORY OF ISEAELITISH CIVILIZATION.

Periods. — The Nomadic state
■commerce — the dispersion.

-the Bondage — ^the Conquest — time of the settlement'and agrienltura

I. Domestic Life.

1. Marriage. — Its reli^ous and moral signifi-
cance. The Law of Marriage. The Marriage cere-
mony. The Marriage state in its moral influence
and development. The family. Training of chil-
dren. Domestics. Slaves. The house.

2. The house as a tent. — The dwelling. The
village. The market place. The city.

3. The care and ornaments of the family. —
tSothing. Jewelry. Luxuries.

4. The work of the family. — Production.
Agriculture. Pastoral life. Hunting. Fishing.
Mining.

6. The festivals of the family. — Home
pleasures and joys. Society. Sports. HospitaUty,
Household sorrows. Sickness. Death. Burials. Usage*
of mourning.

6. Food of the family. — Laws relatir.g to
food. Meal times.

* We reserve tlie Butject of Jealousy, and of the sexual offences, as indeed of the assumed difficulties In the OM
reetament generally, for a separate Excursus.

20 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

n. IsEAEL AS A State.

The principle. — The Theocracy as above. 1.
The organization of a community, a. The organic
anion of the tribes in the land. 6. The organic
division of the land among the tribes, t;. The law of
inheritance or primogeniture. 2. The establishment
of government. The three states or conditions. Priest-
ly. Prophetic. Royal. TJrim and Thummim. 3. The

eslablishmerU of law and jurisprudence. Lawa.
Judgments. Punishments. The place of judgment
The Sanhedrim. Law of the Zealots. [Nazarenes.—
A. G.] The Prophetic Judgments. Judgment an
act of worship.

For the literature, see Hagesbach, p. 138 ; Km,
ii. p. 1.

III. Social Inteecouese.

1. Commerce. — Its conditions, weights, meas-
ures, money. Its forms. Barter, caravans, traffic by
land, trade by sea. For the Israelitish measures,
Bkbtheau, BnNSEN, 1. vol.

2. Personal intercourse. — In the gate, visits,

journeys, modes of travel.

3. Intellectual intercourse. — Writings and
literature, theological schools, science, special
sciences, cultus.

4. Art. — See Cultus.

§ 15.-

HISTORY OF ISRAEL.

See Haqenbach : Encyclopedia, p. 185. Langf ; I ing paragraphs upon the theological and homilet-
Ifaitheu), Am. ed., the Introduction and the follow- | ical literature of the Old Testament.

§ 16.
THE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF THE ISRAELITES.

The root of this international law lies in the first promise (Genesis iii. 15), in the
blessings of Noah (Gen. ix. 25), especially in the promise to Abraham: "In thy seed
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed (Gen. xii. 3-7) ; and in its fuller explana-
tion (Gen. xxii. 18), all the nations of the earth bless themselves." The first declara-
tion in what form this promise should fulfil itself, viz. through 'a holy Kingdom, is
found in the blessing which Isaac gave to Jacob (Gen. xxvii. 27) ; the second and more
definite decraration in the blessing which Jacob pronounces upon Judah (Gen. xlix.
8). After establishing the pre-conditions (Ex. xix. a legal separation from the nations,
and a legal association with them), Moses organized the tribes of Israel into a sacred
camp, a warlike host, destined to carry on the sacred wars of the Lord. It enters at
first upon the removing, or in a modified sense the uprooting, of a corrupt heathen
people, for the purpose of founding a free Israelitish national life. The wider relations
of Israel to the nations must be determined through its contact with them — in war
and peace, according to the laws of war and treaties of peace.

The victories of David awakened in him and in the people, for a time, the thought
that he was called, with a theocratic political power, to found a sacred world-power, to
which all nations should be in subjection. (2 Sam. xxiv.) But the thought met the
severe punishment of Jehovah, who thus turned the mind of the Israelitish people,
before the declining of its political glory, to a spiritual conquest of the nations. Sol
omon entered this path as a Prince of Peace, and reached great results, but he rashlj

§ 17 and 18 THE OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGES.

anticipated the New Testament future, the premature individual religious freedom,
•vhioh produced similar destructive results in Israel, with the later idolatrous intoler
ance. Since then the Jewish public mind has ever oscillated in uncertainty between
the two thoughts of a spiritual and political conquest of the world ; ever falling more
decidedly under the influence of the latter thought — which even prior to the extermi-
nating Jewish wars had made them the odium generis humani ; — although the
prophets with increasing distinctness and emphasis had made the external world-
dominion dependent upon the inward spiritual conquest of the world, and therefore
promised it only to the true seed of a spiritual Israel.

The strict legal separation of Israel from the nations stands in contrast with its
position between the nations, and its blessed intercourse with those who differed most
widely from each other, in their whole spirit and tendency.

Its Pharisaic and fanatical separation from the nations stands in contrast with ita
outward geographical connection with them {^See Langb : Geschichte des Apost
Zeitalters, i. p. 208 ff.) and its mingling with heathen nations of the most diverse tend
ency and spirit.

It is by pushing its particularism to its utmost limits, that Israel has brought about
its own dispersion among the nations.

Concerning the Israelitish international law, ita warfare, the celebration of its victories, and the trealr
.es of peace, see Keil, ii. p. 289 ff. [The popular works on Biblical antiquities may be consulted, but the
ioformatiou which they give is — perhaps necessarily — imperfect and unsatisfactory. — A. G.]

2. The Langfages.

§17.
THE PROVINCE OF OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGES.

In determining the province of Old Testament languages, it is essential that we
should have a correct idea of the distinction between the genius of the Semitic
languages, and that of other languages, especially the Indo-Germanic family. It
appears from this, that the Semitic idiom, owing to its directness, heartiness, and so
to speak inwardness, possesses in a high degree a fitness to express the religious and
moral aspects of doing and suffering, the moral affections and distinctions ; while it
wants in an important sense, the opposite characteristic of indirectness and reflective-
ness. In particular, the Hebrew language, with the Greek, thus the language of the
Old Testament, with that of the New, forms the broad contrast of the most complete
direct method of expression, with the most perfect vehicle for expressing the results of
philosophic thought and reflection. But both peculiarities are fused into one, in the
language of the New Testament, as the higher new-creative form of the Septuagint.

For the literature, see Hagenbaoh, p. 122; Bleek: Mnleitang, pp. S"? and 103 [also Hatkbsiok;
Inlroducti-on to the Old Testament. — A. G.]

§ 18.
THE OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGES.— LEXICONS.
See the list of Hebrew Dictionaries and Con- 2 vols. Leipzig, ISSY. [Second ed., 1863. English
cordances in the Commentary on Matthew, p. 17 translation by Davidson, Loudon and New York,
(Amer. pd.). J. Fitrst : Hebrew and Clialdee Die- 1867. Fiirst does not supersede Gesenius. Comp
iionnry of the Old Testament, with an appendix also B. Davidson and Bagstee's Analytical am
tontftining a brief history of Hebrew Lexicography, Ohaldee Lexicon. London, 1848.~A. G.]

Z2.

INTKODDCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

§ 19.
THE OLD TESTAMENT FOEMS OF SPEECH.— GRAMMARS.

OLsnACSEN : Hebrew Orammar. Chammaire
Eebraique de J. M. Rabbinowicz. Paris, 1862. See
Likoe's Matthew. Am. ed. page 17. [Geseniits,

EwALD, Bosh, Stdakt, Noedheimee, Cohant, Tb»
gelles. Green. — A, G.]

20.

REMARKS.

The development of the Old Testament forms of speech is pervaded throughout
by a profound, earnest, moral and religious spirit. Even if the heathen nations of
Canaan used this language, and notwithstanding all these moral treasures, have,
through their awful corruption, grown ripe for judgment, this does not alter the
fact. For these tribes may have put on the Semitic language as a strange garment,
or they may have fallen even from the heights of its spirituality, and therefore have
fallen so low. The Scripture itself testifies that their decline was gradual. We must
distinguish also between the elementary ground forms of the language, and its reli-
gious and moral development in Israel. We call attention here to a few striking exam-
ples of the profound spiritual significance of the Hebrew forms of speech, ans is in
Kal, to groan, sigh, be moved by suifering, in Niphal is to have compassion, in Piel
to comfort. The spirit of the language thus informs us, that the power to give com-
fort depends upon our compassion, and this in turn grows out of our suffering ; oni
is in Kal to eat, to consume, in Niphal mutually to devour, i. e., to carry on war ;
113 is in Kal to bow, to bow the knee, to beg, to implore, in the intensive Piel to
bless, to secure one's happiness. The so-called different species have the peculiarity
that they bring into view the moral act, in all the distinctions of doing and suffering,
and of the reflecting selfdetermination of the man. And how rich moreover is the
Hebrew language in its expressions, fitted to convey the more direct life of the soul
and spirit.

See Stier : Nmgeordneies Lehrgebiiude der Hebrahchen Spracke. For the literature of the Fhilologia
gacra, see Hagenbacb, p. 122 If.

THIRD CHAPTER.

Preparatory Introduction. Its constituent parts, so far as the form of the Text is concerned.
Old Testament Heemenbutics.

§21.

LITERATURE.

See Hagenbaoh: Encychpedia, pp. 162 and 165 ff. [The principal English Works are W. Van Mil-
dert. An Inquiry into the general principles of Scripture Interpretation (Oxford) ; T. T. CoNTBEAEB'e
Hampton Lectures; Davidson: Sacred Hermeneutics ; Faiebaibn : Eermeneutical Manual; Eenksti
Principles of Biblical Interpretation, translated by C. H. Terror, Edinburgh (1843); Seuer: Biblical Ber
meneutics, London (1855). — A. G.}

§ 22. OLD TESTAMENT HERMENEUTTC8. 23

§ 22.

TIIE NECESSITY FOB A NEW CONSTRUCTION OF BIBLICAL, ESPECIALLY OF OLI

TESTAMENT, HERMENEUTICS.

That there is some reform needed here is clear from the fact that modern criticism,
86 the assumed last sound result of the grammatical and historical explanation of the
Scripture, finds everywhere in the sacred records of the anti-heathen concrete raonothe-
km, i, e., the Old and New Testaments, heathenish ideas or representations, or rathei
brings these same notions and representations into the whole sacred text. As heathen-
ism springs directly frond this, that the idolatrous mind lays undue stress upon the bare
letter in the book of creation ; that it separates and individualizes its objects as far
as possible ; that it places the sense of the individual part, in opposition to the sense
of the whole, to the analogia fidei or spiritus which alone gives its unity to the book
of nature, while it dilutes and renders as transitory as possible the sense of the
universal or the whole ; so precisely modern unbelief rests upon an exegesis which op-
poses all analogy of faith, which presses and even strangles the letter until it is re-
duced to the most limited sense possible, while it suifers the more universal and his-
torical in a great measure to evaporate in empty, general, or ideal notions.

As heathenism laid great stress upon the letter in the book of nature, it fell into
polytheism. The particular symbol of the divine, or of the Godhead, became a myth
of some special deity. A God of the day and the light was opposed to a God of the
night ; a God of the blessings of life and of hapjjiness, to a God of calamities and of
evil ; a God of the waters, to a God of the fire; and finally, the God of one idea to
the God of another; the God of one thing to the God of other things; i. e., one
Fetisch to another. The final goal of Polytheism was Fetischism.

On the other hand, the grand unities of the text of nature, and with these of his-
tory, the revelations of mercy, truth, peace, and beauty were not embraced in one
living concrete unity, in the idea of a personal revelation, but were diluted into the
abstract unity of the one pantheistic one ; the one everywhere appearing and then
vanishing, formless, impersonal, divine essence. Pantheism ends, when pushed to its
legitimate consequences, in Atheism.

The two fundamental laws of human thought, a true analysis and synthesis, were
used in a false method, since they place in their room an abstract absolute analysis
and synthesis, and then to escape from the intolerable opposition, they mingled all
distinctions and combinations into a confused mass, and then separated the mass
again in the same fantastical manner. This could only issue on the one hand in a
pantheistic polytheism, and on the other in a pantheistic dualism.

Modern criticism presses the letter of scripture in a direction opposed to Cocceian-
ism. If Cocceius transforms all places in the scripture, from the seed to a tree, and
forces into it an utterance of the whole developed truth of revelation («. ^., the Prot-
evangelium), this criticism inverts his whole method, since it circumscribes the letter
within the narrowest signification possible. Thus, according to its method, Christ,
according to the gospel by Matthew, must have ridden upon two asses at once ; the
Apostle Paul must have conceived of Christ as in his being, physical light ; John must
have denied him the human soul and spirit, because he says : " the word was made
flesh ; " Jehovah must have in heaven a literal palace ; and the speaking with tongues
must have been a mere stammering or jargon. This is the mere Icgomachy into which

24 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

this modern Talmudism relapses, like the Jewish Talmud, seeking to interpret thi
scriptures in a heathen method.

On the other hand, this same criticism evaporates the more general truths of sacred
scripture, especially those which are at the same time historical, into mere abstract
generalities. Thus, e. y., the birth of the Godman, is nothing mo)-e than the birth of
the theanthropic consciousness ; the resurrection of Christ only the re-awakening of
the idea of Christ ; the whole eschatology nothing more than the symbolism of the
immanent and progressing world-judgment.

The Alpha and Omega of Cliristianity, as indeed of all revealed religion, is the
living synthesis of spirit and nature, of idea and fact, of the divine and human, finally
of the Deity and humanity ; and the central point, the key and measure of all the doc-
trines of revelation, and of all true interpretations of scripture is the great watch-
word : " The word was made flesh." The modern pseudological criticism consists in
the disruption of this synthesis. The letter is taken as the mere woid of man, and
the historical fact as a purely human event, while, in truth, in the form of symbolical
declarations, the universal religious ideas, the eternal facts of the spirit, are brought
,into light only through these ever varying human ideas and facts. There is no unity.
For both the personality lying at the foundation, the alpha, and the glorified personality,
the omega, are wanting ; and instead of this, there is only within the disturbing and
blinding influence of the niaterial world, the gradual progress from one ideal unknown
to another, lying still ftirther in the region of the unknown. The last result of all
spiritual hopes and expectations is the absolute riddle.

It must be granted that this exegetical method has its precursor in the poverty
and shortcoming of the orthodox exegesis. Even here we find to a great extent, an
extreme literal exegesis in a perpetual interchange with a fabulous allegorizing of the
scripture. What this literal exegesis makes comprehensible, and to some degree im-
presses, is the sense of the infinite importance of the biblical word, in its definite and
individual form. What, on the other hand, the whole history of the allegoric inter-
pretation of the scripture declares is, that conviction, living through all ages of the
church, of the divine fulness and symbolical infinitude of the scripture word. The
four-fold and seven-fold sense of the allegorizers of the middle ages, is the rainbow
coloring, into which the pure white fight of the symbolical and ideal sense of scripture
is resolved, to the mediaeval longing and faith. But when adherence to the letter
becomes so rigid that it denies any room for poetry in the historical statement,
because it mistakes the idea, whose clothing is this symbolical poetry ; when, e. g., it
insists with stiff-necked obstinacy that the six creative days are six ordinai-y astro-
nomical days ; when it sees in the stopping of the sun at the command of Joshua, a
new astronomical event : when it makes Lot's wife to become a real particular pillar
of salt, and Balaam's ass actually to speak in the forms of human speech ; then it if>
justly chargeable with being dead and spiritless, and places weapons in the hands of
unbelief It is only pushing this view to its consequences, when the literal inter-
pretation involves itself in absurdity. Moving in its circuit, this same unspiritual
criticism changes the allegorical interpretation of particular parts of the solid wordi
of the bible, into an allegorical interpretation of the entire word, and thus spread
over the firm monotheistic ground of the holy scripture, the variegated cloud covering
of a pantheistic view of the world and theology. Although the text sounds through-
out monotheistic, the idea must be taken in a pantheistic sense, since the text is nothing
else than the polytheistic dismembered form of the one pantheistic spirit. The spirit of

g 22. OLD TESTAMENT HEKMENEUTICS. 2fi

this criticism indeed so daringly inverts the true relation, that it transforms an entire
historical apostolic letter, like that to Philemon, into an allegorical point of doctrine,
while it inversely interprets an entirely allegorical and symbolical book, like th<
Apocalypse, as if we must understand it literally throughout. But the assumption of
the mythical character of the sacred books is the grand means by which this fleeting
misty spirit of modern pantheistic ideas is bound in with the rigid crass literal sense.

In reference to the Old Testament, many theologians who are firm believers in
revelation, have held that the theory of mythical portions could not be erroneous, if
they would not be involved in the untenable results of the literal exegesis. The
modern interpreter of the scriptures, in his explanation of large portions of the Old
Testament, thinks it necessary, as the only solution of difficulties, to choose between
the mythical, or purely literal theory. This alternative is accepted, especially as to thg
creative days, paradise, the marriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men,
and points like these.

But even this alternative is fundamentally erroneous. It mistakes the ABC for the
full understanding of the principle upon which the bible is written, the truth, viz., that
the peculiar subject matter of the theanthropic revealed word must have a peculiar
form. The bible contains aira.^ Xcyd/Aeva not only as to its subject matter, the miracles,
and as to its form, peculiar forms of expression, but is itselt. in whole and in part, an
aira^ Xeyo/ievoi/ as to its contents, and therefore necessarily as to its form. We apply
this to the Old Testament.

The Old Testament, as containing the records of concrete monotheism, or rather
of the concrete monotheistic revealed faith, cannot contain any myths. It can and
must indeed contain historical statements, which so far and no farther, resemble
myths as the melon resembles the gourd, or the parsley the hemlock. But no one
need be deceived by the most striking resemblances.

Is it not true, in the first place, that mythology is the peculiar living garment, the
unalterable form of heathenism, especially of heathen polytheism ?

Is it not true, secondly, that the Old Testament, with its monotheism, forms the
great historical antagonistic contrast to the heathen polytheism ?

Is it not true also, thirdly, as Hegel has said, that the true form can never be
separated from the contents, but must be determined throughout by them ?

But then it is inconceivable that the Old Testament should have carried out its
antagonistic opposition to the subject matter of heathenism, by using the specific
form of heathenism, i. e., by the use of myths.

It is inconceivable because the myth is a religious statement, in which the con-
sciousness has lost the distinction between the symbol and the symbolized idea. In
other words, the myth as such is never barely a form. In it the idea has lost itself
in the image, and is bound there until the day of future redemption. On the other
hand, the very nature of the Hebrew view and idiom consists in this, that it first
clearly grasps the distinction between God and the world, between his spirit and hie
ligns, and then establishes the distinction firmly. Hence even in all its individu.al
parts as a revelation of faith, it has kept itself ever awake to the consciousness of the
distinction between its images and the realities to which they correspond. To such
an extent is this true, that to avoid being entangled in any one figure, even when it
is purely rhetorical, the Hebrew in some way changes his poetical statements and
expressions, a fact which appears strange to one accustomed to the constancy with
which figures are used by classical writers, e. g., see the 18th and 21st Psalms

36 INTEODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Mythology not only elaborates individual figures, but strings one to anotber until it
forms a complete mythical circle.

Finally, the myth as such has no historical efficiency or results. It is the form oi
a passive lifeless religion. Religion, having life and activity, must have a form suited
to its inward nature.

The Old Testament, as the record of the revealed faith, contains no merely liters]
historical statements, iu the same sense in which profane history contains them, which
records facts for the sake of the facts, and in its practical instruction goes no further
back than to second causes, and oftentimes to those only which are most obvious and
familiar. We must distinguish clearly between the religious history of the scriptures
and common history. Not of course in the sense that it is less historical, or less a nar-
rative of facts, but in the sense that it presents the fact in the light of its highest first
cause, its idea, its symbolical import, and therefore in a somewhat poetically elevated
style. The biblical fact wears a poetical dress in its presentation, from a threefold point
of view; 1. through its relation to the fundamental religious thought or idea, in which
the writer comprehends it in the light of divine illumination ; 2. through its relation
to the fundamental religious thought of the book, i. e., its special connection with
revelation in which the writer states it ; 3. through its relation to the central thought
of divine revelation itself, with which the Holy Spirit has connected it, whether the
author was conscious of it or not. We take, e. g., the passage which speaks of the
Cherubim, who after the expulsion of Adam and Eve, guarded the gate of Paradise,
especially the way to the tree of life, with the flaming sword. The fact is this, that
the first man as a sinner, was through the terror of God, driven forth from the original
place of blessedness which he had polluted by sin. Viewed according to the religious
thought or idea of the passage in and by itself, these terrors are angels of the Lord,
personal manifestations of the personal and righteous God, who keeps man, guilty and
subject to death, from any return to the tree of life (Ps. xviii. and civ.). Viewed in
connection with the fundamental thought of Genesis, these Cherubim are destined to
keep man from the heathen longings after the old Paradise, and to impel him onward
to the new tree of life, the religion of the future as it came to be established in Abra-
ham (Gen. xii. 1, Go out of the land of thy fathers). Viewed, finally, in its relation
to the general spirit of the scriptures, these Cherubim introduce not only the doctrine
of i,ngels generally, but also the doctrine of the fundamental form of the Old Testa-
me>.t revelation through the angel of the Lord, and the angel of the divine judgments
who is ever impelling humanity, through all history, from the threshold of the old
paradise, to the open gate of the new and eternal paradise. As to the relation of a defi-
nite fact to the special religious idea, e. y., the expression, Lot's wife looked behind her
and became a pillar of salt, not only records, that through her indecision and turning
back she was overtaken by the storm of fire, but also contains the thought that inde-
cision as to the way of escape, begins with the first look after the old, forsaken goods of
this life ; and that every judgment of death upon those who thus turn back, is erected
along the way of escape as a warning to others. As to the relation of the particular
expression to the individual book, i. e., the fundamental view or purpose of the author,
modern criticism would save itself a hundred vexed questions, from an inadequate
conception and treatment of the sacred text, if it would proceed from this funda-
mental thought, and thus understand the arrangement of particular books, what they
include and omit, their connections and transitions. These vexatious questions, e. g.,
— Which of the three evangelists is the original ? — Which of them is correct ? — Which

§ 22. OLD TESTAMENT HERMENEUTICS. jf}

preserves the true conaection and the original expression ? would cease in a gieat
measure, if we will only concede to the sacred writer, what we usually concede t<
other writers and artists, viz. : that he has a fundamental thought — a prevailing
principle upon which he constructs his work. That the history of Joseph, e. g., ii
more particularly related than that of Isaac or the patriarchs, is closely connected
with the fundamental thought or principle of Genesis, that it should narrate the
istory of the origin of all things, down to the origin of the holy people in Egypt, aa
uhat was brought about through the history of Joseph ; and not only the history of
the origin of this people, but of its exodus from bondage, which was inwoven with the
great crime of Joseph's brethren, who sold him into bondage. As to its connection
with the principle of scripture as a whole, this history is an expressive image of
divine Providence, in its relation to human innocence and guilt, as it is destined to
be the type of all the subsequent providential leadings of this nature, down to the
history of Christ.

In every particular fact, the religious idea of the absolute divine causality rises
into prominence above all natural second causes. As the heathen is entangled and
lost in second causes, so the theocratic believer must ever go back to the sovereignty
and providence of God. He does not deny the second cause, since he rejects all one-
sided supernaturalism, but clothes it in a new form in the splendor of Divine Provi-
dence. The Cherubim with the flaming sword appear later as the symbolic forms of
Divine Providence (Ps. civ.), as the Cherubim of the storm upon which Jehovah ridea
(Ps. xviii.), as the seraphim, the angels of fire, who should consume the temj)le of hard-
ened and obdurate Israel (Isa. vi.). Even moral second causes, human freedom and
human guilt, must be placed under the divine causality, and this not according to the
assumption of a crushing fatalistic idea of Providence (Wegscheider), but according
to the fundamental law of Divine Providence itself. When the Bible records that
God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, it informs "us also that Pharaoh was a despot
and hardened his own heart ; and further, that all his guilt was foreseen, and, under
the righteous judgment of God, set for the glorifying of his name in the execution
of the plan of his kingdom. That is a strong one-sided supernaturaUsm, which
utterly denies not only natural but moral second causes, when they are not made
prominent in the statement of Divine Providence, or, perhaps, notwithstanding they
are made prominent. For the same reasons, the authors of the books of the Bible
have not recorded all the facts of the sacred history remarkable to human view, with
the same minuteness, but only the principal points in the development of the king-
dom of God, through a given period of time. They devote themselves more to the
pictures of personal life than to the description of their impersonal surroundings ; to
the creative epochs, than to the lapse of time between ; to the turning-points of a
grand crisis, more than to the after progress and development ; rather to the great
living picture of individuals illustrating all, than to an external massing together of
particular things. The method of writing the sacred history of the Bible is like its
chronology, its view of the world, throughout living, personal, dynamic. As to the
connection of the particular books of the Bible, it is undeniable that the great pro
found, all-pervading formative element is the ideal fact of the saving self-revelatioi
of God even to his incarnation, i. e., the soteriological messianic idea. As the
direction of any given mountain range is determined by a certain concrete law of
DaAure: so, much more is the formation of any individual part of the Canon. But ai
to its relation to the other parts, its outward connection and articulation, it cannot be

38 INTKODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

denied that in the region of revelation, there must have been not only an inspiration of
the records themselves, but of the records in their present form, and that it is just as
one-sided to deny the traces of this inspired editing of the sacred records (Luke i,
1), as to enfeeble their testimony, by the supposition of an uncanonical biblical book-
making ; of a painful and laborious compilation and fusion of diverse elements or
parts into one.

Biblical hermeneutics cannot well deny that the monotheistic and theocratic tradi-
tions are older than the oldest written records. Neither can it deny that even since
the art of writing was known, the living discourse, the oral narrative, the revelation
through facts, is older, and in some sense more original, than the written word. But
it asserts and must assert, that the written word throughout belongs to the region of
revelation — to the very acts through which the revelation is made — and forms indeed
the acme and the limits of sacred revelation. And as to the sacred tradition, it is not
to be confounded with the idea of tradition as it is usually associated with the idea of
the myth. The sacred tradition, in its wealth of religious ideas, lies back of the myth ; the
popular tradition, in the ordinary sense of the word, lies on this side of the myth, nearer to
authentic history. The heathen myth is the heathen dogmatics, as they belong to the
earlier age of any given heathen people. The popular traditions are the heathen
ethics of the same people, an ethics exemplified in fabulous personages as they were
concerned in the chief events of that people during the transition period, fi-orn its
mythical to its historical age. We can trace this relation both through the Greek
and the German traditionary period. In the blooming period of the ethical traditions
the poetic, sceptical, trifling, even ironical transformation of the myth takes its origin.

We can now distinguish by certain fixed characteristics the Old Testament sym-
bolical statements from the mythical statements.

The acute attempt of Sohmieder to detei/ioine the i minary to the Biblical history, 1837, does not lead to
relation between the religious method of writing his- 1 satisfactory results. See Lange : Poaitiv Dogmatik,
lory, and the ordinary methods in his essay : Freli- 1 p. 385.

The general distinction : — it is all true but is not all actual, — leaves the relation both
as to quantity and quality, between the ideal truth and the historical events, so un-
determined, that it will not avail to fix firmly the characteristics of Scripture, in its
distinction from all myths, as from all ordinary historical writings in which events are
traced to their causes. We have treated hitherto only of the bibhcal method of
writing history, but we must now treat of the biblical method of stating things
generally, in order that we may place in contrast the idea of the myth, and the coun-
ter idea of the scripture word, according as they stand connected with, or opposed
to, each other.

We may distinguish the historical and philosophical (or, more accurately, physical
or philosophical) myths, and according to this distinction, we may view the Bible
word in contrast to them, as to its facts, and as to its doctrines.

The affinity between all mythology and the whole scripture, according to which
the scripture and especially the evangelical history, may be viewed as the fulfilling
of all myths; is the union of the idea and the fact, or of actual signs, or of words to
a symbol of the eternal, in the language of poetry.

But even here the biblica fact is clearly distinguished from the historical myth.
The latter has the minimum of reality only, perhaps the mere moral longing or wish
or it may be some facts of the popular or heroic natural life, brought by a poetical

§ 22. OLD TESTAMENT HERMEKfEUTICS. 29

symbolism into union with an idea, and made to be the bearer of that idea; wliile the
biblical fact always has an historical basis, whose greatness and importance is foil
throughout the history of the kingdom of God ; one particular event, which has reached
its peculiar definite expression in the light of its universal significance. The biblical
fact through its ideal transparency has been raised from an individual to a general
fact, and thus become a biblical doctrine. Its unessential individual form may have
disappeared in the splendor of its idea, but the total fact remains. On the contrary
the element of reality which lies at the foundation of the historical myth^ is to suck
an extent transformed by the ideal poetry, and its historical actuality is so far un.
susceptible of proof, that it becomes more or less a question whether there is such ai;
element or not.

But as the biblical facts have throughout the splendor of ideal truths, so tho
biblical doctrines have throughout the energy of facts. They are facts ot the active
religious consciousness, clothed with so decisive an energy and significance, that we
may view them as the eternal deeds of the Spirit, presented in the clear distinct light
of particular passages, e. g., the Psalms, Proverbs, the Sermon on the Mount. Thia
historical character of eflBciency is wanting in the philosophic myths. We under
stand them first, when we have rescued through Christianity the philosophical and
moral doctrines which they contain. The myth itself waits for redemption from its
bondage through the idolatrous sense, by the virtue of the scripture word. In its
free form it appears as an ancient symbol.

As to the chief distinction, we would prefer, for our own part, to distinguish in all
myths physical, historical, and religious elements, and hence would class them as
preeminently scientific, historical, or religious, as one or the other of these elements
might come into prominence.

To the style of the historical myth we would oppose the style of the Old Testa-
ment histories, to the style of the scientific (philosophical) myth the Old Testament
doctrinal writings, to the predorcinantly religious myth the Old Testament prophetic
word. As the preeminently religious myth forms the synthesis of the physical and
historical, so the prophetic word forms the higher unity of the historical and
didactic word. The science of hermeneutics therefore, as the hermeneutics of the
prophetic word, must bring out clearly, that in this region all the historical is in the
highest measure ideal and symbolical (e. g., the temple of Ezekiel, the concubine ot
Hosea) and all the didactic is destined in its eternal actual energy and results to
reach beyond the Old Testament limits.

We trust that these suggestions, for the wider culture of biblical, especially Old
Testament hermeneutics, may find useful illustration in our Biblework. But thia
must be borne in mind : we hold that particular parts of the Old Testament must
remain to us in a great measure dark and inexplicable, so long as'the distinction
between the ordinary style of history, and the higher religious style, is not more
firmly established, and consistently carried out. This holds true in our opinion
especially of the books of Chronicles and the booTc of JEsther, and, among the prophet-
ical books, of Daniel and Jonah.

Finally, as to the well-known distinction between the Semitic and Japhetic mode?
of speechj there is not only at the foundation, that misconceived and misapplied
difference, the opposition between oriental directness and occidental reflectiveness
and further the opposition between the religious and the secular or the mediate Tie^^
of the world, of the old and new time, i. e., of the spontaneous or original develop

30 INTKODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

ment of genius, and the derivative culture of civDization ; but also the oppositioE
between the religious method of presenting history and doctrine, and the more
pragmatic view of history, and the dialectic mode of stating doctrine. It is evi-
dent, however, that such a distinction does not destroy the unity of the Spirit, the
communion of ideas and faith between the two spheres. By the faith, Abraham must
have understood essentially the same truths which any enlightened Christian
whether a theologian or philosopher, understands to-day.

(For the promotion of Old Testament Exegesis through more correct hermeneutical
principles, see Appendix.)

OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM.

§ 23.

BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND ITS BELATED LITERATURE.

Compare Hagenbach : JEncydopedia, pp. 145, 150, 151.

Hagenbach makes the science of Introduction preliminary to that of Criticism
We hold that this order must be inverted, since Introduction is impossible without
Criticism. Biblical Criticism is the scientific examination of the Bible as to its
historical and traditional form. It decides according to historical or outward, and
according to real or inward, signs, as to the biblical origin of the sacred books,
as one whole, and as individual parts, i. e., as to their authenticity and integrity.
In the course of its procedure it passes from the examination and purging of the
text, to its construction, confirmation and its restoration to its original form.
It is thus, to follow Hagenbach, according to its sources of determination (or rules)
outward and inward, according to its results (decisions) negative and positive,
Criticism. We must observe, however, the manifold signification which has been
attached to the contrasts between negative and positive Criticism (used now in a
historical, and then in a dogmatic sense) ; between a lower and higher Criticism
(now as a question upon the integrity and authenticity, now as a decision according
to the existing witnesses, manuscripts, translations, or according to scientific com-
bination, upon the spirit of various writings and passages). There can be no ques-
tion that Criticism belongs to the most essential and vital functions of biblical
theology. It is, 1. Necessary; 2. not merely a modern Criticism of recent date, but
has existed from early time ; and 3. hke every theological function, it has been sub-
jected to great errors, and requires therefore a tsriticism upon itself.

[There is a large class of English works here, among which those of Hamilton, Jones, Walton : ProUqo-
mena; Kennicott: Diieertations ; Stuart : Ernesti ; Davidson: Criiicism ; Gerard: Institutes of
Bil'lical Criticism; Horslet: Biblical Criticism, London, 1810, may be consulted. — A. 6.]

§24.

DESIRABLENESS OF AN ORGANON OF CRITICISM.

It is remarkable that Theology, with an immense activity of the critical processes,
IB still without any well-formed theory of Criticism. We have on several occasions
suggested that such an organon is still wanting. It should aim to establish all the
leading principles for the theological and critical process, and ithen to exclude all

§ 24. DESIRABLENESS OF AN ORGANON OP CRITICISM. 81

officious critical assumptions. The first fundamental position would be, thai
there must be an agreement as to the religious and philosophical criticism of
Revelation and of Christianity itself. Starting from the modern philosophicaj
assumptions of peism and Pantheism, some have criticised exegetically and historically
the biblical records, i. e., they have mingled in an unscientific manner philosophical
and purely infidel prejudices, with real critical principles, in an unfair procedure,
thus it has occurred that the results of this critical blundering have been set forth
and commended as the results of a higher criticism of the historical view {see Langb
Apostol.Zeitalter, i. p. 9). It is most important therefore to determine first of all, in
order to meet satisfactorily the religious and philosophical preliminary questions,
whether one recognizes or not the idea and reality of a personal God, of his personal
revelation, of his personal presence in the world, and his personal communion with
the Elect, **. e., the souls of men awakened to the consciousness of their eternal per-
sonality. The organon of criticism places this recognition, or rather knowledge,. at
the very portal of its system, and denies to those who reject the living idea of
revelation, the right and the power to engage in any scientific exegetical and historical
criticism.

Then it would be the aim in this first division of the Organon of criticism, to fix
firmly the ideas of the originality, especially of the authenticity and integrity of the
Bible. The first fundamental characteristic of biblical originality is defined in the
Evangelic word, " the Word was made flesh," i. e., by the supposition that in the
whole region of revelation, we are dealing with an indissoluble synthesis of idea and
fact, i. e., with personal life; but never with ideas without historical facts, and never
with historical facts without an ideal foundation and significance. This is the very
A B C of a sound criticism, over against which the latest spiritualistic critical fraud,
which has spread from Tubingen through a part of the Evangelical church, must be
viewed as a paganistic idealism, modified by its passage through Christianity ; and
according to which also the ultra supernaturalistic interpretation of biblical history,
as a mere narration of events in their order from cause to efiect, without ideal contents
or form, appears a lifeless and unspiritual tradition of a fundamentally worldly
Empiricism. The succeeding question as to the authenticity, is determined accord-
ingly by this, that in every biblical book we must take into view its peculiar inward
form derived from the spirit of the book, as well as its historical declarations. Still
further, the different Genera scribendi must be determined as they are ascertained
from the actual appearance of the biblical liooks, and from the spirit of Revelation.
It is accordingly critically incorrect tp insist that the book Eoclesiastes, according to
its declaration, must be regarded as the wo)'k of Solomon, since we are here dealing
with a poetical book, which may put the experience of the vanity of the world in the
mouth of the Son of David. But it is cr.tically incorrect also to deny that the
Apocalypse is the work of John, since we are here concerned with prophetic announce-
ments, which rest expressly upon the authority of the Apostle. True poetry does
not assume a fictitious name, when it puts its words in the mouth of a symbolical and
fit personage, but prophecy would, should it resort to the same procedure. Then as
to the integrity of the biblical books, criticism must determine, as is evident from the
countless variations in the text of the New Testament, and from the free relation of
the Septuagint to the Old Testament, that from the earliest time the records of
revelation in the sanctuary of the church of God, were not regarded as literal and
inviolable documents, but as the leaves and words of the Spirit, and that notwitb

32 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

standing this freedom the authentic word, as to all essential points, was held sacred.
For with all the diflferences of the Septuagint, it is not possible to bring out of the
Old Testament any essentially modified Old Covenant, and amid all the variations of
the New Testament, we still discern the same gospel in all its essential features.

In reference to both questions, however, it is evident from the relation of Genesis
to the original traditions, of the Gospel of Luke to the records he had before him, of
the second Epistle of Peter to the Epistle of Jude, from the resemblance as to
thought and form in many passages between different authors (e. g., one between
Isaiah and Micah), that we must explain not only the iirst origin and elements of the
biblical records, but also the theocratic and apostolic form in which we now have
them, as properly belonging to the region of canonical revelation.

With regard to the rules or criteria of biblical criticism, the idea of actual revela-
tion, i. e., of the effects of the living interchange between the personal God and the
personal human spirit, forms the first rule. This involves, first, the recognition of
historical facts belonging to true human freedom, as the Pantheist cannot regard
them; secondly, the original religious facts, which are entirely foreign to Deism;
thirdly, the specific facts of revelation as it rends asunder the suppositions of Dual
ism. Without the recognition of the historical, the religious, the theocratic heroism,
we have no rule for the critical examination of the contents of the sacred scripture.
Then, in the second place, we must fix firmly the idea of human personality
awakened and freed through the personality of God, as it involves a complete origin-
ality both as to its own views and productions. As the Bible throughout is an
original work of the Spirit of God, so each individual book is an original work of the
chosen human spirit who wrote it. Innumerable questions which criticism is inade-
quate to solve, find their solution here. To ascribe, e. g., the production of the
second part of Isaiah to the Scribe Baruch, or to Mark the authorship of the original
Gospel, after which the other synoptics in a most extraordinary way have copied, or
the Epistle to the Ephesians to an imperfect impression taken from that to the
Colossians, or the Apocalypse to John Mark as its author, rests upon the failure
to estimate properly the originality of the biblical writer, the originality of hia
works, and the connection between the two. It is clear that, with originality, we con-
cede to the writers of the Bible that thorough consistency of spirit which is peculiar
to a living, spiritually free personality.

From the originality of Revelation as a whole, in its connection with the original-
ity of the writers of the particular books of Revelation, arises the originality of the
collection of the biblical books. They are the closely connected products of one
peculiar intellectual creative forming principle ; and therefore form one complete
Canon, as they are one complete Cosmos, i. e., the organon of criticism presupposes
the analogy of faith.

But as it presupposes this analogy, it has at the same time to ascertain its essential
elements out of its fundamental thoughts, i. e., the peculiar fundamental truths of
biblical theology.

With the existence of the ar ilogy of faith, which reveals itself further m the
analogy of the Scriptures, is determined the hiiman side of the Holy Scriptures,
agreeably to the historical differences and manifold forms, i. e., the germ-like incipi
ence, the historical gradual growth, the regular development, the indissoluble con-
nection, finally the perfect completion of its facts and doctrines according to the
idea cf revelation.

§ 28. CRITICAL QUESTIONS m THE TREATMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 33

§ 25.
THE PKINCITAL CRITICAL QUESTIONS IN THE TREATMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

In the introduction to the Old Testament the following important critical ques-
tions hold a prominent place : the unity of Genesis, the Mosaic authenticity of the
Pentateuch, the authentic historical character of the historical books following the
Pentateuch, the age of Job (also as to its historical basis), the limits as to time of the
collection of the Psalms, the authenticity of the writings of Solomon (and the import
of the Song in particular), the relation between the first and second parts of Isaiah
(ch. xl.-lxvi.), between the Hebrew text of Jeremiah and the text of the Septuagint,
between the book of Daniel and Daniel himself, the import of the book of Jonah, and
finally the relation ot the first part of Zechariah to the second (ch. ix.-xiv.).

The ecclesiastical and theological interest in these questions will be essentially met
and satisfied, if, in the first place, genuine historical records of revelation, fiowing from
the time at which the revelation was made, are recognized as the foundation, and to
some extent essential component parts, of the writings in question ; and if, in the second
place, it is firmly held that the bringing of these records into their present form took
place on canonical ground, within the sphere of Old Testament revelation, under the
direction and guarantee of the prophetic Spirit. Under the energetic infiuence of
these two positions, the canonical faith in the Bible, and a fi-ee critical examination,
have approximated each other, and under their more perfect influence they will cele-
brate their full reconciliation. And if in the process some prejudgments of the
ecclesiastical tradition must be conceded, so criticism in its turn must yield up a masa
of thoughtless errors and exaggerations. Traditional theology will come into liberty
through a proper estimate of the historical character of the biblical books ; and
criticism itself will be freed from the mistakes into which it has thoughtlessly fallen
through a low estimate of the ideal contents of the sacred writings.

7Uthough there is much in Genesis in favor of the distinction of Elohistic and
Jehovistic records, yet the fact made prominent by Hengstenberg and others cannot
be denied, viz., that the names Elohim and Jehovah are throughout so distinguished,
that the one prevails in those passages which speak of the general relation of God to
the world, the other in those in which the theocratic relation of God to his people and
kingdom rises into prominence. This contrast, embraced by the unity of the con-
sciousness of faith in revelation, not only runs through the Pentateuch, but appears
in a marked form in the opposition between the general doctrine of wisdom as viewed
by Solomon, and the Davidic theocratic doctrine of the Messiah. It pervades the
Old Testament Apocrypha, in the New Testament celebrates its transfiguration in the
contrast between the Gospel of John, his doctrine of the logos on the one side, and
the synoptical and Petrino-Pauline view on the other ; and finally, in the opposition
between the Christian and ecclesiastical dogmatism, and the Christian and social human
itarianism, runs through the history of the church, manifesting itself in the Reformation
through the twin forms, Luther and Melanchthon, Calvin and Zwingle. The full
influence of the increasingly perfect view of the great harmonious oppositions or con-
trasts m revelation, and the history of revelation, upon the minute analysis of tho
biblical test, is yet to be Ciperienced.

On the present state of the investigation, tee Blisek: EinUUung, p. 227 ft

3

34

INTKODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

As to the Pentateuch, we recognize the following limiting positions of Bleak, while
we differ from him in many particulars: 1. That there are in the Pentateuch very
important sections which were written by Moses and in his time, in the very form m
which we now read them. 2. That Moses did not compose the Pentateuch, as one
complete historical work as it lies before us. The clearest instance in favor of the
last position is obviously the record of the death and burial of Moses (Deut. xxxiv.). .As
to the marks in Deuteronomy which point to a later origin, we must bear in mind
that Moses was not only the Lawgiver, but the Prophet, and that at the close of his
career in life, in the solemn review of his work, he would have a motive to prophetic-
ally explain and glorify the particularism of that economy which he had founded un-
der the divine direction, by bringing out into bolder relief its universal aspect, which
he does in Deuteronomy. In the essential portions of Deuteronomy, which we ascribe
to Moses, he obviates, as far as possible, that pharisaic particularism which might
grow up from a barely legal and literal interpretation of the books of the law, Exo-
dus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Deuteronomy is the repetition of the law, under the
illumination of the prophetic spirit, in the light of the future of prophecy.

As to those older rscords quoted m the Old Tes-
tament itself, as a basis for its statements, compare
Bleek, p. 148 ff. We refer here to 1. The book of
the wars of Jehovah (Numbers xxi. 14, 15, compare
T. lY, 18 and 27-30); 2. The book of Jasher
(Josh. X. 13; 2 Sam. i. 18); 3. The book of
the history of Solomon (1 Kings xi. 41) ; 4. 1 Chron.
xxix. 29, 30, for the history of David, a. The book of
Samuel the seer, b. The book of Nathan the prophet,
0. The book of Gad the seer ; 5. For the history of
Solomon, 2 Chron. ix. 29, a. The prophecy of Ahijah
the Shilonite, b. the book of Iddo the seer against
Jeroboam the son of Nebat ; 6. For the history of
Rehoboam, 2 Chron. xii. 15, the book of Shemaiah
the prophet and Iddo the seer ; 7. For the history

of Abijah, 2 Chron. xiii. 22, the story (commentary)
of the prophet Iddo ; 8. There are constantly cited
in the books of Kings : a. The book of the history
of the Kings of Israel ; b. The book of the history of
the Kings of Judah. The latter seems to be that re-
ferred to in the books of Chronicles, as the book of
the Kings of Judah and Israel: cited. also 2 Chron.
xxiv. 27 ; 9. 2 Chron. xx. 34. The historical book of
the prophet Jehu, which is inserted in the book of
the Kings of Israel ; 10. 2 Chron. xxxii. 32, a book of
Isaiah, upon the Kings of Judah and Israel ; 11.
For the history of Manaaseh, the histories or sayingi
of Hosai or seers ; and in 1 Chron. xxvii. 24, a book
of the Chronicles of David the King.

If the post-Mosaic historical books of the Old Testament are rearrangements of
original records, which belong to unknown authors, still the supposition of contra-
dictions, of mythical portions, of the extremely late dates assigned as the time of
their origin, is closely connected with a failure to estimate their more recondite histor-
ical relations, and their ideal and symbolical aspect. This is especially true in regard
to the judgments formed upon the two books of Chronicles, and the book of Esther.

That in the military sections of the book of Joshua he alone is spoken of, while in
those which record the geographical divisions of the land, Eleazer acts with him ,
that in one place the official elders and judges cooperate, and in another the natural
heads of the tribes ; that under the military point of view the tribes are otherwise
described than under the geographical, — these are distinctions grounded in actual
differences.

In the long period which the book of Judges embraces, the orthodox criticism
obviously injures its own cause, when it denies the basis of more historical sources;
since the supposition of such sources, so far from weakening, actually strengthens the
trustworthiness of the book. That the point of view of the episode, ch. xvii.-xxi.,
is untheocratic, is entirely untenable.

The two books of Samuel, which are plainly distinguished by the contrast between

§ 26. CRITICAL QUESTIONS IN THE TREATMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 35

Saul and David, the rejected King, and the man after God's own heart, point bacls
through their ingenious and throughout characteristic style, to rich original records
lying at their source. The books of Kings and Chronicles refer in various ways to tha
records upon which their statements rest.

The books of Ezra and ISTehemiah bear these names especially (as the books of
Samuel), only because they speak of these men. This is obvious, first, because they
were originally bound in one whole, and secondly, because in their present form thej
contain portions which point to a later date. It is equally clear that the original part
of these books must belong to the men whose names they bear.

The book of Esther, in the regulations for the feast of Purim, refers back to a re-
markable historical event. It contains too many historical indications to be regarded
with Semler as fiction, and too much which appears literally improbable, to be re-
garded as pure history. It is probably the fruit of a fact, represented allegorically for
the illustration of the truth, that the true people of God, even in its dispersion, ifi
wonderfully preserved, and made victorious over the most skilful assaults of its
enemies.* In this respect the book of Esther forms a contrast with the book of Jo-
nah, which also represents allegorically a wonderful event, in order to illustrate the
mercy of God to the heathen, and in opposition to the narrow-minded exclusivenesa
of the Jews. Hence we are able to explain the fact that the name of God does not
occur in Esther, as indeed it scarcely occurs in the Song.

The connection of an allegorical and poetical explanation, with the basis of histor-
ical fact on which it rests, is now generally admitted in reference to the book of Job.
But here the character of a didactic poem comes into prominence. In the critical
examination of this book, doubts in regard to the speech of Elihu will have to yield to
any profound insight into its nature, since it obviously forms the transition from the
preceding speeches, to the closing manifestation of God. From its universal charac-
ter in connection with its theme, the innocent suflfering of Job, it is well-nigh certain
that its origin belongs to a time when the glory of Israel, culminating in Solomon,
was on the decline: the time of the fading glory of the Kingdom.

That the Psalter in its original portions belongs to David, as the Proverbs to Sol-
)mon, is conceded even by the modern criticism. But it is evident from the division
-nto five books, that the collection grew gradually to its present form. The existence
of Psalms originating during the Exile is beyond question (Ps. cii., cxxxvii.). But the
attempt to place a large part of the Psalms in the time of the Maccabees, has been
triumphantly refuted by Ewald and Blebk (Blbek, p. 619). The supposition that
the heroic uprising of a people for its faith, must always have as its consequence a
corresponding movement of the poetic spirit, is groundless. The Camisards, e. g..,
have sung the Old Testament Psalms of vengeance. But the Maccabees stand in a
eimilar relation of dependence upon the Old Testament Canon, as the Camisards.

Solomon stands beyond question as the original prince of proverbial poetry, aa
David is the first great master of lyric poetry. They shared in founding the highest
glory of the sacred poetry and literature of Israel, just as they shared in the highest

[* The iutemal character of any hook most of course have great weight in deciding the question whether it is to ba
received as the word of God or not ; but having so received it, the mere improhahility to us of the events it narrates wiU
aot justify us in holding that to be an allegory which claims to be a history. This is certaialy dangerous ground on
which to stand. For if the mere fact that there is so much that is improbable here, authorizes us to assume that the booV
ts an allegorical representation of an important and precious truth, it will be easy to reduce large portions of the Biblioa.
tlistorv to allegorical representations. Nor is the supposition in any sense necessary here, since the narrative, viewed of
Literal histoir, teaches the same truth with e<iual or greater force.— A. G.)

so INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

glory of the theocratic and political kingdom— in war and peace. They have indeed
through their sacred poetry transferred the typical character of their political power
Into a prophecy of the true Messianic Kingdom, militant and peaceful. ^ But just aa the
later Psalms have been grafted on to the original stock of the Davidic Psalms, so
later proverbs have been added to the collection of Solomon. (1 Kings v. 12 flf.) On
this ground the didactic poem— the Preacher of Solomon— in the use of poetical license
is represented to be the work of Solomon. That the book is of later origin is cleai
both from its language and its historical relations (Blebk, p. 642). That the Song
also is not correctly attributed to Solomon as its author may be inferred from it?
fundamental thought.* The virgin of Israel— the theocracy— will not suffer hersell
to be included among the heathen wives, religions, as the favorite of Solomon,
but ever turns to her true beloved, the Messiah who was yet to come. We hold,
therefore, that this poem takes its origin in that theocratic indignation which the
religious freedom of Solomon— going in this before his time— and his numerous mar-
riages through which he mingled with heathenism, occasioned. We may trace clearlj
the expression of a similar sentiment in the nuptial Psalm. (Ps. xlv. 11-13.)

Modern criticism doubts less as to the originality and authenticity of the Prophetic
writings. But it exercises its analyzing activity especially upon the prince of all Messianic
prophets, the Evangehst of the Old Testament, Isaiah. We pass over here the dif
ferent exceptions which have been made in the first part of the book which is re-
cognized in the main as belonging to Isaiah (ch. i.-xxxix.). _We remark in general that
all critical grounds growing out of the prejudice against any prediction are unworthj
of notice. The whole first part is throughout organically constructed upon that pro-
foundly significant fundamental thought of the prophet, viz., that out of every judg
ment of God there springs to the same extent a corresponding redemption, so that
we cannot easily assign the construction of this main part to a stranger. As to the
second part of the book (ch. xl.-lxvi.) we hold that the collected reasons urged against
its genuineness will not stand the test. The first reason is this : the prophet would
in these prophecies have placed himself upon that, to him, far distant standpoint of
the Babylonish captivity as in his historical present, in order from that point to pre-
dict events still more distant in the future. This is not the method of the prophets,
but it is the method of the Apooalyptics. If we distinguish the definite, artistic form
of the apocalyptic vision from the more general form of prophecy, the first distinctive
feature, as to form, is clearly the all-prevailing artistic construction, with which a
poetical and symbolical expression corresponds. The second distinctive feature, as to
form, appears in the regular progress from epoch to epoch in such a way that the seer
ever makes the new point of departure in his vision, his ideal present. This latter
formal distinction points to the first real, or material distinction between the two.
Apocalyptic prophecy, more definitely than general prophecy, looks beyond the first

[* In regard to the authorship of these books there is a wide difference. The name of Solomon appears in the title to
the Song, it does not in that to the Preacher. There he comes into view as Koheletk, a term which, as Hengstenberg
argues with great force, shows that he is viewed only in his representative character, as the highest Old Testament re-
presentative of divine wisdom, in distinction from mere worldly wisdom. The real author of the book puts these wordi
Into his mouth, as one who was well known to hold this position. Those to whom the book came would understand thia al
once. There is more here than mere " poetical license." Hengstenberg thinks that the book does not profess to be fan
Solomon. But the Song does. And the title here ia confirmed, 1. By the general correctness of the titles ; 2. By the his.
torical references in the Song which point to the time of Solomon ; 3. By the entire thought of the poem itself. Evfln
Lange*s view as to its fundamental thought does not justify the inferences which he draws from it. For there is nothing
unnatural in the assumption that Solomon himself should have felt " the theocratic indignation ' against his own errori
ind sins, or that the Holy Spirit should have used his experiences in giving form and expi ession to the truths hen
taught.— A. a.]

g 25. CKITIOAL QUESTIONS IN THE TREATMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 31

restoration of Israel and the first coming of the Messiah, to the final restoration anQ
completion. But with the more developed Christology, is closely connected a clearei
and more definite statement of the great Antichristian power, which enters betweer
the first and second coming of Christ.

We regard then the second part of the book of Isaiah (ch. xl.-lxvi.) as the first
Oli Testament Apocalypse. That peculiar and easily distinguished part of the
prophecy of Jeremiah (ch. xlv.-li.) is clearly an apocalypse representing especially
the typical Antichristian power. The apocalypse of Ezekiel presents in contrast
the deep valley of death (and indeed the valley of death of the people of God still
lighted by hope, and that of Gog and Magog into which hope sheds no ray oi
light) and the high mountain of God with its mystical temple thereon (from ch.
xxxvii. to the close of the book). The book of Daniel is one peculiar Apocalypse.
Among the minor prophets, Obadiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, may be
viewed as apocalyptic books, which portray in a peculiar style the judgment of
God upon Antichrist, as whose type, the first regards the people of Edom, the second
Nineveh, the third Babylon, while the last sees the day of wrath breaking out upon
the whole Antichristian power of the Old world. Edom is viewed also as the type of
Antichrist in Isaiah (Ixiii. 1-6) and in Jeremiah (xlix. 7-22). The entirely apocalyptic
nature of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel (xxxviii., xxxix.) is recognized and fixed in its place
in the New Testament Apocalypse (ch. xx. 8), as indeed the stream issuing from the
temple (Ez. ch. xlvii.) is there again taken up in its New Testament completion. As to
the time which Isaiah in the second part of his book views as present, he has the pro-
phecy of the Babylonian exile (ch. xxxix.) as a presupposition. He takes his departure
from this. In a similar way we find the future viewed as present in the Apocalypse
of John ; indeed, in the form in which he introduces the vision, I saw, the whole
eschatologlcal future in ideal progress passes before him. The most serious difiiculty
which meets us, in the second part of Isaiah, is the prediction of Gyrus by name, un-
less Gyrus is a symbolical and collective name. As to the differences in style, it would
be a matter of some moment if the first part was marked by a soft, flowing expression,
while the second was more intense, fiery, violent. But as the reverse is the case, the
style of the first part belongs evidently to a young man, that of the second to riper
years. Now and then indeed the youthful, ingenious play upon words, which marks
the first part, appears in the second. It has been objected, that, upon the supposition
of the genuineness of the second part, it is impossible to explain why in the justification
of the threatenings of Jeremiah (ch. xxvi. 17, 18), the elders did not refer to Isaiah
as well as to Micah. But if according to tradition Isaiah suffered martyrdom in his
old age under Manasseh, such a reference would have been out of place. That re-
ference to the example of Micah seems to say, pious kings would never allow a bold,
true prophet to be executed. The king of Jeremiah still claimed to be a pious king.
The example of Manasseh therefore (we speak only of the possibility that the tradi-
tion was true) could neither be a proper measure, nor a fitting reference iu the case.

In favor of its genuineness we present the following argument. Men of the in-
tellectual heroism of the authors of the second part of Isaiah, and the New Testament
Apocalypse, cannot attribute their w< rks to a name already renowned, if these works-
are presented as historical or prophetic testimonies. They must from their greatness
stand in their own time as acting persons, who could not conceal themselves if they
would, and would not if they could. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. There is
the widest difference between the wretched apocryphal works, and such works oi

88 DTTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

the highest grade in their kind. It is entirely another case also, when a poet intro
duces some historically renowned person as speaking. In his own time he was knowif
generally as an author, and if a later time is not careful to preserve his name, hut
allows a poetical speaker to take his place, that is a peculiar literary event, from which
no general principle can be drawn. As to the case of the poems of Ossian, McPherson
Dwes his best thoughts to the old Celtic popular songs ; his mystifying of his contein.
lioraries was connected with peculiarities of character, of which we find no trace ia
the canonical apocalyptics.

For the difference between the Hebrew test of Jeremiah and the text of the Septuaginf^ compare
Blzek, p. 488.

Our point of procedure in the decision of this question is the principal difference,
viz., that the Septuagint inserts the peculiar Apocalyptic close of Jeremiah (ch. xlvi.-
li.) after (ch. xxv. 13). We regard this interpolation as a decided weakening of the
peculiar significance and importance of that whole section; and we think that as with
this chief point of difference, so all the others must be decided in favor of the Masoretio
text.

Since the prophecy of Daniel, as a whole, makes the impression of an apocalyptic
work, retaining its unity throughout, this circumstance must not be left out of view
in the critical examination of the book. It does not however enable us to decide
between the original predictions of the prophet, and the casting of them into their
present form. Three cases are possible. First, that a later prophet has attached his
visions to the name of the historical Daniel. Against this supposition see the re-
marks above upon the second part of Isaiah. Secondly, it may be held that some
later person has wrought the original prophetic works coming down from Daniel, into
a new apocalyptic form. The perfect unity between the contents and form of the
book lies against this supposition. Then it remains that the book must be from
Daniel himself. The difficulties which oppose this supposition are the following:
1. Why does the book stand among the Kethubbim and not among the prophets? It
seems prolsable, that at the time of the collection, the highly apocalyptic nature of the
book, which connects it closely with sacred poetry, determined those who formed the
collection to distinguish it from the prophets in a narrower sense, with their less
highly colored apocalyptic works. It may be urged in favor of this, that it has been
interpolated by portions,* — most probably at the time of the Maccabees — which in
their style are plainly in contrast with the rest of the book. The entire paragraphs
(ch. X. 1 to xi. 44, and xii. 5-13) are thus interpolated. Grave circumstances of
the time have probably occasioned this interpolation, drawn from actual appearances
m history, as also an interpolation in the second Epistle of Peter (ch. i., xx.-iii. 3) from
the Epistle of Jude, was occasioned by similar circumstances. It grew out of thia
interpolation, that the book should have its place among the Kethubbim, if it had not
always stood there. 2. Why has Jesus Sirach (ch. xlix.) not even named the book of
Daniel ? — This would be decisive certainly, if there were not generally serious de-
ficiencies in this author, and if in making his selection he had not in his eye those men
' who had gained renown, in respect to the external glory of Israel. In his view Daniel
bad by far a too free — unrestricted by Jewish notions — universal character and teed
^'ucy. 3. Why do we not find some trace of the use of Daniel by the later prophets 1
[u this connection it should be observed that the four horns (Zech. i. 18) and thi

* [Compare, however, upon this point Hbngstenbkrq : Authentic des Daniel. — A. G.]

8 26. CRITICAL QUESTIONS IN THE TREATMENT OF THE OLD TESi'fxMENT. 3i-

four cpposers of Zion (Zech. vi. 1) appear certainly to presuppose the lepresentatioii
of th€ four world-monarchies (Dan. ch. ii. and vii). And so also the more definite
revelation of the idea of a suffering Messiah in the second part of Zechariah presup-
poses the previous progress of that idea in prophecy (Isaiah liii. ; Daniel ix. 26),
4. The difficulties which some have raised from the historical particularity of ch, x.
and xi , are met by the supposition above— that these chapters are a part of the in-
terpolation. The intimation of Antiochus Epiphanes, in the little horn (ch. viii.), con-
tains certainly a striking prediction, although not a prediction of Antiochus Epiphanes
himself, but of that one despotic Antichristian power which should arise out of the
third world monarchy (not out of the last) which was fulfilled in that Antiochus
But it is certainly incorrect to identify the preliminary Antichrist Antiochus (ch. viii.
8) with the Antichrist imaged in ch. vii. 7. This last springs out of the ten horns
of the fourth beast. On the contrary the goat (ch. viii.), i. e., the Macedonian
monarchy, has one horn, out of which come the four horns, the monarcliies into which
the kingdom of Alexander was divided. Since the numberyowr is the number of the
world, this can only mean that the one, third-world power should divide itself into
its chief component parts. With this goat of four horns, whose form is clearly de-
fined throughout, the fourth animal (ch. vii.), whose form is very indefinite (and in
which, in the face of the modern exegesis, we recognize the Roman world power), has
no resemblance, but the third animal (ch. vii.), the leopard with his four wings of a
bird, and the four heads. The wings of the leopard correspond to the swiftness of
the goat, and the number four of his wings and heads with the four horns of the goat ;
while the fourth animal (ch. vii.) has ten horns. The image of uhe final Antichrist
(in ch. vii.) and of his judgment is much more significant than the image of the typi
cal Antichrist (oh. viii.) and his judgment — which forms only an episode.

Since at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes the Maocabeean family of the tribe ot
Levi gradually attained regal power, and therefore the announcement of the Messiah
out of the tribe of Judah must have been thrown into the background [see the timid
clause in favor of the future Messiah, 1 Maco. xiv. 41), it is very bold in the critics to
refer a book so full of the Messiah, and in which all hope in any temporal Jewish
dynasty disappears, to this very period of the Maccabees.

In regard to the controversy as to the authenticity of the second part of Zechariah
(ch. ix.-xiv.), it deserves to be considered, that the first suspicions against this section
arose out of a purely theological misunderstanding. Since the quotation of the pro-
phet Jeremiah by Matthew (ch. xxvii. 9, 10) is not found verbally in Jeremiah, but
appears to be taken from Zechariah (ch. xi. 12, 13), Mede conceived that the section
(Zech. ix.-xi.) was written by Jeremiah. But Matthew actually intended to refer to
Jeremiah, since for his purpose the chief thing was the purchase of the potter's field,
of which he found a type in the purchase of the field at Anathoth made by Jeremiah
'ch. xxxii.). In this citation he now inserted the allusion to the passage in Zechariah
which speaks of the thirty pieces of silver, without any express reference to it {see
Lange: Zeben Jem, ii. Bd. 3. Thl. p. 1496). Out of this erroneous supposition that
Zech. ix.-xi. must have been written by Jeremiah, has arisen the prevailing question
as to the second part of this prophet. Later, it was not so much the New Testament
citation as a collection of internal marks, which occasioned the doubt of the critics.
But the criticism is so unfortunate as to undertake to transfer the second part of
Zechariah to a much earlier date, and hence comes into collision with an important
principle of biblical hermeneutics.

*o

INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

The principle is this : The great biblical idea makes no retrograde movement in the
course of its development, i. e., no movement from a more to a less developed, or
from a more to a less definite, form. But as it would be a retrograde movement of the
Messianic idea, if the Servant of the Lord (Isa. liii.) should be taken merely for a col-
lective name for the prophets, while already a definite developed announcement of a
jiersonal Messiah existed in the first part of Isaiah, so it would be a much more strik-
ing retrograde movement of the Messianic idea, if the second part of Zechariah were
to be regarded as an earlier composition than the first. For here, in the second part,
we have nearly a continuous biographical portraiture of the personal Messiah in typical
images. In ch. ix. 9, the Messiah comes to his city Jerusalem as an humble king of
peace, riding upon a peaceful animal, the foal of an ass; in x. 11, he goes before hia
returning people through the sea of sorrow, beating down the waves of the sea; in
xi. 12 he is as the shepherd of his people valued at thirty pieces of silver, and the
silver pieces were left in the potter's chest {see Lange: -Leben Jesu, ii. 3, p. 1494); in
ch. xii. 10 is the deed done, because one has pierced him, and they begin to mourn
for him as one mourns for his only son ; in xiii. 6, 7, he complains : lo ! I have been
wounded in the house of my friends ; the sword has awakened against the shepherd
of God ; the flock is scattered, and now he gathers his little ones ; in xiv. he appears
for judgment upon the Mount of Olives ; it is light at the evening time ; a new holy
time begins, in which the bells upon the horses bear the same title as that upon the
mitre of the High Priest : " Holiness to the Lord."

The critics propose to transfer this fully developed Christology back to the time
of Uzziah, when the doctrine of a personal Messiah began to unfold itself. If some
critics remove the section in question to a later date, or divide it into two parts and
two periods, they do not change the case at all. They still deny the above-quoted
fundamental principle of hermeneutics. If they turn us to the fact that the symbol-
ism, which so clearly marks the first part, is less prominent in the second, we may
remark the same receding of the symbolic text in Jeremiah and Hosea. But if ch.
X. 6, 1, speaks of the kingdom of Judah and Israel as still in existence, ch. xii. 6 of
Jeinsalem as still standing, it must be observed, that for the symbolical, not for the
purely historical, view of the prophet, these forms are permanent in the kingdom of
God. We can only refer briefly to the fact, that, with respect to the original mysteri-
ous coloring, their obscurity and profoundness of statement, and other similar marks,
the fii-jt and second parts of Zechariah have the same type and character.

§ 26.

CRITICAL AIDS FOR ASCERTAINING AND CONFIRMING THE INTEGRITY OF THE BIBLICAL

BOOKS.

Here belong the records which form the internal
history of the text of the bibUcal books : the Hebrew
text the ^auhiritan Pentateuch and the translations,

the Chaldee paraphrases, the Greek translations, the
Vulgate, the Masoretie text, and the printed text.
Compare Bleek: £inleitunff, p. V46 ft.

) 26 ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL SCIENCE OF INTRODUCTION. 41

FOURTH CHAPTER.

Historical and Critical Mcegetics in the narrower sense, or the human side of thi
Holy Scriptures : the Holy Scripture as Sacred Literature.

§ 27.
LITERATURE OF THE HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL SCIENCE OF INTRODUCTION.

See Bleek : Einleitung in das Atte Testament, p.
5 ; Eeil : Minleitung in das Alte Testament, p. 6 ;
Haoenbach : Encyclopedia, p. 139 ; Haktwig : Ta-
beUen zur Eirdeitung in die kanonischen und apo-
kryphischen BUcher des ^Iten Testaments, Berlin

(1856, p. 1 ) ; [ Haveenick : Introduction, of which
there is an English translation ; Hoene: Introduction;
the recent edition. An Introduction by Prof. Stowa
of Andover. — A. G.]

§ 28.
ELEMENTS OF THE HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL SCIENCE OF INTRODUCTION.

The two essential elements of exegetics, both in reference to the Old Testament
and the New, are general Introduction, or the history of the contents of the books
in question, of the Old and New Testament Canon, and special Introduction, or the
history of particular books. We now inquire in what order these parts should scien-
tifically be placed. De Wette places general Introduction first, and this seems to be
systematic. On the other hand it appears more scientific, according to the genesis
of the Canon, to treat first of individual books and then of the whole. Hagenbach
says the method of Reuss is preferable, but Reuss in his introduction to the New
Testament furnishes a general substructure for the literature of individual books.
This is undoubtedly the correct method which Bleek and Keil have followed. First
we have the fundamental Introduction, which treats of the historical region, origin,
character, limits, and means (language and writing) of sacred literature. Upon this,
special Introduction proceeds in its work, as it treats of the history of particular books.
Finally general Introduction embraces all the results attained, in the history oithc: form-
ation of the Canon, in the history of the preservation of the Canon, in the history of the
text, in the history of the spread of the Canon, of translations, in the history of the
eacplanation of the Canon, or of the exposition or interpretation of the scriptures, and
m the history of the energy and results of the Canon, for which still the greater part
remains to be done.

In regard to these different elements we must here limit ourselves to a few sug-
gestions.

As to the introduction which is fundamental, in that it underlies both special and
general, the first question is as to the sphere of revelation, as to the ground and limits
within which the sacred literature has grown up ; then as to the homogeneous rela-
tion of the sacred word, as the word of the Spirit, to the scripture, as the language
of the Spirit ; then as to the specific character of the sacred writings as such, of their
rimitations, or of their opposition to apocryphal writings ; and then finally of the
means used in its formation, of the language itself, and of the art of writing, in theii
reciprocal influence and development.

a

INTRODCTCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

The history of the individual books must be introduced by a definition and distino
tion of the different modes of statement, the historical, poetic, didactic, and prophetic.

menis in den Jahrbiiohem fiir Deutsche Theologi^
1858 (iii. Heft, p. 419) £f. ; Keil, p. 538 ff. ; BtrssKir,
p. 51. [Laednee's Credibility, Jokes, WordswoeiHi
Alexander, Gaitssen, McClelland, on the Canoa
—A. G.]

For the critical part of this history, compare the
paragraphs upon criticism above. For the or-
ganic part, see the following paragraphs. For the
History of the Old Testament Canon, compare Bleek :
Einleitung, p. 662. A. Dillmann : Ueber die liil-
dung der Sammhrng keiliger Schriften Alien Testa-

On the history of the text, see Bleek, p. 7 1 V ; Keil, p. SB*?.

This history for a long time runs parallel with the periods of Hebrew literature. "We
may distinguish a Jewish period of the history of the text, in the behalf of Christians,
and a Christian period, in behalf of the Jews. The first period may be divided again
into the period in which the canonical text assumed its present form, the period of the
formation of the Synagogue manuscripts (Babylonian writings), of the Targums, of the
Talmud (division into Parasha and Haphtora), of the Masora (punctuation), of the
Hebrew grammarians, and of the transition in the study of the Hebrew text to the
Christians (division into chapters). The latter period faUsinto the history of the trans-
mission of the manuscripts and of the printed editions.

For the history of the translations, see Bleek, p.
760 ; Keil, p. 694 ; Bonsen, p. 72.

For the history of the interpretation of the scrip-
ture, see paragraph hermeneutics ; Keil, p. 710;
Bunsen, p. 94 ; the full list Lange's Matthew, Am. ed.
p. 18.

For the history of the results of the Old Testament

or of the Bible in an ecclesiastical and practical point of
view, see the references under § 1, and also the parar
graphs on the theological and homiletical literature
to the Old Testament. The articles Bible and Bible
text in Herzog : RealeTicyMopadie, by Danz and
WiNEK — [which is in course of translation, — A. G.],

§ 29.
THE DATES OF THE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS.

We must defer the discussion of these dates, to the works upon the particular
books, but give here a table of the different dates accepted by De Wette, Keil, Bleek,
und add a closing remark.

De Wette.

The Elohistic writing lying at the
foundation of the Pentateuch dates
after the death of Joshua and the
expulsion of the Canaanites.

The Jehovistic portions originate
during the kings, down to Joram,
but not to Hezekiah.

Deuteronomy dates after the exile
gf the two tiibes.

KsiL.

Mosaic composition.

Bleek.

Genesis. The Elohistic original
writings, which reach down to the
possession of Canaan. Rerisedwith
Jehovistic interpolations. The first
originated probably in the time of
Saul. The revision and enlarge-
ment before the division of the
kingdom.

The following books were a con-
tinuation of the original Elohistic
writings. Their revision probably
by the same writer who made the re-
vision of Genesis. Leviticus as in-
deed Exodus (so far as the giving
of the law is concerned) contain*
much that is originally Mosaic.
Deuteronomy belongs to the Jehov-
istic revision. Distinction between
Deuteronomy and the earUer books.
The rearrangement belongs to a
later time, but took place before
the Babylonian exile.

§2y. THE BATES OF THE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS.

43

De Wetie.

Keil.

The book of Joshua also comes"! xr j. i * xi. iu u • • <•
down from the time of Ahab I . N"*. 1''*%*^'''^ *'^«^\"^'^S °^
to the time of the origin of Deuter- f fl "^^'^^ °^ S'^"'- ^'°^''^^y ^'- "
ouomy. J

Bleek

The work of the Elohistic author
Eevision in the time of David. R&
edition by the author of Deuter
onomy. Separated from the Pen
tateuch at a later period. Last
redaction.

The book of Judges doubtful."!
The original essential portions be-
fore Deuteronomy. J

The books of Samuel later than
Judges. The last form after the
composition of Deuteronomy.

The books of Kings during the
Babylonian exile.

The books of Chronicles low
down in the Persian period.

Book of Ruth a long time after
David.

Ezra and Nehemiah the work of
a late collector.

Esther. Very late date. Proba-
bly the times of the Ptolemys and
Seleucidae.

Isaiah from TSg-YlO, B. C. The
'second part of Isaiah during the
early times of Cyrus.

Jeremiah from the 13th year of
Tosiah to the subjection of the
kingdom (588).

Ezeldel. From five years before
the destruction of Jerusalem until
16 years after.

Hosea presupposes the state of
things under Jeroboam II.

Joel. Under Uzziah about the
year 800.

AmoB. About '790. A few years
after Joel.

Obadiah. After the captivity of
the Jews. After 588.

At the latest at the beginning
of the reign of David.

I Not before the time of Echo- (
j boam or Abijam. j

iln the last half of the Babylo- (
nian captivity. \

\ ^

Ezra's time.

) Not before the last years of (
j David's reign. (

{■ Ezra, Nehemiah. •]

I Not immediately after the sub-
1 jection of the Persian kingdom.

"I From the year of Uzziah's death f
y down to the 15th year of Hezekiah <
J (768). L

After the division of the two Iring
doms, but not long after.

In the last half of the exile. Per-
haps by Baruoh.

Probably the same author, who
made the latest revisionof the boolss
of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Centuries after the period of tha
Judges.

The last revision quite late.

Esther. Probably immediately
after the Persian period. Perhaps
much later.

The second part during the Bab-
ylonian exile.

The same.

The same.

The Alexandrian recension prrf-
I erable to the Masoretic text.

After the taking of Jerusalem.

i 790-725.

i 867-838. I

I 810-788. \

I 889-884. I

Jonah. One of the later
Uncertain whether before,
or after the exile.

3r books. )
!, during, V

824-783.

Micah. The first
kiah (768).

years of Heze.) ^^^,j^_

Nahum. After the 14th year of ) VlO-SOfl
Hezekiah. J

Habakkuk. A younger contem- ) 650-627,
porary of Jeremiah. f

Probably in the last time of Jp-
roboam IL

During the reign of Uzziah,
About 800 B. C.

. Nearly contemporary with Joel.

Immediately after the destruction
of Jerusalem.

Commonly referred to the time
of Jeroboam II. The origin of the
book falls at least in the Chaldaio
period; perhaps in the beginning
of the Persian.

Iln the reign of Hezekiah. Th
declarations in the title not reliable.

j Before the year 600, or before
j the conquest of Niuijveh.

! Probably during the reign of
Jehoiakim.

44

INTKODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

De Wettk.
Zephaniah. In the first years of ) 640-626
Joaiah (639). f

Haggai. At the time of Zerub- ) g,g
b»bel and Joshua (636). /

Keil.

Bless.
] The time of Josiah, 642-611.

( The second year of Darius Hy»

Zechariah. Some months lateral
than Haggai. The second half of |
Zechariah probably belongs to the j
time after the exile. J

Malachi. Probably in the time )
fNeheniiah(444). f

Daniel At the time of Antio- )
chus Epiphanes. 1

From 619 on.

433-424

At the time of the exile.

The second half (ch. 9) proba-
bly earlier than Joel. The oldest
part of written prophecy? Time
ofthekingUzziahl! Ch. 10. Time
of Ahaz. Ch. xi. 1, aud 2, later
than the foregoing and following.
Ch. xi. 4, 17, same as ch. ix. and
X. With a full misconception of
symbolical representations.

( The collection at the time of
•5 Nehemiah. A somewhat earlier
( origin.

Probably not long after the
erection of the altar of burnt offer
ing in the temple of Jerusalem f04
the worship of Jupiter. The Mac
_ cabeean age.

The Psalms. Down to the exile "l ^^^^ p^^^ t„ tl^^ ^^^g ^f^^ , ^ j^3t tl^g reception of Mac-
and probably after. Not to the ^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ Nehemiah. ) cabeean Psahns.
Maccabeean period. J '

Lamentations by Jeremiah (588). [ The same.
The Song. The time of Solomon, y Solomon.

I

The same.

Proverbs of Solomon. The time "j
of Solomon. Time of Hezekiah. I From the time of Solomon to
Last chapter probably three years [ Hezekiah.
later. J

I The time of Solomon. Not by
[ Solomon.

The oldest collection Many
genuine proverbs of Solomon. StiU
the collection not by Solomon.
Collection at the time of Hezekiah.
The rest probably later.

Ecclesiastes. Belongs to a late,
unhappy, but in rehgious and lite-
rary culture, advanced, age.

The book of Job. The time of
the decline of the kingdom of
Judah, near to the Chaldaic period

:1

(It falls perhaps in the last time
of the Persian dominion ; but per-
haps still later in the time of the
Syrian domniion.

The time of Solomon.

{Probably between the Assyrian
and Babylonian captivity. The
speech of Elihu a later interpola-
tion.

Concluding Remarks. — In the investigation
of the dates of the biblical books, the history of
the development of the biblical ideas has not been
allowed sufficient weight. This is true emphatically
of the idea of a personal Messiah. In its more de-
finite form it enters with the prophets Isaiah and
Micah, i. e., about the middle of the eighth century,
B. 0. It is perhaps credible that the idea of the
Messiah should not appear in a later historical book.
But it is incredible that the Messianic idea in a later
book should recede again to the idea of a typical
Messiah, which meets us in 2 Sam. vii. Indeed, since
the idea of the typical Messiah first appears here, and

a whole period lies between the appearance of the
typical Messianic image, and the ideal Messianic
image, the origin of the 2d book of Samuel must be
this whole period earlier than that of Isaiah and Micah,
Generally the prophets form the strongest bulwarks
against the excesses of the critics. Hengstenborg,
Delitzch, and others, show how frequently they use
the historical books, especially the Pentateuch, in-
cluding Deuteronomy, and how therefore they pr^
suppose the existence of these books. But what
long periods must have elapsed between the founding
of the legal theocracy, between its culminating point
under David and Solomon ; and the proptetic doubtf

§ 30. PERIODS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT BOOKS. 45

and despondency as to its external and legal appear-
ance 1 — Let ua take the idea of personal repentance
aa the measure. If, on good grounds, we view the
6lBt Psalm as the penitential Psalm of David, is there
any similar dcTelopment of the idea of personal re-

pentance in Deuteronomy ? So likewise there is nc
similar statement of a personal experience of grace,
Criticism rightly uses the citations of the prophets^
but it should use also with greater care the histor*
of religious ideas.

§30.
THE PERIODS WHICH THE OLD TESTAMENT BOOKS EMBRACE.

1. Genesis. The time of primary history from the beginning of ihe human race,
to the death of Jacob.

2. Exodus to Deuteronomy. The interval between Jacob and Moses. {See above,
§ 6, Chronology.) Then 40 years. (Numbers with a space of 37 years.)

3. Joshua. A period of about 17 years.

4. The books of Judges and Ruth. Various estimations. See the § 6. Chronolo-
gy. Das Oalwer ffandbuch, 320 years.

5. The two books of Samuel. About 100 years.

6. The two books of Kings. About 380 years.

7. The two books of Chronicles, From the beginning of the world to the end
cf the Babylonian exile.

8. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. Omitting the period of the Babylonian captivity (70
years, or deducting the 14 years of the removal before the destruction of Jerusalem,
66 years), a period of about 130 years.

§31.
THE ORGANIC STRUCTURE OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS.
See the IV. Division.

THIRD SECTION.

THE THEANTHROPIC CHARACTER OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE AS
TO ITS FORM AND CONTENTS, OR THE BIBLICAL CHRISTOLOGI-
CAL THEOLOGY, ESPECIALLY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Gbneeai Biblicai. Theology op the Old Testament.

§32.

CONTENTS.

It treats: 1. Of the nature of the revealed salvation, its fundamental forms, and
its foundation ; 2. Its development, and the steps in that development ; 3. Of its aim
and tendency.

46

INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

A. The revealed Salvation, its fundamental forms and its foundation.

§33.

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN THE WIDEST SENSE.

The revelation of God is both objective and subjective, i. e., the God of revela
tion in revealing the knowledge of himself, stands over against the minds fitted ta
receive the revelation. God cannot reveal himself, without placing over against him
self the glass upon which the rays of light fall, viz., angels and men. No created mind
can know God, unless he reveal himself to him. But in the mutual action and influence
between the spiritual and human world, the revelation of God progresses through
different stadia.

1. The most general revelation of God ; subjeo.
tive : The mind and conscience. Rom. ii.

2. General revelation of God ; subjective : Livei
of individuals.

3. Special revelation of God, or the revelation of
salvation ia its progress ; subjective : The/aJ(A in the
promise.

4. The most special revelation of God in its in-
troductory or first consummation ; subjective : Jus
tifj'ing and saving faith.

5. The final, complete consummation of the
subjective revelation of God in Christ. The in-
tuition of God in Christ, and in the whole city of
God.

1. The most general revelation of God; objec-
tive : The creation. Rom. i.

2. General revelation of God; objective: The
history of the world. Rom. Ix.-xi.

3. Special revelation of God, or the revelation
of salvation in its progress; objective: The old
covenant.

4. The most special revelation of God, or the
revelation of salvation, in its introductory perfec-
tion ; objective : God in Christ reconciling the world.

6. The final, complete, introductory perfection of
the revelation of God in Christ; objective: The great
epiphany. God all in all. The consummation and
transfiguration of the general revelation through the
ipeciaL

Through the sin of man the first most general revelation of God is blinding to him
(Isa. XXV. 7). Even the more definite, moral revelation of God in history, and his
own destiny, becomes to man a further obscuration of the Deity (Ps. xviii. 26). This
blindness or darkness appears in the views of man concerning the enigma in history,
and man's evil destiny.

Through the objective side of the special revelation this darkening of the minda
through unbelief often completes itself in hardness. The world is hell, viewed from
the stand-point of hellish spirits. On the contrary, all the subjective and objective
circles of revelation meet in ever increasing splendor, in the special sphere of revela-
tion, in faith. But the special revelation, in its objective and subjective aspects,
not only facilitates the knowledge of the general revelation, but carries on the gen-
eral revelation to its consummation and glory.

§34.
OPPOSITION AND DISTINCTION BETWEEN GENERAL AND SPECIAL REVELATION.

General revelation is the foundation on which the special rests ; the special is the
veproduction and realization of the general.

Within the historical circle of the general revelation there arises, in consequence
of the fall, the obscuration of the revelation of God, through nature and conscience,
since the primeval religion of man was thus chan£;ed into a mere capacity for religion

§85. THE SUBJECT OF REVELATION. 47

But within the same circle are formed the sources of special revelation, since the
primeval religion of the chosen becomes an active, practical exercise of their religious
nature.

General revelation as a natural revelation, looking to the past, is an unveiling of
the foundations of the world and life; of the original divine institutions. Special
revelation, looking to the future, is a revelation of salvation, and therefore always
both an ideal revelation and an actual redemption.

General revelation uses as its instruments symbolical signs and events, whose
bloom and flower in the life of the spirit is the divine word. Special revelation
makes use of the divine word, whose bloom and seal is the sacramental symbol and
facts. There the symbol is prominent, here the word.

§35.

THE SUB.TECT OF EETELATION.

In the most general sense, the subject of revelation is the relation of God to man,
as a foundation for religion, which is the relation of man to God. God reveals him-
self to man according to his living relations to him, according to his will in reference
to him, hence in his purpose of salvation, the actual salvation, the promise of salvation ;
but also according to his claims upon man, in his law and in his judgment. He makes
plain to man his peculiar destiny, his sinful nature, his guilt, since he plainly reveals
his own will to man in order to prepare him to receive his salvation. This salvation is
thus the central theme of revelation, and indeed as a fact, as a personal life, as an
eternal inheritance, is destined to extend from the chosen until it becomes the com-
mon good of humanity. The subject of revelation is, therefore, redemption.

§36.
THE INTERCHANGE BETWEEN REVELATION AND REDEMPTION. ,

As the eternal living spirit,- God communicates himself, his life, when he com-
municates the living knowledge of himself. Man, as a spiritual being allied to God,
cannot rightly know God without receiving into himself the divine life. But as man
is sinful, he is blinded as to his intelligence, to the same extent that he is perverted
and enslaved in his will. Hence there cannot be a revelation of salvation to him with-
out redemption, nor redemption without revelation. It follows also that the intro-
duction of this revelation must be very gradual. With the spiritual eye the heart
must he purified, with the heart, the eye. Revelation is the ideal redemption, re-
demption the actual revelation.

In this interchange between revelation and redemption, in general, revelation
precedes redemption, but at the same time it must, through its preliminary redemp-
tion, prepare the way for every new stage in its development. And just as in the
chosen spirits, the channels of the revelation of saving truth, revelation precedes re
demption, so with the great mass of those who are the subjects of redemption, th
redenjption precedes, as a preparatory discipline, the illumination through revelation

48 mTEODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

§37.
THE OBJECTIVE FOEM OF THE REVELATION OF SALVATION.

The objective form of this revelation is throughout the Theophany, as it rises
from the form of the ideal, dynamic theophanies, to the grand real Theophany of God
in Christ. It manifests itself in the elements of human faith, strengthened to open
vision or sight. Its iirst form is the miraculous report, the divine voice, the word,
whose dull echo — the Sath JKol — meets us only in the region of the Apocrypha. Its
second more developed form is in the miraculous vision, in a narrower sense, angelic
appearances, as an ideal dynamic Ghristophany, surrounded and even represented by
wider encircling angelophanies and symbolical signs. Its third and perfect form is
the incarnation of God in Christ, Its effect throughout is prophecy ; the miracle
of prophecy. But the Urim and Thummim is the theocratic, legal enlargement of
prophecy ; in which it was made permanent, and accessible to the people whenever
it might be needed.

§ 38.
TEE SUBJECTIVE FORM OF REVELATION.

This is throughout the vision, whose basis or real aspect is ecstasy, the sudden
transposition of the mind from the stand-point of faith to that of sight. The vision
generally appears as a day-vision, during which the usual consciousness of sense is
shadowed or suspended as in the night. But it appears in children, in common la-
borers, or men sunken in fatigue, as a dream of the night, in whom, however, the
moral consciousness shines as clear as in the day. Its pre-condition is the higher in-
tuition possessed by chosen religious minds, by the spirit of God made fruitful in
some great historical moment, which indeed contains the seeds of the future, which
the seer filled by the Theophany prophetically explains.

There is no conceivable theophany without a corresponding disposition for the re-
ception of visions ; no vision without the energy and effect of a theophany. But
the one form may prevail at one time, the other at another. In general, revelation
advances from the Old to the ISTew Testament, from the prevailing objective form, or
theophany, to the prevailing subjective form, or the vision. Hence the succession in
tJie names of the prophets: Roeh, Kabi, Chozeh.

§39.

THE OBJECTIVE FORM OF REDEMPTION.

The objective form of redemption appears in a series of savmg judgments, intro-
duced through revelation by means of theophanies. Its fundamental form is the
miracle.

§40.

THE St7BJECTIVE FORM OF REDEMPTION.

It manifests itself in a heroic, divine act of faith, whose symbol is the sacrifice,
whose result is conversion.

§41. TflE HISTOKIOAL GRADUAL PROGRESS Aid) FORM OF REVELATION i't

§41.
THE HISTORICAL GRADUAL PROGRESS AND FORM OP REVELATION.

The realization in history of the revelation of salvation is gradual, fundamentally
the same with the gradual growth of history itself. This gradual progress is con-
ditioned: 1. Through the fundamental law of all human growth, into which the
divine revelation <»s a revelation of salvation necessarily enters. Thus the develop-
ment of revelation is the grandest nature, the crown and glory of nature ; for the
regular unfolding of the Old Testament advent of Christ, of the personal life of Christ,
and of that kingdom of heaven founded by him, reaches from the beginning to the
end of the world, and transcends all the limits of the events of natural history.
2, This gradual growth is conditioned through the necessary interchange between a
holy God and unholy men, in whom the grace of God first gradually forms according
to the law of freedom for itself a point of union and a point of departure for its wider
progress, i. e., it is conditioned through the constant interchange between revelation
in a narrower sense and redemption, we may say even between prophecy and miracle,
between the vision and the sacrifice. 3. Then it is conditioned through the slow
process of the interchange between the chosen as the starting-point of revelation, and
the popular life, or the interchange between the apocalypse and the manifestation
(phanerosis) . Generally, however, its history is embraced in two periods. 1. From
the beginning of the introductory revelation to its completion, i. e., to the completion
of the personal life of Christ, i. e., to the introductory or first end of the world. This
is the special history of revelation in the narrower sense. 2. From the beginning of
the final complete revelation, or the historically introduced revelation, i. e., from the
beginning of the church to its completion, the second advent of Christ, i. e., the fina^
end of the world.

We now speak only of the periods of revelation in the narrower sense.

1. The period of that in one aspect symbolical, in the other mythical, primary reli-
gion : from Adam to Abraham, 2000 years B. C. The lighter aspect of this period is
the symbolical religion, the knowledge of God in the light of nature and history, with
sporadic lights of revelation through the word.

2. The period of the patriarchal religion of promise in its genealogical descent,
introduced and established through the word of God and human faith : from Abra-
ham to Moses, 1500 B. C. In the first period the symbol is prominent, the word
subordinate ; in this the word holds the first place, the symbol the second. In the
first period faith was sporadic ; in Abraham and his seed it becomes genealogical.

3. The period of the Mosaic legal religion : from Moses to Elijah, or to the de-
cline of the glory of the Israelitish kingdom. The symbol preponderates above the
word. The internal character of the religion of promise at the beginning, is now
surrounded by the external forms of the law, for the purpose of bringing a whole
people to share in the Abrahamio faith, and at the same time secure its wider develop-
ment. Elijah turns himself to the past, as the last restorer of the law through the
miraculous judgment by fire.

4. The period of prophecy, or in which the law began to be viewed in its internal
character, in which the word preponderates, not the symbol : from the miracles of
Elisha, marked by their design to save, pointing to the future, and from the Messi-
anic prophecies of Isaiah (Hosea, Joel, Amos) to Malachi,

4

50 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

5, The penod of national piety, or of the national realization of the prophetic
faith, introduced in a historical manner, under the disappearance of canonical inspira-
tion, but also under the appearance of the idea of martyrdom : from Malachi to
the time of Christ.

fi. The period of the concentration of the Messianic longing of Israel, or the seed-
like formation of that state of mind which was fitted to receive the Messiah, whose
very heart or central point is the Virgin, and around her the truly pious, especially
the Baptist, enveloped, as in a shell, by Pharisaism, Sadduceeism, Essenism, Sama-
ritanism, Alexandrianism, and Hellenism, which in a general sense may be viewed
as springing from one another. The history previous to the New Testament.

7. The period of the life of Christ to its completion in his ascension, and to the
great seal of its completion in the founding of the Christian church, through the out-
pouring of the Holy Spirit.

§42.

THE CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE ANNOUNCEMENT AND THE FULFILMENT OF

SALVATION.

As nature found its goal in the first man, and the primeval time in Abraham and
the Old Covenant, so the Old Covenant itself, as the preannouncement of the salvation
in Christ, has found its goal in Christ. Christ is the end of the law, the preliminary
goal or end of all things. But the introductory revelation of Christ in the time of
the New Testament, must reach again its comprehensive final goal in the eternity of
the New Testament, the eternal gospel, the second coming and epiphany of Christ
with its eternal results.

The Old Testament is the religion of the future. As to the word of promise, it
finds its fulfilment in the word of the New Testament ; as to its types, the shadowy
images of good things to come, in the facts of the New Testament salvation.

Hence it follows that the Old Covenant, as to its national, legal, external value,
is abrogated through the New Covenant, but that the Old Testament, as the word
of God, is exalted through the New Testament, to be a constituent part of the eter-
nal revelation, as it furnishes the foundation, introduction, and illustration of the New
Testament.

As the gospel itself is a provisional law for the unbeliever, so the Old Testament
law was a provisional gospel for the believer.

§43.
THE FUNDAMENTAL FORMS OF THE PEEFIGURATION OF SALVATION.

These forms, in words, are the original traditions, the promise, the law, prophecy,
the testimony of martyrs.

These forms, in facts, are the allegories, symbols, types, i. e., the dawn, the repre-
teruatiom, and the germ-like preparations for the New Covenant.

Typology commences with the personal types (Adam, Melchizedec, Abraham,
fcc), passes on to the historical types (the sacrifice of Isaac, the exodus from Egypt),
finds its central point in the types of the law (the Mosaic cultus), and complete/

§ 46. THE DEVELOPMENT OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. 51

itself in the mental type, and types in disposition, the preannouncements in the in-
ward state and feeling, of New Testament states (Ps. xxii. ; Isa. vii., &c.).

The types and the word stand in relations to each other, similar to those between
redemption and revelation.

§44.
THE FULFILLING OF SALVATION.

The fulfilling of salvation is the completion of the theanthropic life of Christ, m
its world-atoning, world-redeeming, and world-glorifying power and result. It may
be divided into the introductory fulfilling and the final completion, i. e., into the time
of the first and of the second advent of Christ. The first period embraces the history
of the one peculiar completion of the life of Jesus, and its development in the four
fundamental forms of the four gospels, and the varied doctrinal fundamental forms in
the difierent apostolical types of doctrine, especially of James, Peter, Paul, the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of John, to which, however, we must add, in theii
historical significance, the doctrinal types of the other apostles.

The widei'and final completion of the life of Christ extends through the dififerent
periods of the New Testament kingdom of heaven. {See Lange : Matthew, Am. ed.,
pages 3, 4, 5.

B. Jtevelation of Salvation ; its Development and its Goal.

§ 45.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF BIBLICAL THEOLOGY.

Biblical theology develops itself in essentially the same way with biblical reli
gion. But it develops itself according to its nature after the following fundamental
principles :

1. Biblical doctrine proceeds in its essential development, as in its chronological
divisions, from a fundamental Christological principle : Man destined to the image of
God, or to the perfection of his life in the revelation of the God-man.

2. The essential development of bibUcal doctrines, e. g., the doctrines of the name
of God, of his attributes, of man, of sin, &c., advances in the same measure with the
chronological development of biblical doctrine in difierent periods of time.

3. Every biblical doctrine in its germ -form existed already in the earliest period
of revelation, e. g., the doctrine of immortality.

4. No biblical doctrine reaches its perfect form until the latest period of revela-
tion, i. «., the New Testament fulfilment ; and this fully developed form is reached
m the apostolical period, e. g., the doctrine of the Trinity.

5. Every biblical doctrine in its course of development presents a marked, distinct
continuity ; although one doctrine may now rise into prominence, and then another.
Eence a break and opposition between the Old and New Testament would be a
monstrous supposition, if, e. g., the central part of the revelation of God in the Old
Testament (the angel of the Lord), should be regarded as a created angel, and not
as Christ himself in the preparatory stages of his incarnation, w'hile the central ^gur«
in the New Testament revelation is the God-man,

52

INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

6. Heterogeneous, not, strictly speaking, theocratic doctrines, may prepare the
way for the development of revelation, and promote its progress. They have served
this purpose from the beginning jnvcards (Chaldean, Syrian, Palestinian, Egyptian,
Persian), but the grand forming principle of revelation would never allow any in-
trusion of foreign elements. It is only in the apocrypha that we find any traces of
Buch an intrusion.

I. The development of biblical doctrine is ever in the direction of an onward
progress, an unfolding, from the germ, of a growing spirituality, of a rejection of
temporary forms, but never the form of a progress and growth through opposition
All the antitheses of sacred scripture, even that between the Old and New Testa
ments, are harmonious, not antagonistic or contradictory oppositions.

8. Within the period of any individual biblical doctrine, there is an opposition
and a progressive movement, and between the most diverse periods there exists every
where the unity of the spirit, and hence an indissoluble connection.

9. The word of God, or the principle of revelation, rules and shapes the books of
scripture, as a strong, active, moulding principle. But in the relations of that word
to humanity, it is ever in its unfolding, breaking through the bonds of human error
and in its spirituality proceeds from one stage of revelation to another, to realize its
divine fulness, in a more complete, transparent human perfection.

10. The word of God in its development never destroys human nature, while it
dissolves the shadows within which it lies. It rather sets free, in the measure of its
development, the original powers of the human nature. Hence these marks of origi-
nality, as they were already evident in the characters of the patriarchs, appear in
their most striking forms in the lives of the prophets. It is an absurd and monstrous
supposition, therefore, of which they are guilty who, denying the perfect originality
of the four gospels, view the gospels of Matthew and Luke as copies from the original
of Mark.

II. The doctrine of Jesus passes through well-defined periods of development.
We can distinguish : 1. The explanation of the law in its inward all-prevailing sig-
nificance. 2. The explanation of the Old Testament idea of the kingdom of heaven.

3. The explanation of the Old Testament types of circumcision, and the Passover.

4. The explanation of the Old Testament cultus. 5. The explanation of the entire
Old Testament symbolism, and of the whole symbolism of creation. These chronolo-
gical stages of the development of the doctrine of Christ are made the essential
fundamental forms of the doctrine of Christ, in the doctrinal types of the apostles,
James, Peter, Paul, the Epistle to the Hebrews, John. These types of doctrine sup-
plement and complete each other, but they are as far removed as possible, in their
harmonious agreement, from correcting each other.

12. In the book of Genesis biblical doctrine is a union of the word of God with
the purest expression of human artlessness ; in the Apocalypse, it is the union of the
same word with a conscious, and, as to the Hebrew form, perfected, sacred art.

Remark, — The fundamental laws of the develop-
metit of the introductory revelation in the Bacred
icripbires are also the fundamental laws controlling

the introduction of this revelation into humanity, in
the course of the development of the CbrisUas
Church.

§ 46. BIBLICAL DOCTRINE OF GOD, OR THEOLOGY m THE NARROWER feENSK 5S

SPECIAL BIBLICAL THEOLOGY IN OUTLINE.

§ 46.

BIBLICAL DOCTRINE OF GOD, OR THEOLOGY IN THE NARROWER SENSE.

Biblical theology in the narrower sense, or the doctrine of God, may be divided
uto the doctrine of the knowledge of God founded upon his revelation of himself; of.
the name of God, which has its ground and reasons in his nature ; of the demonstra
tion of the being of God, resting upon the evidence of his universal existence, perfec-
tion, and power; * of the method of his providence, and of the attributes of God, or the
fundamental form of his vital relations to the world and man, grounded ultimately in
his peculiar personality, or the threefold personal distinction in his essence.

Remarks. — 1. The revelation of God is the ground
upon which all our knowledge of God rests. 2. The
name of God is not the nature of God, but designates
objectively the entire revelation, and subjectively the
whole of religion. 3. The nature of God is designated
by the fundamental distinctions : The Lord, Love, Spir-
it. 4. The name of God, proceeding from the uni-
versal to the particular, passes through the names
Elohhn, Eloha, El Eljon, El Schadai, Elohim Zeba-
oth, to the name Father in heaven ; and proceeding
from the theocratic to the universal, it passes from the
names Jehovah, Adonai, Jehovah Zebaoth, to the
name God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
5. The Holy Scriptures recognize and distinguish defi-
nite fundamental forms of the revelation of the di-
vine Providence, which lay the foundation for the
proofs of the divine existence. The general relation
of God to the world may be divided into creation and
providence. The creation may be viewed as the
original creation and as the new formation of that
which was originally created. Providence may be
regarded as the supporting, ruUng, co-working ; and

the co-working as judgment, redemption, and glori-
fication. 6. With the unfolding of providence, the
definition of the divine being according to his attri-
butes comes clearly into view, in which, however,
we must carefully distinguish between the essentia!
and merely nominal marks or designations. In every
period there prevails a peculiar definition, determined
according to the divine attributes. In the primitive
period God is designated as the exalted one (El El-
jon). In the period of the promise as the Almighty
(El Schadai). In that of the law as the Holy one.
In the transition to the prophetic as the righteous,
wise, good. In the period of the prophets as the
most glorious, the Majesty. In the national period
as the condescending; and in the New Testament as
the gracious and merciful. 7. The distinctions in the
divine nature or essence pass through different stages
God and his Angel; the Angel of the Lord (Gen,
xvi. "7 ff.) ; of his countenance (Exodus xxxiii. 14 ff.) ;
of the covenant (Malachi) ; God and his own Son ; God
and his threefold name.

§ 47.
BIBLICAL DOCTRINE OF MAN, OR ANTHROPOLOGY.

The world as the basis and birthplace of man comes first into view here, and the world
as Creation, as Nature, as the Cosmos, as the Aeon, or as the natural world defined
through the spiritual. Then man in his normal state, in his nature (Biblical Anthro-
pology and Psychology), in his destination, his paradisaic origin and condition, and
his fitness for trial. Then further, man in his sin, his fall, his sinfulness, and his original
gin ; and corresponding to this, on the one hand, the guilt, judgment, death, condemna-
bility, and on the other his inward discord and strife, his fitness as a subject of re-
demption, his outlook into the spiritual world, both as one of wretchedness and bliss.
?iis cooperation with divine grace, or his preparation for the Advent of Christ.

[ * This is a very inadequate rendering of the expressive terms which Dr. Lange uses : Daseins, Soseins, Hierseins, in
which he includes the whole field from which we draw the arguments for the being of God : aot merely his existence, hui
lis existence «uch as he is, the concrete idea of God given us in the Bible.— A. G.]

54

INTEODTJCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Remarks. — 1 The creation is a. a single act, b.
icts, works, c. a continuous energy or worls;, d. it
marks the world as conditioned in the highest sense.
2. Nature is the relative independence of the world.
Its first feature calling for notice is the principle of
natur3 Its second, the law of nature. Its third, the
stages in the development of nature. Its fourth, the
goal of nature : the sphere of freedom in which the
grand nature of the kingdom of God is developed.
8. The Cosmos is the beautiful harmony of the world.
It holds its celebration in its ideal perfection. The
sacred reflection of the Cosmos is the Sabbath — the
sacred human festivals. 4. In the Aeon the living
spiritual principles of the world are represented. We
must distinguish first the spiritual and human world,
and then further the Ontology of the spiritual world
from the experience of man in regard to it, as it first
enters with the fall. 6. Biblical Anthropology is
both dualistic and a system of trichotomy. As to
its dualism man belongs in one aspect to the ma-
terial, in the other to the spiritual, world. Accord-
ing to the trichotomy man is, as to his divine quality
or nature, spirit, as to his heavenly or superearthly
form, soul, and as to his earthly organism, body.
6. In the destination of man to the image and like-
ness of God, we must maintain, that man, as the
image of God, is destined to his self-reahzation in
communion with God ; and that particularly, as to his
bodily nature, he is destined to a generic self-realiza-
tion in the spread of humanity from one pair, and as to
his spirituaUty, to his ideal self-realization in the God-

man, and as to his soul, to his social self rcal'zaticn
in the kingdom of God. 1. With the paradisaic stat«
of man comes into consideration the pure beginning
of his life, which is both potential and actual, i. e,,
in one aspect innocence, in another righteousness ;
then his need of being tested, and finally his fitness
for the test. 8. In the doctrine of sin we must dis
tinguish the ideas of sin, of evil in the wide sense,
and strict moral evil. Then the nature of sin, its
genesis, and its development. 9. The consequences
of sin may be viewed as natural and positive, or aa
death and as judgment in the following stages:

Guilt and its imputation. This again branches it^
self a. into the continuation of sin :

1. Sinfulness, or the status corruptionis, and pun-
ishment ;

2. original sin, and the curse of sin ;

3. the hardening (stage of unbelief) and the ro
jection, fitness for condemnation;

4. The second death or condemnation.

b. into the reaction against sin ; the natural reaction,
or the consciousness of guilt on the part of man, tha
positive reaction, or the preparative grace of God :

1 . the desure after the lost Paradise and the Cher-
ubim;

2. the desire after a new and higher salvation and
the Protevangelium ;

5. faith and the promise ;

4. the stages of faith and the stages of the advent
of Christ.

§ 48.
BIBLICAL CHRISTOLOGT, AND SOTEKIOLOGT.

Ohristology may naturally be divided into the typical and prophetic Old Testament
messianic Ohristology, the evangelical Ohristology, or the history of the conscious being
and revelation of Christ in his life, and the apostolic Ohristology, or the biblically com-
pleted doctrine of his person.

Soteriology embraces the doctrine of the three Messianic offices of Ohrist, of the
historical unity of the work of Christ, and of his eternal theanthropic work, in which
he descends into the abyss of human judgment through his compassion, and raises
believing humanity to the inheritance of his Sonship and blessedness.

Remarks. — 1. The Old Testament Christology
Bows from the fact, that from every judgment of God
(here springs a divine promise, and that thus the re-
ligion of the past is transformed i.ito a religion of
the future. This religion of the future, under the
providence of God, ever moves onward to the future
in act« and in consciiousness : in the one through the
miracles, or in the allegorical, symbolic, and typical
history of salvation ; in the other through prophecy
ui its different stages. As lO the allegory, the forms

of the higher nature are in opposition to the forms
of the lower nature, and thus represent the opposi-
tion of the kingdom of God to the kingdom of dark-
ness. In the symbolical acts and works, the human
civiUzation becomes the image of the divine cultus.
In the region of the types, i. e., of the germhke pre-
figuration of that which is to be completed in the fu-
ture, wemust distinguish the typology of the Covenant
(Covenant or Testament), the typology of the kingdom,
and the typology of the Messiah. Messianic propheoT

§49. THE DOCTRINE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

5f

proceeds from the prophecy of the human conflict, the
Semitic reverence for God, the blessing upon Abraham,
the warlike and peaceful sceptre of Judah, the typical
Messiah in the genealogy of David, to the prophecy
of the ideal personal Messiah ; and again from the
one prevailing form of the Messiah, it advances to
the distinction of the lowly and suffering, and the
exalted glorious Messiah. But with the idea of a
Buffering Christ there appears the idea of Antichrist
and his typical signs or marks. With the prophecy
of the Messiah there is unfolded also a prophecy
of the redemption and transfiguration of the world
through a series of saving judgments proceeding from
those which are introductory, to those which are uni-
versal and complete. 2. In the Evangelical Christo-
logy, or the Christology of the life of Christ, we may
view the Christology of the stages of his personal
life (his miraculous birth, baptism, transfiguration,

resurrection, ascension), and of his self-consciousnesi
in his teachings, of his Christological acts, his miraclca
and his redeeming work. 3. In the biblical Soteri.
ology we must distinguish the unity of the work of
Christ, from its division into his three offices. The
one entire work of Christ has been profoundly de-
scribed by Luther and others as a7i exchange of re-
lations. Christ has taken our sin, i. «'., the conscious-
ness of condemnation, upon himself, in order that
he might make us sharers in his righteousness ; i. e.,
in his great compassion he has entered into our con-
sciousness of guilt, as a consciousness of judgment,
that he might take us into the consciousness of hia
righteousness. As to the offices, we must distinguish
his prophetic redemption or world-atonement, hifl
priestly expiation, and his kingly redemption in n
narrower sense- ((S«e Lanqe : JPositiv Dogmatik, p-
793 ff.)

§49.

BIBLICAL PNEUMATOLOGT AND THEOCRATOLOGT, OB THE DOCTRINE OF THE

KINGDOM OF GOD.

This embraces the doctrine of the Spirit of God, and his works, or of the Old Tes-
tament typical kingdom of God, based upon his universal and absolute kingdom over
the vrorld, in its friendly and hostile relations to the kingdoms of the world (Daniel,
ch. ii., vli.) ; of the New Testament kingdom of heaven established by Christ, in its
opposition to the kingdom of Satan, and of the final appearance of the perfected king-
dom of God, in the glorified world, and in its complete triumph over the kingdom of
darkness.

The doctrine of the Old Testament kingdom of God treats of the historical signifi-
cance and importance of the opposition between Judaism and Heathenism.

The doctrine of the New Testament kingdom of God branches into the doctrine
of the personal definite method of salvation, of the ecclesiastical and social institu-
tion of salvation, and of the application and spread of this completed salvation to
the utmost boundaries of the world.

Its stages are the following :

1. a. individual death ;

8. a. social death, or the fall of

Babel ;
t. rt. death of the old world. End

of the world ;

6. intermediate state ;

h. Anti-Christendom ;

b. the final completed resurrec-
tion, and the separation in
the judgment ;

c. the individual progressive re-
surrection ;

c. the appearance of Christ and
the millennial kingdom ;

c. the eternal energy and result
of the city of God, and its
glory to the honor of God^
(Rev. xxii.)

The doctrine of the completed kingdom of God rests upon the biblical disclosure
of the Aeon of the blessed, and the Aeons of the condemned, over which rules, im-
oartii:"' to them unity, the absolute fulfilment of the divine purposes, of the end of
(,he world, and the glory of God.

56

INTKODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMEJNT.

Remarks. — 1. Pneumatology is more widely de-
veloped through the doctrine of the Spirit, for which
theology has as yet done comparatively little (see
Lange : Theol. Oogmatik, p. 926), [see also Owen :
Work on the Spirit. — A. 6.]. 2. The doctrines of
the absolute dominion of God, of the kingdom of the
grace of God, and the kingdom of glory, must be
more accurately distinguished than has been done
hitherto. 3. The interchange between the progress
of the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness,
how they serve to facilitate each other's progress,
how in critical moments they reject and exclude each
ather, how the apparent subjection of the first is al
ways the real subjection of the last, how the victory
of the kingdom of God, through the cross of Christ,
is as a preliminary victory decided, how the two
kingdoms move on side by side to their widest com-
f letion, and how the last apparent trimnph of the

kingdom of darkness, in the revelation of Antichrist,
introduces his final judgment under the triumph of
the kingdom of God ; all this needs a more adequats
estimation, explanation, and statment. 4. The sig-
nificance of the historical opposition between Juda-
ism and Heathenism, Hebraism and Hellenism, re
quires a clearer and more detailed statment. Beyond
the hostile opposition between Shem and Ham, there
may be seen also the friendly opposition between
Shem and Japhet, tending to supplement each other.
6. For the organism of the individual method of sal-
vation, which generally lies still in great confusion
(see Lange : Positiv Dogmatik, p. 950). [This Is
less true perhaps in England and in this country,
than in Germany. — A. G.] For the Christological
structure of the church in its various stages— the
.same, p. HOY, and finally for its organism during
its eschatological stages, p. 1225.

SECOND DIVISION.

FR ACTIO AL EXPLANATION, AND HOMILETICAL
USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the apostolic communities, and through the entire apostolic age, the reading
of the Old Testament was confessedly an essential foundation for the public solemn
edification of Christians. Hence we find, in the New Testament writings, the first
fundamental outlines of the practical explanation of the Old Testament. We may go
still further back, and say, that juit as the New Testament gives a doctrinal and
practical explanation of the Old, so the later writings in the Old Testament serve to
explain the earlier and more fundamental portions. But as Christ enters, or is intro-
duced, in the New Testament, as the absolute interpreter (Matt, v, 1 7), so his Apos-
tles carry on his work as interpreters of the Old Testament. We call special atten-
tion, in this view, to the Gosj^els by Matthew and John, the Acts, the Epistle to the
Galatians and that to the Hebrews.

The apostolic Fathers also have proved in a large measure interpreters of the
Old Testament. Besides some allegorical fancies in the epistle of Barnabas, we re
cognize some very valuable and profound suggestions. Clemens of Rome, in his first
letter to the Corinthians, after he has exhorted the Corinthians to repentance, quotes
testimonies and examples from the Old Testament, from ch. viii.-xiii. and passing
over other citations, even in reference to the life of Christ, ch. xvii.-xix. and still
farther on, he constantly mingles quotations from the Old Testament with those from
the New. This is true also in some measure of the second epistle bearing the same
name. The Ignatian epistles are in this respect remarkably reserved, perhaps out of
regard to the Judaizers. In Polycarp hIso the citations from the New Testament are
very prominent. Tlie anonymous lettei to Diognetus represents still more strikingly

PRACTICAL EXPLAIJATION AND HOMILETICAL USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 57

in this respect, an anti-judaistio stand-point, althougli there is no necessity for im
puting to its au jhor a Gnostic antagonism to the Old Testament. In the Pastor of
Hermas there are not wanting Old Testament allusions, still he is more closely related
to the Old Testament, in his imitation of the prophetic forms, and in his legal view,
than in that living appropriation of it which characterizes the New Testament. The boot
of Hermas points to the great Christian apocryphal literature, in which the Jewish
Apocrypha perpetuates itself, and in which indeed the most diverse imitations of the
Old Testament writings are continued. (The Sybellines, the 4th book of Ezra, the
book of Enoch, and others.)

Among the Apologists, Justin Martyr, about the middle of the second century,
appears as a Christian philosopher who was familiar with the Old Testament. This
is clear from his dialogue with Trypho. But also in his Cohortatio nd Graecos he,
as also others of the Fathers, not recognizing the better peculiarities of heathenism,
traces back the monotheism and wisdom of Plato to Moses and the prophets. In his
apologies, which were directed to heathens, he makes use of Old Testament prophe-
cies. Tatian, notwithstanding his Gnosticism, refers to the Old Testament. Theophi-
lus of Antioch (ad Autolycum) contrasts the Old Testament account of the creation,
with that of Hesiod (ii. 13), in which, although an Antiochian, and before that school,
he explains the historical facts symbolically, while retaining at the same time the
historical sense. He continues the history of Genesis, and of the Mosaic system, with
constant reference to heathenism. Generally speaking, his representation moves
upon the line of the sacred scriptures from the Old to the New Testament. Besides
the general free use of the Old Testament in the Fathers, which even becomes exces-
sive, in so far as the Old Testament conception of the cultus, its hierarchical and
sacrificial ideas, and certain legal precepts, have been adopted in a more or less ex-
ternal way into the New Testament doctrine, order of worship, and constitution ;
there are special portions made prominent, in which the Old Testament continues its
life in the New Testament theology, and in the cultus of the church. The first of
these is the manifold exposition and explanation of the work of creation, especially
of the six days' work, by which we oppose both the heathen dualistic view of the
world and Polytheism. The second is the Christian development of the doctrine of
the kingdom of God, especially of the Messianic prophecies. The third is the
Christian, human, pastoral, and catechetical development of the decalogue. The
fourth is the transmission of the Old Testament Psalmody in the New Testament
Hymnology and Cultus of the Church. To these we must add that allegorical method
of exposition, which culminated in the Alexandrian school, by means of which the
Christian consciousness appropriates to itself and reproduces in a Christian way the
whole contents of the Old Testament. Finally the culture of the biblical method
and style of preaching, under the influence of the Old Testament, in connection with
the Greek and Roman rhetoric. As to the first point, Clemens of Alexandria had
in view a commentary upon Genesis. There was a work of TertuUian, now lost,
upon Paradise. About the year 196 Candidus wrote upon the hexsemeron. Besides
a work upon Genesis, Hippolytus published several works upon the Old Testament
scriptures. Origen prepared a commentary upon Genesis, and also a series of mystical
homilies upon the same book, as also upon a large number of other biblical books.
Cyprian published a song upon Genesis. Victorinus, about 290, wrote a Tractatim d«
Fabrica mundi. Methodius, about the same time, Gommentarii in Genesin. Hie-
racus (the heretic), in 302, Lucubrationes in Sexcemeron. Eustathius, 325, Com

fiS

INTKODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

mentarivs in Hexmmeron. James of Edessa, about the same time, Sexmmeron ad
Gonstantinum. Basil the Great, about 370, nine Homilies upon the six days. Ilia
brother Gregory of Nyssa also wrote upon the six days' work. About 374, Ambrose
v^rote six books upon the same theme. Jerome, towards the end of the 4th century,
prepared questions upon Genesis. Chrysostom wrote 67 Homilies upon Genesis,
Augustine wrote upon Genesis in many of his works. These works show clearly how
important Genesis, the doctrine of the creation, the statement of the six days' work,
appeared to the Fathers, in their controversies with heathenism.

That the explanation of the ten commandments was in like manner, next to the
gradually perfected apostles' creed, one of the oldest branches of Christian catechet-
ical instruction, needs scarcely any proof.

The idea of one prevailing view of the Old and New Testament kingdom of God
appears already in the apology of Theophilus of Antioch. The Chronography of
Julius Africanus, the Chronicon of Eusebius of Cesarea, as well as his arrangement
and demonstration of the gospel, lay a wider foundation for the same idea. The great
work of Augustine, De Civitate Dei, belongs here, as also the sacred history by Sulpi-
tius Severus, and generally the prevailing character of the historical statements or
chronicles of the West, running down through the middle ages, since they all go
back to the Old Testament and even to Adam.

As to the importance of the Old Testament Psal- I pare Otto Straus : The Psalter as a Song ami
ter, and its liistory in the Christian Church, com- I Prayer Book. A historical tractate. Berlin, 1859.

Through the allegorical explanation of the scripture in the Alexandrian School,
and still more in the middle ages, the entire Old Testament assumed a New Testa-
ment form and meaning, as to the inner Christian life and spiritual experience, while
at the same time, as to the organization of the church and the cultus, the New Testa-
ment became simply a new publication of the old.

On the Mediaeval exposition of the scriptures,
compare The A llegorical Explanation of the Bible,
enpecially in Preaching, by Von Mogelin (1844).
Elstee : The Exegetical Theology of the Middle Ages
(1855). Thohjck: TIw Old Testament in the Sew,
4th edition (,1864). J. G. KosENMtJLLER : History
of Interpretation in the Christian Church (1795-
1814). Meter : Geschichte der Schrifterklarung,
5 vol. 1802-18Q9. ScHDLER : Geschichte der Ver-
es Geschmackes in Predigen, 1792. For

the critical and theological exposition of the Old
Testament generally, consult M. Baumgarten ; Com-
mentary upon the Old Testament, the General Intro-
duction to the Old Testament. \_See also upon the
use of the Old Testament in the New. Faiebairn :
Typology, 2d edition, and Hermeneutical Manual.
Alexander, W. L. : Connection and Harmony of the
Old and New Testament. London (1853). Pri-
DEAHx: Connection, new ed. London (1866). —
A. G.]

The mediaeval mystics especially gave the widest limits to the letter of the Old
Testament, and brought out into the light the multiplicity of the ideas lying at its
root, as they rightly conjectured, through the theory of the fourfold sense of scrip-
ture.

Littera gesta docet, quid credos allegoria,
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.

The Song of Solomon was a favorite book for spiritual exposition, even in the
time of the Father?. It was still more so during the middle ages, and has retained
its position in the field of homiletical and ascetic literature to this day. The cats
logue of the literature of this book alone would make a small volume.

PRACTICAL EXPLANATION AND HOMILETICAL USE OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 59

There haa lately been republished : The words of St. Bernard upon the Sang ; German, by Fern
bacher, 1862.

The exposition of the Bible was generally, during the middle ages, to a great ex
tent practical, or designed for edification, and this indeed for the moat part in a my*
tical way. This was true even with the expositions of the scholastics. This is in
accordance with the practical direction of the middle ages, with the ignorance of tha
riginal languages, with the prevalence of dogmatics and church institutions and
laws, and with that resulting, repressed respect for the Holy Scriptures. Gregory
the Great, in this point of view, opens the middle ages, when, after the canon of Origen
as to the threefold sense of scripture, he composed his Moralia in Jobum, after hav-
ing provided in a collection of excerpts (Procopius of Gaza about 520 ; Primasius of
Adrymettum about 550 ; Aurelius Cassiodorus after 562), the so-called Catense for
a necessary aid to the learned exposition of the scripture. Isidorus of Hispalis, the
venerable Bede, and others, follow later. A certain peculiarity attaches itself to the
British method of exposition, as it was founded by the Archbishop Theodore oi
Canterbury ; to the German exposition as it, e. g., is represented in the Saxon Evan
gelical poetry of Heliand ; and later to the French and German mystics, who take
their origin from the mystical writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius. The clear reference
of the Holy Scriptures to the inner life, especially as a contemplative life, may be re-
garded as the great acquisition of the middle ages.

This practical exposition of the Scriptures, it is true, as practised by Claudius of Turin,
Alcuin, Paul Warnefried, Rabanus Maurus, Christian Druthmar, Peter Lombard,
Cardinal Hugo, Abelard, John of Salisljury, Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, but
especially by the mystics Bernard of Clairveaux and his followers, was used for the
advantage of priestly and monkish classes.

Meanwhile the reformation of the exposition of the Scriptures was prepared dur-
ing the middle ages. It must first of all be brought back to the original languages
and the grammatical sense. The learned Jews of the middle ages, with their lin-
guistic studies and expositions of the Old Testament, provided for this return (Aben
Esra, Jarchi, Kimchi, and others). As to the New Testament, whose learned expo-
sition in the spirit of Chrysostom, OEcumenius, Theophylact, and Euthymius Ziga-
benus, had prosecuted, that human learning, transplanted from Greece to the West,
and awakened and cultivated in the West itself, served the same purpose which the
labors of the Jews did for the Old Testament. Thus there was prepared, since
Nicholas of Lyra (who died about 1340), Wiclifie, Huss, with Laurentius Valla,
Reuchlin, Erasmus, a scientific exposition of the Scriptures, which began at once by
its critical process to free itself from mediaeval traditions.

But the exposition of the Scriptures must at the same time be made popular, and,
in the form of Bible readings, sermons, catechisms, household instructions and training,
be introduced among the people. Besides a few great popular preachers (Berthold,
the Franciscan, 1272, John Tauler, 1361, Vincentius Ferreri, 1419, Leonard of Utino,
1470, and others), the pious sects of the middle ages, especially the Waldenses, and
the well-known forerunners of the Reformation, labored to secure this result.

The last-mentioned class prepared that introductory, profound, and scientifio
e-xposition of Scripture in which the Reformation arose, and through which alone
it could su?<5essfully assert that full, new unveiling and revelation of the Holy Scrip
ture as it lived in the heart, the word of justification by faith, and thus established
Lis sole authority in matters of faith.

60 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

With the great reformers, that introductory exposition of the Bible, purified
through its critical processes, brought back to the grammatical and historical sense,
whUe at the same time mystical and inward, on one side learned, on the other popular
first entered into the popular life, however the fetters of ecclesiastical exegetica]
tradition may have restrained the freedom of individuals. This exposition in its
scientific aspect led to a new construction of the entire theology, in its ecclesiastical
aspect to the laying anew all the foundations of church ic.sfitutious and order^ in
its popular aspect to the production of countless sermons and hymns. Flaccus lUyr-
icus reduced these acquisitions to their rules in the first protestant Hermeneutics in
his Olavis Scripturce Sacrce, 1567.

From this time onward the history of the exposition of the Scriptures is so com
prehensive that we can only describe it after its periods. To the period of the Re-
formation, in which the prevailing principle was the Analogia fidei, and during which
the Lutheran Exegesis struck into a synthetical and critical direction, and the lie-
formed into an analytical and practical, succeeded at first the period of interpreta-
tion according to the Orthodox symbols, and in which the different confessions
shaped and determined the exegesis. This period extends through the ultra-critical
exegesis of the Unitarians, and partially also that of the Arminians, and through the
allegorical exposition both of the Catholic and of the Protestant mystics (Madame
Guion, Antoinette Bourignon, Jacob Boehme), which here again, as in the middle
ages, forms the side-stream to the new scholastic main current. This last tendency
passed over partially into the subjectively practical pietistic school, whose principle
of interpretation was the word of God, the word of personal salvation, as the seed of
personal regeneration. The Lutheran interpretation, as it was pre-eminently dog-
matic, was ever seeking to find the New Testament dogmas in the Old Testament,
i. e., it distinguished less accurately the times. The Reformed, with a more correct
estimate of the historical, distinguished definitely times and economies, and found,
therefore, in the Old Testament the typical prefigurations of the New, but fell also,
in the Cocceian school, into a typology which knew no rules, or into allegorical fan-
cies and excesses. This distinction was reversed in their views of the law. Luther
made the opposition between Moses and Christ too great, while Calvin suflfered him-
self to be influenced by the Mosaic system even in questions of ecclesiastical law. For
the orthodox the Bible was a mine oi dicta probantia, for the mystics it was a record of
a visionary, inspired, mysterious, all-pervading view of the world. Pietism strove
to unite these in its method of interpretation.

That Rationalism, in its period, has both corrupted and promoted criticism, has
made exegesis more shallow and superficial, while it has made it more pure and
simple, has both falsified and uprooted scripture doctrine in its reference to life, as it
has developed it practically and morally, is now confessed, i. e., it is confessed that it
forms in one total representation a revolution of unbelief, and a reform of the believ-
ing consciousness. But if it advances from that grammatical historical principle, illy
understood (since the biblical letter was not seen in its peculiar depth, the biblical
facts or persons in their complete originality), to the last destructive results of the
pseudo-criticism, so also it has in its interchange with Bupernaturalism from the same
principle, correctly understood, wrought a more profound exposition of the scripture,
according to the fundamental principle of scripture. It has introduced the Christolog-
ical explanation of the scripture, which forms the Uving centre of the present exposi-
tion of the Bible. However, it has not interrupted the flow of biblical investigation

PRACTICAL EXPLANATION AND HOMILETICAL USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

01

and exposition, but urged it on more rapidly, since it was animated by the idea, that
the doctrine of the Bible would prove the most efficient means of overthrowin"- tha
churchly dogmatics. A striking testimony for the extraordinary activity in the inter
pretation of the Scriptures, from the Reformation until our own time, is found in th«
commentaries, the collections of sermons, concordances, systems of biblical theology
and especially the Bibleworks, which are now appearing so rapidly.

Catalogues of collected Bibleworka, exegetioal and
homiletical, may be seen in Waloh : Bibliolheca theol.
vol. iv. p. 181. WiNEE : Sandbuch der theologischen
ZMeratur, i. p. 186. The Supplement, p. 77. Danz,
p 134. In Starke: ^iiZeraort we find named as his
predecessors the Bibleworks (Lutheran) of BtjNE-
KANN, Cramer, Dietrich Teit, Nicolatjs Hasius,
Joachim Lange, Horch {Mystical Bible, Marburgh),
Oleahius, the two Osianders, Zeltner (Reformed),
Castellio, Tremellius, Piscator, Tossanps (Cath-
olic), Walafried Strabo, Lyra, Pattlus ji Sanota
Maria. Further, the Ernestine Bible, theWurtemberg
Bommarien, Die Tiibingische Bibel, under the direc-
tion of Matthew Pfaff (Lutheran). — Reformed works :
Die Berleburgische Bibel, the English, Belgic, Ge-
nevan (with notes by Maresius) Bibles. Das Deut-
Bche Oder Herborn'sche Bibelwerk. — Besides these.
Hall : Practical Applications, Freibergische Parallel-
bibel, ITcenii thesaurus. Also a series of special
Bibleworks upon the New Testament. Hedinger,
Majus, MtTLLER, Quesnel, Zeisius. Of modern

Bibleworks we name : Von Hetzel (10 Theile, 1180
-1791), with 2 Theile iiber die Apokryphen (von
FnHRMANN in seinem Handbuch der theolog. Literafi*
ungunstig beurlheilt). Altenburger Bibel-Commeu
tar far Prediger, 1799 (von einem Verein von Pre
digern). Those of Oertel, Fischer, and Wohl-
fahrt. Dinter and Brandt. Also the list in Lange
Biblework, ilatthew, Am. ed. p. 19. For-the great
number of works, preparatory to the Holy Scriptures,
Lexicons, Concordances, and similar aids, see Danz
and Winer. Lange: Matthew, Am. ed. pp. 18, 19.
English Bibleworks : Nelson : Antideistic Bible.
Burnet: New Testament. Henkt: Exposition [in
England, the general commentaries, by Poole, Gill,
the two Cls RKES, Samuel and Adam, Patrick Lowth,
and Whitbv, Scott, Burder, and others of less note.
In this country the literature is rich in special com-
mentaries, while there are no general commentaries,
unless we include in the teim popular works, like
that published by the American Tract Society. — A.
G.]

The practical exposition of the Scriptures was limited, in the Lutheran church by
the order in which they were read in the church service, in the Reformed by its stronger
dogmatic tradition. But in the end the more profound view of the Analogia fidei
there, and of the Analogia scripturae here, led to the great reform in biblical criticism,
exposition, theology, preaching, and catechetical instruction, which places us to-day
on the very threshold of a new epoch. (See Remarks, § 1.)

Recently the study of the Old Testament centres again upon Genesis, the Mosaic
records of the creation, the six days; since the conflict with modern unbelief, for the
defence of these principles of the kingdom of God, which are here laid down in the
beginning of the Scriptures, must be met and settled here.

For the literature: see Lddwig: Ueber die prak-
tische Auslegung der heiligen Schrift, Frankfurt, 1859.
Dickinson : Physica vetus et vera, sive tractatus de na-
turali veritate Hexaem^ri mosaici, London, 1702.
[The works of Hitchcock, Hugh Miller, Dana, J.
Pte Smith. The Bridgewater treatises. Lord, the
articles in the Bibliotheca sacra, urging the view of
Prof. GcYOT. The Commentary on Genesis, by Ja-
SOBCS. Wiseman : Lectures. Tatler Lewis : Six

Days of Creation, and The Bible and Science.
MnRPHT : Bible and Geology. Pattison : T/ie Earth
arid the Word. Kurtz : Bible and Astronomy.
Sumner : The Records of the Creation. Birks : On
the Creation, Hancock : On the Deluge. The con-
troversy, started by Colenso, has already been fruitful
in its literary results. See Mahan : the spiritual
point of view. Green : The Pentateuch vindiciied
(against Colenso). — A. G.]

62

INTRODrrCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

THIRD DIVISION.

THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL LITERATURE
UPON THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Se.e Lange : MaUhew, Am. ed. pp. 1 Y, 18. For the
older literature consult the catalogue in Starke:
Bihlework, the appendix to the fifth part, entitled
Oeneral register, &c., pp. l^*!. Also Heidegger: En-
chiridion, pp. 15, 16. Waloh: Bibliotheca theolog.
vol. iv. p. 205. Fchrmann : Handbueh der theolog.
Literatur, ii. p. 8. Danz : Worterbueh, p. 938, Supple-
ment, p. 10. Winer: i. p. 67, Supplement, p. 31.
Hagenbach: Encydopddie, p. 176, to which is added
the literature of biblical Philology, p. 122. Compare
also a alieteh of a history of Old Testament exegesis
InBLEEK: Einleitung, p. 129. Kurtz: History of
the Old Testament, p. 62. De Wette : Einleitung,
p. 159. [See also the comparatively full lists of the
older literature, given in Horne : Introduction, and
the partial Msts in Kitto : Cyclopedia, and Smith ;
Bible Dictionary, Davidson : Hermeneutics, the his-
torical part. — -A. G.]

1. Introduction.— De Wette, Haeverniok,
Bleek, Staehelin (1862). — Special critical works.
Staehelin : Kritische Untersuchungen iiber den Pen-
tateuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings (1843). KoE-
NiQ : Alttestamentliche Sttidien, 1. Heft : Authentic
des Buches Josua (1836); 2. Heft: Das Deuterono-
mium und der Prophet Jeremias (1839). Also G. A.
Hatjff, Riehm, Caspar: : Cordrihutions to the intro-
duction to Isaiah. Hengsteneerg : BeitrUge. Geiger
(Jew) : Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel, &c.
(1857). {p^vmsos: Introduction. McDonald: /»-
troduction to the Pentateuch. The Introduction to
Baumgarten : Commentary — in the 1 st vol. Hamil-
ton: Ttie friend of Moses. — A. G.]

2. General examination of the Old Testa-
ment.— Chappuis, Lausanne (1838). Kohlbruegge,
Elberfeld (1853). Boehner, Zurich (1859). Fried-
rich, GuMPACH, Westermeter, Schaffhausen
(1860).

3. More general Commentaries. — Kurzge-
fassies exegetisches Handhuch, by Hitzig, Hirzel,
Olshausen, Thenids, Knobel, Bertheau, &c.
(Leipzig, 1841, ff., embraces also the Apocrypha).
The Commentary now in progress by Keil and
Delitzsjh. For special commentaries : see Lange:
MattheK, Am. ed. p. 19. [Besides those referred
to, there may be consulted : On the Old Testament,
on Genesis, and the Pentateuch : Bonar, Cdm-
MiNGS, Graves, Hamilton, Jacobus, Jamieson,
MuBPHi Wordsworth. — Also Abbott : On Jonah.

BiRDOES : On Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Rev. J
Burroughs : 0» /fosea. Borrows: OntheSong. Ca
ryl: On Job. Davidson: On Esther. Drake: On /o
nah and Hosea. Greenhill and Guthrie : On Ez»
kiel. HoRSLET : On the Psalms. Moore : On the Pro
phets of the Restoration. Tregelles : On Daniel
Young : On Ecclesiastes. — A. G.]

4. Biblevrorks. — Burmann : T/ie five books of
Moses down to Esther (1733). Michaelis : Transla-
tion of the Old and ^ew Testament, with explanations.
Berber and AuQUSTi : Praktische Einleit. in's Altt
Testament (1799). Bleckert : Das Gesetz und die
Verheissting (1852). Philippson : Die heilige Schrifl
in deutscher Uebersetzung, &c. Sd ed. (1862). The-
saurus biblicus, 1 Dan., Suesskind (1 856). General
Bibleworks, Lange : Matthew, Am. ed. p. 19.

5. Works embracing the principal points in
question. — a. The kingdom of God ; Jewish History :
JosT (1869). Dessauer (1862). Da Costa (1855).
Chr. Hofmann. Kurtz : Sacred History of the Old
Covenant. Hofmann : \Veissag\mg und Erfiillung.
BuEHEiNO (1862). [Edwards: History of Redemp
tion. Alexander : History of the Israelitish Nation,
Blakie : Bible History. CoE : Sacred History and
Biography, London, 1S60. Fleetwood: History of
the Bible. Kitto, Johnston : Israel in the World. G.
Smith: Hebrew People. HiAtiLEY : History of the Jew-
ish Church. — A. G ]

6. The History of the kingdom of God

Whatelt : Kingdom of Christ. Histories of the king-
dom of God, by Hess, Zahn, Braem, and others.
Structure of General History, by Weitbrecht, Eh-
RENPEUCHTER, Eyth, and others, Apelt : Die Epochen
der Geschichte der Menachheit. (The Gospel of the
Kmgdom, Leipzig.) Ehrlich : Leitfaden fur Vor-
lesungen iiber die Offenbarung Gottes (1860). Lisco
(1830). Kalkar (1838). Kirchee (1845). Apel
(1860). Caird and LuTZ (1858). Theurer(1862).— b.
Christology. Naegelsbach: Der Gottmensch, thefun-
damental idea of Revelation in its unity and historical
development (1853). Trips : Die Theophanien in the
historical books of the Old Testament (1858). Bade
Christologie des Alien Testaments. Scholz : Hand-
bueih der Theologie des Alten Bundes (1861). Theo-
logies dogmaticce Judoeorum brevis Expositio, by
RoETH. Beetholdt: Christologia Judaorum. Ew.
ALD, Henostenbero, Hofmann, Coqueril, Lull
Stkudel, Oehler, Haeverniok. Mater • Die vairi-

THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL LITERATURE UPON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 63

archalischen Verheissungen und Messianisclien Psal-
men. Hitzig : Die prophetischen JBiicher des Alten
Testaments (1864). Schegg: Die kleinen Propheten
(1864). — 0. Messianic types. Kanne: Christus im Al-
ten TestaJtiMt. Hiller : Die Peihe der Vorhilder Jesii
Christi im Alten Testament, nevr ed. by A. Knapp.
Lisco : Das Ceremonialgesetz des Alten Testaments
(1842). Baehk: /Sj/mfto/iA (183'7). Baehb. SaZo-
monische Tempel, — also Kurtz, Friedrioh, Saeto-
Eins, Keil, Kliefoth, and others. — A more partic-
ular leference will be made in the Biblework upon
Leviticus. [Fairbairn: Typology. Marsh : iccteres,
and worlis of less note and importance. Matthews,
Keach, J. Taylor, Godld.-A. G.] — d. Messianic pro-
phecies. T^EWios-.Zecture on the Prophecies. Kiestee,
Knobel, Ewald, Tholuck. Staehelin : Die Messia-
mschen Weissagungen, &c. (1847). Meinektzhagen :
Tbrlesungen iiber die Christologie des Alten Testa-
ments (1843). Reinke: Die Messianischen Psalmen
(1867). — Die Weissagungen (\S(}%). — Hengsteneerg :
Christology, 2d ed. Baur : History of the Old Tes-
tament Prophecy {^8&1). [Smith : Scripture testimony
to the Messiah ; Magee : On the Atonement ; Paber :
On the Prophecies ; Warburton : Divine Legation;
HcRD : Introduction to the Study of the Prophets ;
Jones : Lectures ; Graves : Lectures on the Penta-
teuch ; McEwEN : Essay ; Samuel Mathers : On the
figures and types of the Old Testament ; Kidd : Chris-
tophany; Steward : Mediatorial Sovereignty ; Tijen-
BULL : Theopliany. — A. G.]

7. Principal writers of recent times. — J. D.

MiCHAELTS, RoSENMULLER, DaTHE, MeURER, J. J.

Hess : Of the kingdom of God (1774-1791). Heng-
BTENBERG : Christology; Beitrdge ; Authenticity of the
Pentateuch ; of Daniel ; Books of Moses and Egypt ;
History of Balaam and his prophecy ; on the Psalms ;
\Bork upon the sacrifices ; on Job ; Ecclesiastes ; the
Song of Solomon ; and a work upon the Apocrypha.
Ewald : History of the people of Israel ; Poetical
hook ; Prophets ; Jahrbucher der biblischen Wissen-
lehMft, 1 1 vols. Umbreit : Praktischer Commentar
zu der, Propheten. Hupfeld : Die Genesis ; die Psal-
men. Delitzsch : Genesis ; Psalms ; Song of Solo-
mon. Baumgarten : Commentary upon Pentateuch
and Zachariah. [On Genesis : Bush, Hackett, Jaco-
bus, — on Psalms : J. A. Alexander, — on Job :
Barnes, Conant, — on Proverbs : M. Stuart, Bridges,
—on the Song: Burroughs,— on Ecclesiastes: Young,
—on Isaiah : Baenes, Henderson, Drechslee, Alex-
ander,— on Ezeldel : Haeternick, Faiebaien, — the
minor Prophets : Hendeeson, Perot, Moore. — A. G.]

8. Sermons upon Old Testament Books. — S.
Fuhemann : Handbuch, p. 263. Hohnbaum : Predig-
kn, 2 vols. (1788-1789). Beter : Die Geschichte der
Urwelt in Predigten, 2 vols. (1795). The History of

Israel in Sermons (1811). Predigten, von Sturm
(1785). [Graves: Lectures on Pentateuch. Fui,
ler: Discourses on Genesis. Lauson: Lectures on
Ruth and Esther. Scott : Lectures em Daniel. Mc
Duff: OnElijah. Norton and Chandler: OnDavid.
Blunt : On Abraham ; and a very wide literature of
this liind in the works of the older English divinet.
—A. G.]

9. Homiletical and practical writings on tha
Old Testament. — Beyer ; Predigten, an attempt to
guard the unlearned against the attacks of enemies
and scoffers. Bender : Old Testament examples in
demons, 3 vols. (1857-1858). Gollhard: Outlines
of sermons upon the historical books of the Old Tes-
tament (1854). W. Hofmann: Predigten, vols. 4 and
5. F. W. Krummachee : Neue Predigten, book of
the advent (1847). H. Arndt : Christus im Alten
Bunde (1861). G. D. Krummaoher : Predigten,
Emil Krummaoher: Gideon, der Richter Israeli
(1861). Natorp: Predigtenuber das Buch Ruth (\%()S).
Arndt : Der Maun nach dem Herzen Gottes (1836).
DissELHOF (1869) : Upon Saul and David. Baum-
garten: David der Konig {U^2) ; Introduction to the
book of Kings, Halle (1861). Paulus Cassel: Ko-
nig Jeroboam (1857). F. W. Krummaoher : Homilies
upon Elijah and Eliaha [published by Tract Society,
N. Y.— A. G.]. DiEDEiCH : Das Buch Hiob (1858).
Ebeard : The same. The Psalms, by J. D. Frisch,
new ed. (1857). Burk : Gnomon Psalmorum (1760).
Oetinger : Die Psalmen Davids, newly revised (miO).
Veillodter: Predigten (\S2Q). Iken: Trostbibel fur
Kranke, in ei7iem passenden Auszug aus den Psalmen
(1836). Psalmen von Thalhofee [Catholic] (1860).
Taube andGuEKTHER: On the Psalms. Hammer: Dit
Psalmen des Alten Testaments ; The words of St. Ber-
nard upon the Song (1862). F. W. Krummaoher,
Jahn, Maydorn : Das Hohe lAed. W. Hofmann : Die
grossen Propheten, explained in the writings of the
Reformers. Schroeder : Die Propheten Hosea, Joel,
Amos, ubersetzt und erlautert. Diedrich : Daniel,
Hosea, Joel, Amos, briefly explained (1861). J.
Schlier : Upon the Minor Prophets. Lavater : Pre-
digten iiber das Buch .Jonas. Brieger : The 53c? Ch.
of Isaiah {1S5%). Rinck: Der Prophet Haggai (^ISS'i).
[Chandler : Life of David; Hall : Contemplations j
Fabee : Horae Mosaicae ; Ryder : Family Bible ;
Blunt : Coincidences of the Old and New Testament,
The Royal Preacher. Hamilton. One of the volumes
in Edwards' works contains suggestive notes upon
various passages. Guthrie : Gospel in Ezekiel,
Brown : Evenings with the Prophets. Burt : Redemp
tion's Dawn. Caldwell : Lectures on the Psalms
Chalmers: Daily Readings. Cummings, Kitto, Hu*
tee: Sacred Biography. Maurice: Prophets cmd
King). Patriarchs and Lawgiver!. — A. G.]

64 INTKODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Remark The Uterature upon Genesis, and in a great measure for the Pentateuch, will be found i>

the special Introductions.

10. Apocrypha. — Beckhaus: Bemerkungen
■Iber den Gebrauch der apokryphischen Bucher.
Das Eoxgetisch£ Handbuch von Fritsche and
Grimme. — (Volkmar: Handbuch, I. TheA.) Against
the Apocrypha by Mann (1853). Keerl (1856).
Wild (1854), Oschwald, and others. For the

same Hengstenbeeo. Fiir Beibehaltung der Apo-
kryphen (1863). Stieb (1853). Soheele (1855),
and others. [Jones : On th« Oancm. Alexandke :
On the Canon. Woedswokth: On the Coaon.
Thornwell: On the Apocrypha. Prideadx: Con
nedion. — A. G\]

FOURTH DIVISION.

THE ORGANISM, OR THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE
BIBLICAL BOOKS.

a. Names of the Bible.

The OlQ Testament : the Law, Josh. i. 8 ; Matt.
ixii. .S6; Ps. cxix. 92; Matt. v. 18; Luke xvi. 17;
John X. 34 ; xii. 34. The Scripture, or Holy Scrip-
ture, John T. 39 ; Rom. xv. 4 ; Gal. iii. 22.— The
word of God. — The law and the prophets : Matt. r.
17. Moses and the prophets : Luke xvi. 29, 31. The

law, prophets, and other writings, the prologue of
Jesus Sirach. The law, prophets, and the Psalms i
Luke xxiv. 44. The book of the law : Jos. viii. 34,
&c. The law in many cases designates the giving
of the law in the narrower sense.

b. The Different Bibles,

When we speak of the Bible it is presupposed that we are treating of one definitfi
fixed object. But this is not the case. In reference to the Old Testament, we must
distinguish the Bible of the Jews in Palestine, the Bible of the Alexandrine Hellenists,
the Septuagint, and that Christian arrangement of the Bible already introduced bj
Josephus.

We apprehend the Bible first preeminently as the book of the Religion of the
future. Hence upon the basis of the Thorah, law (the five books of Moses), there is
laid the great group of the prophetSjNebiim. The earlier or former prophets follow
npon the earlier historical books, Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel, and the
two books of Kings, not only because these books were written by the prophets, but
much more because the Israelitish history was recognized as typical and prophetic.
Then follow the later prophets — our minor and greater prophets — with the exception
of Daniel. The third division includes the Kethubbim, i. e., the writings regarded
purely as writings, not so named merely as the latest collection, writings in a general
sense, but destined from the very beginning to work as writings in a higher rank.
To the later historical books, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, are added the poetical
books : Psalms, Job, Proverbs, then the prophet Daniel, and the Megilloth (rolls), the
Song, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther. The introduction of the theocratic
life, the unfolding of that life to the New Covenant, the bloom and flower of the
theocratic life, this is unquestionably the ideal ground and source of the arrangement
That the Alexandrine Bible rests upon a theory of inspiration, more free and wide!
than the canonical limits, is evident from its embracing the Old Testament Apocryphi

ORGANISM OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS. 65

with the canonical books, which the Septuagint could never have done, had it held
fast the pure Hebrew idea of the Canon. From the circumstance that the Seventy
have not made the oanonicity of the apocryphal books of special importance, some
have drawn the groundless inference that they held the same position as to the Canon
with the Hebrew Jews. They were kept from asserting the oanonicity of the Apoc-
rypha by their ecclesiastical prudence, just as the Sadducees were prevented by the
game prudence from denying the oanonicity of the Old Testament books beyond the
law. The Christian arrangement of the Old Testament into historical books (from
Genesis to Esther), didactic books (from Job to the Song), and prophetic books (from
Isaiah to Malachi), corresponds better with the Christian point of view, since a paral-
lel is thereby secured to the arrangement of the New Testament. The term, didactic
books, answers better to this parallel, than the expression poetical books.

But even as to the Hebrew Jews, and their judgment upon the Hebrew Bible,
the Pharisees had a different Bible from the Sadducees, and these again from the
Essenes. The first enlarged and obscured the Old Testament through their tradi-
tions. Their direction ended legitimately in the Talmud. The second emptied the
law of its deeper living contents, since they expounded it as exclusively a moral, and
in that sense only a religious, law-book. They were the forerunners of the modern
deistic Judaism. The third allegorized the Old Testament and divided it, with
thorough rationalistic arbitrariness, into canonical and uncanonical portions. In their
dualistic theosophy, as the Alexandrine philosophy of religion, they were the fore-
runners of the Cabbalah.

That the Bible of the post-Christian Jews, i. e., the Old Testament obscured and
enlarged by their traditions, is an entirely different Bible from the Old Testament
which unfolds and glorifies itself in the New Testament, is as clear as day.

The injurious effects of the Catholic tradition upon the Holy Scripture, which is
obscured by the attempt to place the Apocrypha upon a level with the Old Testa-
ment, is confessed. The Greek church at the synod at Jerusalem, 1672, emphatically
adopted the same view of the Bible, as the way had been prepared for this, through
its traditional development.

It cannot be denied, indeed, that the evangelical Protestant Bible maybe and has
often been obscured, e. g., when it is explained in accordance with a one-sided view
of the Lutheran doctrine of Justification, or the Reformed doctrine of Predestination.

The manifold sufferings, obscurations, disfigurations, and crucifixions of Christ in
his church, are reflected in the entirely homogeneous sufferings of the Bible. In the
evangelic sects of the middle ages and the forerunners of the Reformation, the buried
Bible was unearthed from its tomb. With the profound development, spiritual quick-
ening, and culture of the church, will it first he recognized in all its glory.

c. The Old and New Testaments.

The one word of God, or Holy Scripture, falls into the records of the Old and
New Covenants, into the Old and New Testaments.

The unity of the two as the word of God is conditioned upon the nisus of the Old
Testament towards the New (the promise, the prophecy of the Messiah, Jer. xxxi. 31
&c.) and upon the reference of the New Testament to the Old (Matt. i. 1 ; ii. 5, &c. .
Isa. vi. 39, and similar places).

In this way the absolute superiority of the New Testament to the Old is as cer
5

66 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

tainly preannounced in the Old (Ps. li. ; Jer. xxxi. 31 ; Isa. Ixvi. 3 ff. ; Dan. vii.), as it
is expressly declared in the New Testament (Matt. xi. 11 ; xii. 41, 42 ; John i. 17, 18;
Acts XV. 10, 11 ; 2 Cor. iii. 6 ; the Epistles of James and the Hebrews).

With this it is taught, on the one hand, that the value of the Old Testament as
to its external aspect and for itself, in reference to the Jewish national and exclusive
religion, is abolished. (Gal. iii. 19 ; iv. 5 ; Ephes. ii. 15 ; Col. ii. 44 ; Heb. viii. 13.)

But it is taught also, on the other hand, and with the same distinctness, that th
New Testament firmly estabhshes the Old in its eternal value, as the foundation, the
preparation, the introductory revelation, on which it rests. (Matt. v. 17 ff. ; John v,
39; Rom. Hi. 31.)

d. The Oeoanism of the New Testament.
See Ljwse: Matthew, Am. ed. p. 24.

e. Thb Okoanism of the Old Testameht.

The book of the Old Covenant as the prefiguration of the New Covenant, or of
the Advent of Christ.

1.) The Announcement of the New Covenant in the Old. The Thorah (the law).

a. Genesis, or the universal foundation of the theocratic particularism, and of
the particularism in its universal destination or aim and tendency.

b. Exodus, or the prophetic and moral form of the law of the Old Covenant (the
tabernacle in Exodus is regarded chieiiy as the- place for the law, and the
law-giver. It is the place of the human cultus only in a secondary point of
view. Hence the tabernacle appears here, and not first in Leviticus).

c. Leviticus, or the priestly and ritual form of the law of the Old Covenant.

d. Numbers, or the kingly and political form of the law of the Old Covenant
(the martial host of God and its march. Typical imperfection).

e. Deuteronomy, as the reproduction of the law in the solemn light of the pro-
phetic spirit.

2) The actual typical development of the Old Covenant until the decline of its
typical glory and the preparation for its ideal glory. Historical books.

a. The book of Joshua. The introduction of the theocratic people into the
typical inheritance of the people of God. The conquest. The division.

b. The book of Judges. The independent expansion of the Israelitish tribes in
the land of promise. The stages of apostasy, and the appearance of the
theocratic heroes, judges, in the different tribes. The tribes after their dark
side. As an appendix, a gleam of light, the little book of Ruth.

e. The books of Samuel, or the collection of the tribes and the introduction of
the kingdom by Samuel, the last of the judges (the desecration of the priest-
hood, the introduction of the kingdom, the preparation for the prophets in
the stricter sense, through the schools of the prophets). The first book, Saul
the rejected king. The second book, David the king called of God.

d. The two books of Kings. The theocratic kingdom from its highest glory to
its decay. The first of Solomon, the type of the Prince of Peace, and of tba
kingdom of peace, until Elijah, the type of the judgment by fire; the second
from the ascension of Elijah, or the apotheosis of the law, to he decline of
the kingdom, of the people of the law.

ORGANISM OF THE BIBLICAL BOOKS. Q')

e. The two books of Chi-onicles. The Old Testament history of the kingdoa
of God, in a theocratic point of view, from Adam until the order for the re-
turn of Israel from the Babylonian captivity.

J\ The book of Ezra. The priestly and ritual restoration of the holy people au(^
the temple.

g, Nehemiah. The theocratic and political restoration of the people and tht
holy city.

h. Esther. The wonderful salvation and change in the history of the peoplt
of God, during the exile, dispersion, and persecution.

3) The preliminary New Testament bloom of Old Testament life in its course of
development.

1. The theocratic and Messianic Lyrics. The Psalms.

2. The didactics of Solomon in their universal scope and tendency.

a. Job. The insorutableness and vindication of the divine wisdom and
righteousness, especially in the trials of the pious.

b. The trilogy of Solomon.

a. The foundation and regulation of the natural and moral world in th«

wisdom of God. Proverbs of Solomon.
^. The vanity of the world in the folly of hum.an designs, which do not
recognize the eternity, in the divine element. Ecclesiastes.
y. The transfiguration of the world through love (as the Old Testament
church was turned away from Solomon and his polygamy and mixed
religion, to its New Testament friend).

4) The prophetic images or representations of the New Testament in the Old.

a. The four great prophets, or the fundamental relations of the Messianic
prophecy.

1. Isaiah. The personal Christ as prophet, priest, and king. The Apocalypse
of Isaiah (ch. xl.-lxvi.).

2. Jeremiah. The prophetic Messianic kingdom (ch. xxx.-xxxiii.). The
prophetic Martyrdom. The Apocalypse of Jeremiah (ch. xlv.-li.). The
Lamentations.

,^. Ezekiel. The priestly Messianic kingdom. The Apocalypse of Ezekiel.

The death-valley of Israel, and that of Gog. The glorious life of Israel.

The new temple, and the living stream issuing from it for the heathen

world.

4 Daniel. Throughout Apocalyptic. The royal Messianic kingdom. The

world-monarchies in the light side (ch. ii.), and in the dark side (ch. vii.).

Christ and the typical and final Antichrist. This and the other world.

tk The twelve minor prophets, or the special relations of the future of the

Messianic kingdom.

1. The portal of the prophetic period. The book of Jonah, or the raising of

the universalism above the particularism.
i. The oppositions of the old sins and the new salvation.

a. Hosea, or the marriage covenant broken by the people, and the ne-w

marriage between Jehovah and his people.
/S. Joel. The locust-march as an image of the march of the hosts of the
Lord for the destruction of all the glory of flesh. The new blossoming
of the world through the outpouring of the Spirit of God .

68 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

y. Amos. The completed sins and the completed punishment upon th«
old world, even upon the glory of the old temple, and the redemption
and collecting of all the remnants fi'om the Heathen and Jews, into the
plain tabernacle of David.

S. Micah. The judgment of God upon the mountains, and all the high
places and things of the earth, and the appearance of the new Savioui
and salvation out of little Bethlehem, for the exaltation of the lowly.
3. The visions of judgments.

a. Obadiah. The judgment upon Edom — as the type of Antichrist — filled
with envious joy over his fallen brother.

p. Nahum. The judgment upon Nineveh as the type of the fleshly Anti
Christ, the apostate world-power.

y. Habakkuk. The judgment upon Babylon, as the type of the demoniac,
self-deifying Antichrist.

8. Zephaniah. The day of anger upon the whole old world. The judg-
ment of Judah, introducing the dawn of salvation.
I. The three prophets of the second temple, as the clearest revealers of the

advent of the Messiah.

o. Haggai. The glory of the second temple in contrast with that of the
first. The coming of the Lord to his temple. The polluted people.
The necessity for purification.

j8. Zechariah. The future of the Messiah in contrast with the duration
of the world-kingdoms. 1. The Messianic kingdom in opposition to.
the kingdom of the world (ch. i.-viii. 2). The Messiah in his progress
from his humiliation to his exaltation, ch. ix.-xiv.

y. Malachi. The coming day of the Lord. The forerunner of the Mes-
siah. The Messiah. His day a fiery oven for the godless. A sun of
righteousness for the pious. The turning of Fathers to the Children,
of Children to the Fathers ; the connection between the Old and New
Covenant.

APPENDIX.
THE OLD TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA.

1) In relation to the canonical books of the Old Testament.

Additions to the books of Chronicles : the book Judith, Tobiah, Baruch, the
prayer of Manasseh.

Additions to the book of Esther.

Additions to the writings of Solomon : the wisdom of Solomou.

Additions to Jeremiah : the book Baruch.

Additions to Daniel: history of Susannah, of the Bel at Babylon, of the Dra-
gon at Babylon, the prayer of Azariah, the song of the three men in the furnace.

Viewed as original writings through the claims of the Septuagint : the books
of Maccabees, the wisdom of Jesus Sirach.

2) lu the opposition of Hebraism and Alexandrianism.

Hebraic: Judith. Hellenistic: The wisdom of Solomon.

The book Tobiah. The 2d book of Maccabees

Jesus Sirach.

APPENDIX— THE SO-CALLED DIITICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

The 1st book of MaecaLees.
Additions to Esther.
Additions to Daniel.
Additions to the prayer of Manasseh.
3) In the division : historical books, didactic books, prophetic books.
a. Historical books : the books of Maccabees.
h. Poetical or didactic books : the book Judith, wisdom of Solomon, Tobiah,

Jesus Sirach. Additions to Esther, to Daniel, the prayer of Manasseh.
c. Prophetic books : elementary parts of Tobiah, the book Baruch.
There was a complete disappearance of prophecy until its last point, John the
Baptist. The repression of Messianic hopes was due to the eminence of the Macca-
bean house of the tribe of Levi, in consequence of which the expectation of a Messiah
out of the tribe of Judah was only a secret hope of the pious in the land.

See the timid clause 1 Mace. xiv. 41. Compare the Introduction to the Old Testament, by KiOHTEB,
Lisco, Geklach, in the Calmer Handbook.

FIFTH DIVISION.

AN APPENDIX ON THE SO - CALLED DIFFICULT
PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT, AS THE CEN-
TRAL POINTS OF THE GLORY OF THE OLD TES-
TAMENT RELIGION*

To the paragraph Archaeology (see § 14).

The so-called difficulties in the Old Testament have been brought out with special
distinctness in modern times by the Freethinkers and kindred opposers of the doctrine
of revelation: these, namely, the acquisition of the Egyptian jewels, Balaam's ass, and
the arresting of the sun by Joshua. Although the most renowned attacks upon these
and similar places bear upon their face the character, partly of careless malevolence,
partly of childish absurdity, still it cannot be denied that these difficulties lie as
hindrances in the way of faith, to many cultivated persons, and even to many honest
and scientific thinkers of our day. But these honest sceptics find themselves in a
truly critical position. For, while on one side they are driven over into unbelief by
hypercritics and witlings, there is offered them from the other side the helping hand
of an apologetic exegesis which has created in many cases the very misconceptions
from which it would free doubting spirits. Thus, on the one side, stand the sceptical
investigator of nature, who brings the nebulae of the heavens and the strata of the
earth as witnesses for the boundless antiquity of the world, in order that he may
charge the Bible, even in its first line, with error in its computation of time ; the pan,
theistio worldling, who finds in the human-like tongue of the biblical God the
characteristic mark of childish tradition ; the deistio moralist, who, in the history of
the marriages of the patriarchs, and in the supposed robbery of the Egyptian treasures
»t the command of God, detects with boasting the original conflict of the Bible with

* Taken from tlie author's article in the German Journal for CliriBtian Science and Chrlstiau Life for 1857.

70 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

pure morals ; the infidel, who from of old has always taken his most cheerful ride upoc
Balaam's ass ; the swaggering skirmisher, who uses the arresting of the sun by Joshua
in order that he may put the host of the Lord to flight. But, on the other side, the
apologetic exegesis seeks in nearly all cases to rescue the assaulted positions only by
the most modest defensive, while it brings into view now the incorrect exegetical
understanding of the word, then the figurative allegorical expressions of the writer,
then the natural side of the extraordinary events, and lastly the wonderful power ot
God. It cannot be denied indeed that in this way very important aid has been gained
to the clearing and justification of the Old Testament text. But neither can it be
denied that these isolated processes leave the difficulties in their totality essentially un-
removed, while in many ways they contribute to them, and confirm them. We are
very far from demanding that the Apologetics in this field should make the darkest
secrets unobjectionable to the unbeliever, or plain and comprehensible to the sceptic.
The offence of the cross of Christ will have its eternal significance for the ungodly world,
even in these questionable places. But this isolated, disconnected method of defence
can never bring into clear view, that it is the divine understanding of revelation itself
which brings forward these very facts, at which the human understanding in its ,
worldly direction must take offence. The generic, that which is common in aU these
difficulties, and the divine reason and wisdom which appear distinctly in them — in a
word, the positive glory of revelation is not sufficiently insisted upon. The studied
way in which they (the apologists) only defend, but do not glorify them as the great
proof of the work of God, the hurried joy with which they pass from them, the em-
barrassment with which they gladly avoid the dark riddles, in that they rest in general
upon the almighty miraculous strength of God, neither meets the necessities of inquir-
ng spirits, nor the requirements of faith in the church, nor the necessities of knowledge
.n theology. It is only when the central point of the offence at the Old Testament
in our day, has been proved to be the central point of the glory of the Old Testament
revelation, that we can satisfy the honest doubt, or the very end of the Old Testament.

A glance at the most considerable difficulties in the New Testament will illustrate
what has been said. Here truly we meet, first of all, the miracles of Christ, his super-
natural birth, his resurrection, in a word the chief facts of his life, and the doctrines
connected with them of his deity, the trinity, the atonement, and his corning to judg-
ment, i. e., all the great mysteries which appear to the sceptic as pre-eminently an
offence and foolishness. The old apologists have limited themselves here generally to
a discursive defence; they have taken refuge even here on one side in evasions and
mere attempts to invalidate objections, and on the other side in the direct support of
God, and for the most part passed as rapidly as possible, and at any price, by the
great riddles which they should have solved. But the modern churchly theology has
long since risen above this miserable defensive. It brings out the mysteries and those
things full of mystery, at which men stumble, as the very heart of the history and
doctrine of Christ ; it shows that the very glory of the New Testament reveals itself
in them.

The same must be altogether true of the difficulties of the Old Testament. Bj
how much more remarkable the phenomenon, darker the riddle, stronger the objection,
by so much greater must be the significance of the fact in question, so much richer
its revealed contents, so much more glorious its divine fulness of the spirit.

The difficulties in the Old Testament are the central points of the glory of the
Old Testament rehgion. Each difficulty marks a pecuhar rejection of false heather

APPENDIX— THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 71

(/iews of the world, through the very point of the diiSculty, in which the true revealed
view of the world is disclosed. We will endeavor, from this point of view, to sketch
the chief elements in the development of the Old Testament religion.

rhc Account of the Creation. The Records of the pure idea of the Creation, of the pure idea of God, of the
ideas of Nature and the World in opposition to the heathen view of the World, especiaily to the Theo-
gonisic, Cosmogonistic, Deistic, Naturalistic, Pantheistic, and Dualistic Assumptions (lien. i.).

The Pantheist takes offence here, because the record speaks of an eternally present
God, and, over against the same, of a temporal world which the eternal God has
called into being through his word ; the dualist stumbles at the assumption that even
matter itself, the original substance of the world, has sprung from the creative
power of God ; the deist, on the contrary, finds in the assumption that God, after the
days' works were completed, had then rested, a childish dream, which ignores the
idea of omnipotence ; the naturalist believes that with the co-working of omnipotence
from moment to moment the idea of the natural orderly development of things is
destroyed ; philosophy generally thinks that it is here dealing with a myth, which is
an-anged partly through its orthodox positiveness, and partly through its sensuous
pictures or images; the modern sceptical natural philosoper makes it a matter of
ridicule that the sun, moon, and stars should first be formed in the fourth creative
day, and indeed that the whole univei'se is viewed as rendering a service to this little
world ; that the heavenly light should have existed before the heavenly lights, but
especially that the original world should have arisen only 6000 years ago, and that
its present form, for which millions of years are requisite, should have been attained
in the brief period of six ordinary days. But the opponents who differ most widely
agree in this, that it is fabulous, that the Bible should make a perfectly accurate
report of pre-historioal things, with the most perfect assurance.

We shall not enumerate the insufficient replies made from the stand-point of the
earlier apologetics. It is worthy of remark, however, that the theology of the schools
has here occasioned a circle of misconceptions, which the latest theology of the church
has in great measure removed.

The deciding word as to this first doctrinal portion of the Holy Scriptures has
already been uttered long since in the epistle to the Hebrews. By faith we under-
stand that the world was made (prepared) by the word of God, so that the things
which are seen were not made of things which do appear.* The record of creation
is therefore a record of the very first act of faith, and then of the very first act of rev-
elation, which, as such, lies at the foundation of all the following, and in its result
reproduces itself in the region of faith, from the beginning on to the end of days. It
is the monotheistic Christian creative word, the special watchword of the pure believ-
ing view of the world. Mc ungue leonem. The first leaf of scripture goes at a
single step across the great abyss of materialism into which the entire heathen view of
he world had fallen, and which no philosophic system has known how to avoid, until

♦ Wlien DelitzBch (Gen. p. 42) opposes to the view of Kurtz, that the account of the creation is the result nf a circle
of viHions looking Ijackwards, the assertion, that it is an historical tradition, flowing from divine instruction, the quea-
i\t.u still remains open, hy what means that instruction was made available to man. ^""6, with Deiitzsch, are her«
Bpposed to the vision, For in the vision there is a voluntary subjective state, wishing to see, when there should bt
•m\y a Bubjectivity 01 possibility of sight.

INTKODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

perfected by this. Pantheism here meets its refutation in the word of the eternal
personal God of creation, and the world established by his almighty word ; abstract
>,heism, in the production of the world out of the living word of God; dualism, in the
doctrine that God has created matter itself; naturalism, in the clear evidence of the
positive divine foundation of the world, in the origin of every new step in nature.
Witli the pure idea of God, we win at the same time the pure idea of the world, and
with the pure idea of creation, the pure idea of nature. Creation goes through all
nature, in so far as God, from one step in nature to another, ever j'roduces in a crear
live way the new and higher; at last man, after his bodily organic manifestation. On
the other hand also the idea of nature runs through the whole idea of creation, in so
far as God has endowed every creative principle which he has placed in the world
with its own law of development, and with a conditioned independence ; to plants, to
animals, and to man. The creation reaches its perfection and glory in the human spir-
ituality, since in this it approaches or is a revelation of the divine life ; in his freedom
nature is glorified, since its relative independence is here laised to the free blessed life
of men in God. Just as the biblical idea of God is free from the heathen element of a
passive deity, who suffers the world to flow out from himself, so the biblical idea of the
world is free from the heathen assumption that the world is some magical transforma-
tion of existing material, or even of a positive nonentity. And as the biblical idea of
creation will not tolerate the absolutist's assumption of an abstract deified omnipo-
tence, which neither limits nor communicates itself, so the biblical idea of nature cannot
be reconciled with the naturalistic assumption, which derives all the forms in nature
out of one general creative act, and holds that one step in nature produces another.
We will not dwell upon the objections which the most illustrious and popular
natural philosophers have raised against the work of the fourth creative day. That
the light was before the light-bearers; that the appearance of the firmament to the
earth was first manifested in the same day in which the earth was discovered to the
firmament; that for man, from his stand-point, the earth formed an important contrast
with the vastness of the heavens ; this does not require many words. But the day-
works and the age of the world ? The Mosaic computation, it is said, allows about
6000 years for the history of man. For the entire universe there is then- the
higher antiquity of— an added week — the six creative days. But these six days, the
most recent scientific churchly exegesis * says, are symbolical days, i. e., six periods
of the development of creation. The evenings, it is said further, mark the epochs
of destruction, the revolutions of the world in its progress; on the other hand, the
mornings mark the epochs of the new and higher structure of the world. The fact
that, in the Hebrew designation, day often denotes a period of time, and that these
days are here spoken of before the cosmical organization of the world into the planetary
system, ,favors this view. To this we must add the prophetic biblical style of the nar-
rative. Bearing this in mind, the defender of the pure sense of scripture can hear
these natural philosophers speak of the thousands and miUions of years of the earth's
development with a serene smile, as an investigator of the Bible, namely : but whether
as an investigator of nature is another question. For the recent natural philosophy ap

* Banmgarten indeed slill holds to the ordinary days (Com. upon the Pentateuch i. 14). "The word day (di'l
H primarily day and not period, and here this word Is used for the first time." But we say that just for this verj
loason the word day must here designate a period. The ordinary day of the earth is not the oiiginal form of tile day,
Ijut tlio day of God, the day of heaven. Thus even the light precedes the light-bearers. How endlessly diversified
»ro the days in the universe I But the original form is the day of God. Compare also Delitesoh, Genms, p. 61.-
But also Keil, in his CommeniuTy upon Genesis. — A. G.]

APPENDIX-, THE SU-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 73

pears extremely rash in surrounding itself with its millions of years, not in the spirit
of nature, nor in accordance with its formation. The defender of the biblical text, as
the friend of nature, may be allowed the word : We grant you willingly your thou
sands of years for the formation of the earth and the world. But bethink yourselves
well. According to the laws of present nature, it develops itself very rapidly in all
the first eifusions and stages of its life ; on the contrary, you require for the first glow
ing seeds of life and living structures an endlessly slow lapse of time. In nature we see
all subordinate things arise and disappear quickly ; jou require aeons for the first rudest
fundamental forms of creation. If the spii-it of scripture absolve you in this lavish use
of millions of years for the cooling of the globes of gas, and the formation of primitive
monsters, ask yourselves whether the spirit of nature will grant you absolution !

But, from the records of creation, you can learn thut nature rests upon the prin
ciples of creation, unfolds itself in living contrasts, completes itself in ascending lines,
and is glorified in man and his divine destination, i. e., in other words, that nature
springs out from the miracle, through miraculous stages (new principles of creation),
ascends from step to step, and in the miracle of the perfect image of God reaches ita
new birth.

n.

Paradise, or the Records of the original ideal state of the Earth and the Human Pace. (Gen. h.;

Paradise, it is said, is a beautiful myth, growing out of mythical ideas of the earth
which the oldest geographers entertained. Thus also the tree of knowledge of good
and evil, the tree of life, and the serpent are regarded as mythical traditions. Thus
the great theocratic element, which lies in the account of Paradise, is entirely lost.
Of the first great historical type we have only left a fantastic philosophic hypothesis
concerning the commencement of the race, and the origin of evil. The theology of
the schools, which views the account of Paradise not only as throughout historical,
but as barely historical, in opposition to its symbolical import, has here pre-eminently
prepared the way for misconceptions and misinterpretation.

As the fourth stream of Paradise, the Euphrates and its source cannot be a myth,
so neither can the four streams generally. And as the first man is not a myth, so
neither is his first residence. But on the other side also the streams and trees of
Paradise are just as little to be regarded as barely natural, or belonging to the nat-
ural history of Paradise, or the mere individual forms, particularities, of the pre-histor-
ical world.

The significance of Paradise is this, that it declares the original ideal state of the
earth and the human race, the unity of the particular and the general, the unity of
spirit and nature, the unity of spiritual innocence and the physical harmony of nature,
the unity of the fall and the distarbanoe of nature — ^lastly, the unity of facts and their
symbolical meaning, which both the barely hteral and mythical explanations of the
record rend asunder.

There was a paradise and it was local, but it was also the symbol of the idea]
paradisiac earth. The same thing is true of the foxu' streams. Whether the origi-
nal source of the four streams is not marked by the stream in the midst of the
garden may be left undecided ; it is enough that it was actually one, and at the same
time the symbol of all the fountains of blessing upon the earth. Whether the tree
if life was one physical plant, or rather the glorification of nature, with the definite

74 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

form of the manifestation of God in the garden, is a matter of question ; as a symbo
it designates the total healing and living strength of nature under the revelation of
the Spirit. The tree placed as a test of obedience existed in some one form, but
with it all nature is in some measure designated as a test. But the serpent as a
tempter of the other world is not only the type of temptation and of sin, but, as a
primitive reptile, the type of its brutality, its degradation, and its subjection.

As the account of the creation declares the opposition and harmony between Gocl
and the world, so the account of Paradise declares the opposition and the harmony
between the spirit and nature. Here you have the connection between the actual
primitive man and the ideal man, between man and the earth, between the fact and
the idea : the consecrated bodily nature, the consecrated senses, the consecrated,
indeed sacramental, pleasure, and on the other side human talent, freedom, and
responsibility.

Break this golden band between spirit and nature, between the actual fact and
the symbol, and you fall back into that old accursed opposition between spiritualism
and materialism, which burdened the heathen world and will run through all your
moral ascetic and philosophic ideas as a fatal cleft.

m.

The First Human Pair : the Records of the ideal and actual Unity of the Human Race, and of the mala
and female Nature in the true Marriage (Gen. ii. ).

With a stroke or two of the pen, the biblical view of the world places itself above
the aboriginal doctrines of every heathen people, and all national pride and haughti-
ness, with the barbarism and hatred which are connected with it. In a few lines it
records the equalitj' by birth of the male and female sexes, the mystical nature of
true marriage, the sanctity of the married and domestic life, and condemns the hea-
then degradation of woman, the sexual lawlessness or lust, as also the theosophic and
monkish contempt of the sexual nature. Weighed in this balance, Aristotle, Gregory
VII. and .Jacob Boehm have been found wanting.

Strauss asserts that the generic varieties of the human race, as the foundation of the
old aboriginal traditions, has now become anew the common doctrine of the natural
philosopher, and philosophy. Then it would follow that Blumenbach, Cuvier, Shubert,
Karl Von Raumer, John Muller (the anatomist), and Alexander Von Humboldt who
have taught the generic unity of the human race, are not natural philosophers.

rv.

I

T!ie Fall and Judgment, or the Records of the historical as opposed to the ideal and natural character
of the Sin of the Creature, of the Holiness of the Divine Judgment, and of the connection and oppo-
sition between Sin and Evil (Gen. iii.).

The record of the actual fall stands there as an eternal judgment upon the the-
oretical fall, the human view of moral evil, especially upon the errors of Dualism and
Manicheism, Pelagianism and Pantheism. This explains the numerous and stron-^
objections which the most diverse systems in old and modern times have raised
against this record. The earthly origin of evil out of the abuse of freedom offends
Dualism, which derives it from an evil deity, from dark matter, or from the suprem.

APPENDIX— THE SO-CiLLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 75

acy of sense. Although the serpent sustains the doctrine that, prior to the fall of
man, siu had existed in a sphere on the other side, working through demoniac agencj
upon this (for the serpent was not created evil. Gen. i. 25, generally not even fitted
for evil, and can only be regarded therefore as the organ of a far different evil power),
yet the visible picture of the fall in this sphere, is a certain sign that the fall in that
could only have risen through the abuse of the freedom of the creature. But, if w€
observe the progress of sin from the first sin of Eve to the fratricide of Cain ; if we
view the opposition between Cain and Abel, and the intimation of the moral freedom
of Cain himself, so the Augustinian view, raising original sin to absolute original
death, receives its illumination and its just limits. But how every Pelagian view of
life falls before this record, as it brings into prominence the causal connection between
the sin of the spirit world and that of man, between the sin of the woman and the
man, between the sin of our first parents and their own sinfulness and the sinfulness
of their posterity ! If we take into view the stages of the development of evil in the
genesis of the first sin, how limited and vapid appears the modem view, which re-
gards the senses as the prime starting point of evil ! But when Pantheism asserts
the necessity of sin, or rather of the fall, as the necessary transition of men from the
state of pure innocence to that of conscious freedom, the simple remark, that the
ingenuousness of Adam would have been carried directly on in the proper way, if
he had stood the test, just as Christ through his sinlessness has reached the knowl-
edge of the true distinction between good and evil, and has actually shown that sin,
notwithstanding its inweaving with human nature, does not belong to its very being,
clearly refutes the assertion. But how clear is the explanation of evil, of punish-
ment and of judgment, as it meets us in this account. That the natural evil does
not belong to the moral, but, notwithstanding its inward connection with it, is still
the divine counteracting force against it ; that punishment is to redeem and purify ;
that from the very acme of the judgment breaks forth the promise and salvation ;
these truths, which are far above every high anti-christian view of the world, make it
apparent that the first judgment of God, as a type of the world-redeeming judgment
of God, has found its completion in the death of Christ upon the cross.

V.

The Macrobioi, or the long-lived Fathers and Enoch, or the Revelation of the Difference between the ideal

and historical Human Death.

The long lives of the Fathers, the years of Methuselah, the translation of Enoch,
are difficult riddles to the ordinary worldly view, which recognizes no distinction
between the ideal death (i. e., the original form, resembling a metamorphism, of the
transition from the first to the second human life), and the historical death. But
this difference is here clearly made known in these facts. Originally, there was grant-
ed to man a form of transition from the first to the second life, which is closed
through the historical death, until it appears again in the glorification of the risen
Christ and the declaration of the Apostles (1 Cor. xv. ; 2 Cor. v.). With sin the
historical death makes its inroads upon humanity. But it can only, slowly creeping
from within outward, break through the strong resistance of the original physical
human nature ; hence the long lives of the primitive fathers. Here the spiritual
power of death has first gradually penetrated the physical nature ; this is the sig-

76 lOTEODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

nificanoe of the long lives of the antediluvians. The spiritual power of the life of Christ,
as it runs parallel with the old death in its progress from within outward, will at the
last permeate the physical nature again ; and then will the long lives appear again.
But, as the last Macrobioi shall attain the original form of the ideal death, the trans-
lation, so in an exceptive way Enoch through his piety obtained it of old. Therefore
he stands also as the citadel of immortality, of the victory over death, and of the ideal
form of translation, in the midst of the death periods of the primitive fathers ; in him-
self alone a sufficient voucher, that the Old Testament in its very first pages la
stamped with these ideas.

In these leaves also we possess the records of that idea of death by which the
faith of revelation strides victoriously away from all the ordinary ideas of death in
ancient or modern times.

VI.

fhe Flood, and the Ark, or the Glorification of all the great Judgments of God upon the World ; and
of all the counter-working forma of Salvation, as they begin with the Ark and are completed in the
Church (Gen. TL-viii.).

The great water-flood is established, through the concurrent testimony of ancient
people, as the great event of traditionary antiquity. But the deluge and the ark !
Let it be observed here, however, that just as the idea of punishment explains the
undeniably existing natural evil, so the light of the deluge illuminates the wild waves
of the great water-flood. And just as out of the first curse sprang the blessing of
the promise, so salvation, the saving ark, was borne upon the waves of the first final
judgment. In this light the deluge is the great type of all the judgments of God
upon the earth, and therefore especially of baptism, which introduces the Christian
into the communion of the completed redeeming judgment of God, the death of
Christ upon the cross.

The first general world judgment was introduced through the universal dominion,
and the unshaken establishment, of human corruption. But this was brought about
through the ungodly marriages, the misalliances between the sons of God and the
daughters of men, i. e., the posterity of Seth and of Cain. It is evident, indeed, that
the Alexandrian Exegesis and that of the earliest Church Fathers have introduced
the difficulty into the text, that the sons of God were angels. Kurtz still asserts
that the Bni Elohim are elsewhere only used of angels. But if the vicegerents of God
on the earth (Ps. Ixxxii. 6) are called Elohim, and Bni Eljon, they may even much
more be called Bni Elohim, in a position in which they should have defended the di-
vine upon the earth, but rather betrayed it. The connection, according to which the
fourth chapter treats of the descendants of Cain, and the fifth of those of Seth, author-
izes us to expect that here both genealogies are united. After the history has shown
how the curse of sin has spread itself with the human arts, in the line of Cain
namely, even polygamy and murder glorified through the abuse of poetry, how
on the contrary the blessing of the Lord advanced for a long time in the line
ef Seth, and with it the hope of redemption, it now shows how, through the
misalliances referred to, the corruption became not only prevalent but giant-like and
incurable. These false unions, based upon a principle of apostasy, and which made
evident the profound connection between idolatry and whoredom, produced a race of
spiritual bastards, who turned the very spirituality inherited from their fathers into

APPENDIX— THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. T?

sin. To look awdy from the fabulous in the assumption of a marriage connection be-
tween angels and men, it is inconceivable that the deception of the daughters of men
through heavenly angelic forms, should be stated as a phenomenon of obduracy, and
a cause of the flood. Here also the idea of apostasy, the yielding of the kingdom
of God to the ungodly world, and the judgment springing therefrom, was intro-
duced in the first great historical type ; a significant portent, for the history of Israel as
for the history of the Christian Church, to the end of the world. But that, in the very
moment of the breaking forth of the judgment upon the world, an election from all
creatures should enter into the ark, furnishes an example of the fact, that with the
election of humanity a pure kernel of the creature world should be carried through
the last final judgment, into a higher order of things. It should be observed by thf
way, that the three birds, the raven and two doves, must be regarded as the symbok
of the three difierent exodes from the external church, so soon as we view the ark
itself as the symbol of the church of salvation. This significance is not far-fetched
In the Roman Catholic view only ravens flee from the Church, in the assurance of
antiohristian spirits only doves, or the children of the Spirit.

vn.

The Tower of Babel, the Confusion of Tongues, and the Teleology of Heathenism (Gen. xi.).

The monotonous Augustinian view of the hereditary relations of humanity flnds
already its correction in the opposition between Cain and Abel, and still more in
that between the line of Seth and the line of Cain. We see, indeed, how death
reigns through sin, in the line of Seth, and how at last corruption, working in the
ine of Cain, brought it to destruction. While, however, the typical saviour of the
race and of the earth, Noah, came from the line of Seth, and out of its ruins, and
while before him there was opposed only a line of blessing and of the curse (both
moreover only in a relative degree), there is formed in the sons of Noah a threefold
spiritual genealogy : the line of the curse, of which Ham or more definitely Canaan
is the representative, stands opposed not only to a genealogy of divine blessing in
Shera, but also of worldly blessings in Japheth. Still, both are girt around by the
circle of sin and death. And as in the primitive race the earliest development appears
in the line of Cain, so now in the new race in the line of Ham. Nimrod founds the
old Babylonian kingdom. But the people assemble at Babel in order to found, in
the tower reaching to heaven, the symbol of an aU-embracing human world mon-
archy.*

Beauty, lust, anarchy, brought the first race to destruction ; an enthusiastic civili-
zation, lust of empire, glory, desire for display, and despotism threaten to destroy
the second. And now Shem and Japheth are in danger of losing their blessing in the
earliest development of the power of Ham, in the Hamitic phantom of human glory.
Hence the dispersion of the people, which as truly springs out of the deep spiritual
errors of the people, as it was positively sent from above. Now Shem and Japheth
could each in their own direction cultivate the blessing of spiritual piety which waa

♦ Delitzsoli says of Nimrod (p. 223), " throngh his name Tiaj (from TIO, to rise up, disturb), he representB th«
revolution, in his dominion the despotism. These two extremes, the mODarchical state has never been able to
remove, from its Impure beginning onwards." What he says, however, avails only in its full sense of the gret'
vorld monarchies

78 INTEODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

their inheritance. And even within the race of Ham the curse of impiety was inter
rupted through the mutual relations and influence in which it was placed with Shem
and Japheth. Scattered around the tower, the people spread themselves into the
world, according to their peculiarities, after the outline of the table (Gen. x.). The
great value of this table has been recognized again in recent times. But this also
must be kept in view, that in the dispersion of the people we have revealed the pecu-
liar teleology of heathenism. It has a prevailingly admonitory, and yet preserving
character. The people should not lose their peculiar character under the despotism
of imperial uniformity. They should develop themselves according to all their
peculiarities, in their different languages. Above all, the way was prepared for the
development of Shem.

vm.

The Separation of Abraham, and of the Israelitish People in him ; the Teleology of Judaism (Gen. xii. ff ).

The mere worldly culture, down to the most recent times, has found great
difficulty with the biblical doctrine that God had chosen Abraham from among the
people, and in him chosen the people of Israel to be an elect people, above all the
most cultivated nations. Critics, who usually find no difficulties in the diversities of
the nations, and praise beyond measure the peculiar prerogatives of the Greeks and
Romans, will not see in these facts, that Israel was in Abraham the chosen people in
a religious point of view. But even here historical facts correspond to the divine
purpose, and bear practical testimony to it. Israel has realized the blessing of its
peculiar religious disposition in its revealed religion. But in this blessing the good
pleasure of God to Abraham and his seed has been made known.

The later Jews have indeed preverted their election into the caricature of phar-
isaic particularism. And, in many cases, unbelief and doubt have been contending
with this caricature, while they supposed that they were contending with the scripture
doctrine itself. But the word of the scripture runs thus : " In thee (Abraham) and
in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." (Ch. xii. 6.) That this pas-
sage does not say : " In thee shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, or
wish themselves blessed," is evident from the preceding words : " I will bless them
that bless thee" (Ch. xii. 3 *). This then is the teleology of Judaism. As the heathen
are scattered into all the world, in order, through their peculiar forms of culture, to
prepare the vessels for the salvation of the Lord in Israel, so Israel is separated from
among the nations, to be a peculiar people of faith, in order to become the organ of
salvation for all nations.

IX.

The Offering of Isaac, or the Sanctification of the Israelitish Sacrifice, and the Rejection of the Abomlna-

tion of the Heathen.

We have here the most striking instance, in which the orthodox school theology,
through its insufficient, narrow, literal explanation, has brought mto the Bible difficul-
ties at which even the noblest spirits have stumbled. The actual history of the
offiiring of Isaac forms the peculiar starting point of the Israelitish religion, thi'
glorious portal of the theocracy, the division between the sanctified Jewish sacrifices

tsvl,

*The here rejeMoi explanation may certainly be reooived where the Hithpael of ^^n Is need. (Ch. xxf..

APPENDIX— THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 79

in their nature Messianic, and fulfilled in the atoning death of Christ, and the
abomination of the human sacrificial worship of the heathen. What has the school
theology made of this glorious history, the type of the whole Old Testament cultus? It
has changed this in the highest sense isolated peculiar remarkable fact, into a dark
and frightful riddle, which indeed appears like the heathen sacrifices, and through
which already more than one has been betrayed mto the path of fanatical sacri
Ices.

The author here refers to the exegetical treatise of Hengstenberg, who has the
merit of establishing the correct interpretation of this passage in his explanation
of Jephthah's vow.* Hengstenberg has in our view proved clearly that Jephthah did
not kill his daughter, when he sacrificed her to the Lord, but devoted her entirely,
under the usual consecration of a sacrifice, to perpetual temple service as a virgin,
and he illustrates his method of proof through a reference to the sacrifice of Isaac.f
The special proof lies in a reference to the fact, that the Hebrew cultus distinguishes
between the spiritual consecration of man as a sacrifice, and the Mlling of a beast rep-
resenting it. Thus, e. g., according to 1 Sam. i. 24, 25, the boy Samuel was brought
by his parents to Eli the priest, and consecrated at the tabernacle, since the three
bullocks were slain there as burnt oflTerings. The special grounds for the correct
understanding of the sacrifice of Isaac are these : the root of the sacrifice, as to its
nature, is the concession of the human will to the will of God (Ps. xl. 7-9) ; fallen man
cannot make this pure concession, therefore he represents it in a symbolical and
typical way in the outward sacrifice. He brings at first to the deity fruits and
animals. But a vague feeling assures him that Jehovah has claims upon the life of
man itself Meanwhile, however, he has lost the spiritual idea of sacrifice. The no-
tion of sacrifice, or consecration, has become one to him with that of to slay and burn.
Hence he falls upon the literal human sacrifice which he must offer the deity as a
personal substitute. But the Old Testament rejects this literal human sacrifice
throughout as an abomination. The Canaanites were punished especially for this
abomination. This is not, as Ghillany thinks, that they themselves were offered to
God as human sacrifices, as a punishment, because they had slain human sacrifices,
The devotion of such idolaters to the curse and destruction, proves that the human
sacrifice was the greatest abomination. Thus also the law treats this heathen cor-
ruption. But this corruption is thus unquestionably great, because it is the demoniac
distortion of that thought of light, that God requires the sacrifice of the human
heart, and in default of this the spiritual sacrifice of the substituted life of the
atoning priest, or of the first-born in Israel, at last the absolute atonement of the con-
cession of a pure man for sinful humanity. Hence this thought of light must be
rescued from its distortion, and through the sacred care for its fulfilment, be pre-
served. The sacrifice of Isaac was destined to this end. God commanded Abraham:
" Sacrifice to me thy son." Abraham, as to the kernel of his faith, is the first Israel-
ite, but, as to his inherited religious ideas, he is still a heathen Chaldee, who knows
nothing else than that to ofier, is to slay. But as he already, by his germ of faith,
has distinguished the spiritual sacrifice from the abomination of the heathen, so in
the critical moment he received the second revelation, which enlarges the first, sinco

• Hehostkhbeko : Beitrdge, 3d Tol. The moral and religions life of the period of the .'indges, espeolally on Jopb
thah'8 TOW, p. 127 ff.

t Delitzaoh follows the traditionary view of the schools, and Is not Inclined to fall ii ivlth the modern churotlj
•OTe^tiro of that view (p. 300). The objection of Enrtz is answered in the places quoted below

80 INTKODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

it prohibits the bodily killing of his son, with the declaration that he had already
completed his spiritual sacrifice (Ch. xxii, 12). Nothing remains for him now, to
meet his fullest religious necessities, than that he should enlarge and complete sym.
bolically the spiritual sacrifice of his son through the corporeal sacrifice of the ram
which the foresight of God had provided at hand {without commanding him to take
its life). Now, the distinction and connection between the ideas of to saarifice and
to Mil, which forms the peculiar consecration of the Israelitish sacrificial death, is
made perfect. In this sense the human sacrifice of Abraham runs through the whole
Israelitish economy, down to the New Testament (Luke ii. 23, 24). And the distinc-
tion between the holy sacrifice of the people of God, and the sacrificial abominationa
of the heathen, is completed. In the crucifixion, these two sacrifices outwardly come
together, while really and spiritually they are separated as widely as heaven and hell.
Christ yields himself in perfect obedience to the will of the Father, in the judgment
of the world. That is the fulfilling of the Israelitish sacrifice. Caiaphas will suffer
the innocent to die for the good of the people (John xi. 50), and even Pilate yielda
him to the will of men (Luke xxiii. 25) ; this is the completion of the Moloch-
sacrifice.*

X.

The Sexual Diffieulties in the lEstory of the Patriarchs, as they arise out of the Israelitish striving after the
true ideal Marriage, and after the consecrated Theocratic Birth; in Kevolt against the cruel service
of Lust, and the unsanctified Sexual Union'^ and Conceptions in the Heathen World.

In criticizing the known sexual difliculties also, it is tlie Israelitish rejection again
of the heathen nature, on which one sits in judgment, with the modern view in-
woven still with that of the heathen. But here the Apologists believe that they
have fully met the demands of the case, when they remark, that we must not measure
the life of the ancient saints by the standard of Christian morals. But that the germina-
ting seeds of the Christian ideal life and morals occasion these very difficulties, that we
are thus here also dealing with the phenomena of Old Testament glory (which stands
indeed far below the spiritual glory of the New Testament), this is evident from the
very contrasts in which these facts are brought before us.

The spirit of the Old Testament places the natural sexual desire in opposition to
the unnatural ; the object of the sexual desire, procreation, in opposition to the pas
sion for its own sake ; the true marriage — based upon the mind's choice, to the com-
mon or even barely external union of the sexes ; the consecrated holy birth, in oppo-
sition to the birth or conception " after the will of the flesh." In other words, it seeka
the true sacred marriage, perfected indeed through its destination, the conception of
the consecrated child of promise. It sanctifies the traditional marriage through the
true sacred character of the higher union of soul, and the sexual desire through
spiritual and conjugal consecration.

Thus the espousal of Ha.gar into the life of Abraham, which indeed Sarah, the wife
of Abraham, suggests, is explained by the unlimited desire for the heir promised by
Jehovah. The fruitless marriage falls into an ideal eiTor which is far above faithless"
ness or lust, subordinated to the end of the union of the sexes, the attainment of the
tieir. In this ethical thought we must understand the error of Sarah and Abraham.

• For the untenableness of the ordinary view I refer to Henostenbebq : Biiirdgt ; Lakqb : Posi irt Dc^Tnaiih, j
818. Compare also the legal Catholic Church, p. 60.

APPENDIX— THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 81

But then l^he Lord brings the true saered marriage of Abraham with Sarah into op
position with the transient sexual union of Abraham with Hagar, when he opposes the
consecrated spiritual fruit of the first union, to the wild genial fruit of the last, Isaac
to Ishmael. It is remarkable how Jacob under the dialectic form of the Israelitish
principles obtains his four wives. He seelfs the bride after the choice of his heart.
Then was Leah put into the place of his beloved Rachel. Now he wins in Rachel his
second wife, his first peculiar elected bride. The idea of the bridal marriage leads
him to his second wife. But now enters the still stronger idea of obtaining children.
Leah is fruitful, Rachel unfruitful, therefore she will establish her higher claims upon
Jacob with the jewels of children. She imitates the example of Sarah and brings to
him her own maid Bilhah. Then Leah appeals to the sense of justice in Jacob, and
strengthens her side in that she enlarges it through Zilpah. The sin, the error, is
here abundantly clear. But we must not overlook the fact that Jacob obtains his
four wives under the impelling dialectic force of noble Israelitish motives misunder-
stood. The first is the pure sacred marriage, the second the theocratic blessing of
children. If now, we view the most serious difficulties, the incest of Lot with his
daughters, of Judah with his daughter-in-law Tamar, we name as the first explana-
tory principle element the overlooked facts, that in both cases the morally proscribed
union of sexes stands opposed to the most unnatural and revolting crimes. The op-
position to the sin of Lot was sodomy, which he shunned with holy horror ; in this
respect he escaped the judgment, and is a saint. Thus also the act of Judah stands
in opposition to the sin of his son Onan (Gen. xxxviii. 9). He was punished with
death for his, even in a natural sense, abominable misdeed, just as in a similar way the
people of Sodom were destroyed. But Judah and Lot live. And even in their error
they defend the judgment of the Israelitish spirit over the sodomy and onanism and
the like abominable lusts of the heathen world. Moreover, they were ignorant in both
cases of the incest which they committed, although the one in drunkenness, and the
other in the joyful exultation of the feast of shearing, fell into lewdness. But the fe-
males, who in both cases knew of the incest and come into view as the chief figures,
did not act from lust, but from fanatical error, under which lay the moral motive of
the theocratic desire for children. Lot's daughters, after the destruction of their
home, fell under the delusion that the world, at all events the theocratic race, was in
danger of perishing. Tamar plainly fanatically seeks, under the noblest impulse, as
a heatheness, the house of Judah, and the promises which were given to him. Hence
the unwearied perseverance with which she repeatedly, at last in the boldest form,
pushes herself into this family. Finally, we may notice here still the well-known writ-
ing of divorcement of Moses. According to the way in which the Romish church,
or even the latest legal spirit in the evangelic church, identifies the churchly or conse-
crated union of the sexes, with the perfect marriage, Moses, in the permission of
divorce, comes very nearly into conflict with his own law, "Thou shalt not commit
adultery." They say this law, minus the writing of divorce, constitutes marriage.
The Bible on the other hand teaches that the theocratic marriage institution rests
upon the seventh command, plus the ordinance for writings of divorce, under the
permission of separation. That is, Moses knew a higher perfection of marriage than
the barely legal and literal, and this he strove to attain, just as the whole Old Testament,
with the higher spiritual marriage, strove also after a higher spiritual procreation.
Under this spirit and its moral motives, the patriarchal families in succession fell into
fanatical errors ; but in these errors the ethical spirit of the whole sexual life is re-
6

82 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

fleeted, which corrects the heathen disorderly sexual life, and its low view of the nature
of conception.

XI.

J7i« Mosaic System, the Giving of the Law, the Threatening of the Curse, or the Glorification of all the Dl
vine Education of Men, through the Teaching and Leading Power of the Free Religion of the Covenant.

A very wide-spread prejudice, since the days of Marcion, confounds the Old Testa*
raent religion of faith with the Mosaic giving of the law, and then caricatures this
law-giving itself, since it regards it as a despotic or dictatorial bending of an unwilling
people under absolute statutes, which were strengthened by intolerable curses which
should pass over to children and cliildren's children {see EDegel: Philosophie der He-
ligion, ii. pp. 70 and 74).

History and the scripture teach on the contrary : 1. that it is not the Mosaic giv-
ing of the law, but the covenant of faith of Abraham with God, which is the founda-
tion of the Old Testament religion (Gal. iii. 19) ; 2. the Mosaic law is not the first
thing in the Mosaic system (viewing it as a stage of development of the Abraharaio
religion, in its transition as a system of instruction and training to a neglected people),
but the Mosaic typical redemption, the miraculous deliverance of Israel out of Egypt
(Ex. XX. 2) ; 3. the Mosaic law-giving itself rests upon repeated free communications
between Jehovah and his people (Exodus xix. 8 ; xxiv. 3) ; 4. the Mosaic commanda
are not immediate abstract and positive statutes, but are mediate, as religious funda-
mental commands, through the religious spirit, as moral, through the conscience ;
5. transgressions were not visited immediately with the curse, but so far as they were
not bold and obstinate, were taken away through an atonement ; 6. to the curse
which was spoken against the obstinate persistence in sin, stands opposed the super-
abundant blessings which were promised to the well-behaved Israelite ; 7. the Mosaic
system, with its own peculiar stages of development, proclaims its own goal, in the
prophetic continuation and Messianic completion, and forms in its impelling strength
the direct opposition to all laws of an absolute nature. " Moses wrote of Christ."
As to the addition to the second command, which visits the misdeeds of the fathers
npon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me (Ex. xx.
5), this threatening is opposed by the promise which extends the blessing of the pious
to the thousandth of his successors. But in their violent passion over the threaten-
ing, these ungracious humanists have overlooked that it is the same law of tragical
connection between guilt and the curse, which the tragic poets of Greece, in a much
more cruel form, have poetically glorified. Let them first come to an arrangement
with the idea of the tragedists, they will then find, that even here the partially fatal-
istic element of heathen tragedy, is laid aside, while its sad features are glorified.

But the Mosaic system generally stands as the system of instruction and prepara-
tion for the religion of promise, as it trains an uninstructcd people to the culture of
Christendom, and hence also as the glorification of all divine systems of preparatory
instruction and training.

xn.

Ths Sgyptian Miracles and Plagues, or the Typical Revelation of the Fact, that all the Visitations of God
upon the Nations are for the Good of the People and Kingdom of God.

Hengstenberg has shown in his thorough and learned work (Egypt and the books

APPENDIX— THE SO-CALLED DUTICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 88

of Moses, pp. 93-129) that the Egyptian plagues and miracles are not to be regarded
as absolute miraculous decrees of God, but as extraordinary divine leadings and jndg.
ments, conditioned and introduced through the nature of the land of Egypt. There
was a natural foundation for the miracles, for the blood-red color of the Nile, the ap-
pearance of the frogs, the plagues of flies, murrain, sores, the hail and thunderstorm,
the locusts, the Egyptian darkness (the darkening of the air through the sandstorm),
and the death of the first-born (the plague).

This connection of natural events in an extraordinary succession, form, and extent,
is not obscured but strengthened through their reference to the providence of Je-
hovah, and the redemption of his people. Eather the dark events of the earth are
explained and glorified in the idea of punishments, and the judicial punishment glori-
fies itself in its purpose and goal to awaken and save.

But in this form, the visitations of God upon Israel serve to bring out clearly the
final end of all his judicial providence over the individual kingdoms of the world, iv
their opposition to his church.

XIII.

ITie Egyptian Treasures, or the Inheritance of the Goods of this World by the Kingdom of God, at the
cuhninating Points of the Redemption of his People.

In the first place, as to the text, it does not say that the Israelites borrowed the
gold and silver jewels of the Egyptians, but that they demanded or by entreaties ob-
tained them.* In favor of this may be urged first the expression Schaal (^Hl5), which
retains the same sense throughout the passage in question (Ex. iii. 22 ; xi. 2 ; xii. 35).
The signification: to ask, demand, entreat, is the prevailing sense of the word. The
signification : to horroio, is scarcely ever used. In the usual acceptation, indeed, the
Hiphil of the word (osilsxai'i), in the sense, they lend to them^ would seem to require the
corresponding meaning of the Kal : they borrowed the jewels. And Baumgarten in
this view calls (i. p. 473) Hengstenberg's explanation (Authentie, ii. p. 524) very arti-
ficial f The word in question, in the mouth of Hannah (1 Sam. i. 28), cannot well
mean : I lend him (the son prayed for) to the Lord for the whole of his life. The
Hiphil, in its correspondence with the Kal, to entreat, must still mean to give richly
or freely, to grant, especially to encourige the prayer. Moses, moreover, if he had
been speaking of borrowing or of theft, would not have announced it so long before-
hand, as a prominent event in the freeing of the people (ch. iii. 22) ; and the attain-
ing of the desire would scarcely be explained by the fact that the people found or
should find favor in the eyes of the Egyptians (ch. iii. 21 ; xi. 3 ; xii. 36). Thus it can
only be an entirely extraordinary asking which is here spoken of, and the expres-
sion which records the result can consequently hardly be to steal. The term (bs;)
points in its various forms rather to a strong and violent snatching than to a stealthy
theft.J And since in this case it cannot be violence which is spoken of, so the term
must express the intellectual ascendency of those who gained the inheritance, a mighty
appropriation to themselves.

* Compare Hbngstenbbbg : Authenticity of the Pentaieuch, 2 vol. p. 507.

t " The verb (bc<iz3), to desire, can on]y be in Hiphil to cause another to desire. It designates then a fteely of-
fered gift, in opposition to one which is given only from outward constraint, or only from shameless begging. Who-
ever freely gives thereby invites the other to ask ; he cannot ask too much, not enough indeed." This is surely in
perfect accordance with the spirit of the language, if the Hiphil Is explained according to the Kal. Baumgarten asj
the traditional exposition explain the Kal after an hypothetical Hiphil.

X Hengstenberg, p. 626.

34 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

The situation itself is not in favor of lending. The first demand of Moses foi
Israel was only for a brief journey into the wilderness, for the purpose of holding a
feast (Ex. oh. v. 1) ; but aftervyard the demand increased in the same measure in
ivhich Pharaoh was hardened (ch. viii. I ; ix. 1 ; x. 24). But after the judgment
upon the first-born there is no need of any supposition that they would return, as
indeed it had not been promised before. The Egyptians drove the Israelites out,
because they, under the protection of their God, had become a terror to them. The
reservation which Pharaoh could perhaps have made, he abandons immediately after-
wards, since he pursues the Israelites, makes war upon them, and perishes.

We pass in review the difierent explanations of this passage. The older, ex-
tremely positive and favorite explanation, proceeds from the assumption that God
suspended in that case the prohibition of theft and deceit. The Apologists do not
spend much labor here in the defensive. They have a greater work ; they have the
glory of this fearful moment to show, in which the despised slaves, the Jews, in the
eyes of their proud oppressors, now humbled by God, pass into a people of God,
or sons of God, who only need to ask, whether as a favor, or as a loan, or as a demand,
for the gold and silver treasuies, and they are cast before them as an acknowledg-
ment of homage, a tribute of reverence and fear. Their sons and daughters are loaded
and burdened with them. That Moses so long foresaw this moment marks the
great prophet ; that Israel uses it shows not only his human prudence, but even his
sacred right ; but that God brings about this result, reveals him as the protector
of his people, who will provide for him, after his long sorrows and deprivations, the
richest compensation, and at the very foundation of his kingdom appropriates with
majesty the gold and silver of the world. Thus before this time Abraham had been
blessed among the heathen, thus Jacob by Laban, and thus since the church of
Christ, at the time of Constantine, after its victory over the Roman empire; and
in like manner the church of the middle ages, after the irruption of the barbarians.
But at the end of days all the treasures of the world shall become serviceable to the
kingdom of God, and civilization shall fall as an inheritance to the cultus.

XIV.

Sioaef the Prophet, and the Prophetic People of God in opposition to the Magicians of Egypt and Balaam,
or the Spirit of Magic, and the Prophecy of Heathenism, as it involuntarily does homage to the Spirit
of the Kingdom of God. Balaam's speaking Ass.

We believe there is good ground for placing the magicians of Egypt in relation
with the Aramaic seer Balaam. Just as the history of the magicians (Ex. vii. 11 fi".)
records the victory of the theocratic prophets over the antagonistic position of real-
isti(i wisdom and magic, so the history of Balaam (Num. xxii.) proclaims the triumph
of the theocratic people over the hostile position of that idealistic wisdom of the
world, the worldly prophecy and poesy represented by Balaam. It would be dif.
Scult to distinguish accurately between the symbolic and the purely actual elements
in the account of the contest of Moses with the Egyptian conjurers. Moses was
endowed with miraculous power for this contest, whc^e sign, in any case, wore a
symbolical coloring. Hengstenberg regards it as the central point in this endow-
ment, that he could thus meet and defeat the Egyptian serpent-charmers upon their
own field, in the region of their most cultivated magical art, and with higher meani

APPENDIX— THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 89

at his command.* Moses, with his miraculous rod, or staff, works in the three re
gions of life miracles of punishment and salvation ; in the region of elementarj
nature (changing water into blood, bitter water into sweet) ; in the region of organic
nature (making the rod to become a serpent, and the serpent a rod) ; in the region
3f human life (calling forth the leprosy and healing it). He can do this truly only
m the service of the Lord, and therefore only in decisive preordained moments. But
then he can do this with an evidence Avhich puts to shame all magical art and
worldly culture. Thus gradually, and step by step, the Egyptian conjurers were
put to naught before him. The first distinction is, that they could only imitate
what Moses did before them ; the second, that they could only do upon a small scale
what Moses did upon a large ; the third, that they could imitate in the destructive
miracles, not in those which delivered and saved ; the fourth, that they could not
imitate the great destructive miracles; the last, that they themselves perished in the
destructive miracles of Moses. At the very beginning, their rods were devoured by
the terrible rod of Moses, and at the end they stand there without power, they
themselves filled with sores, and their first-born given to death.

Balaam undoubtedly represents the ideal character of the art and culture of the
world ; f as it places and defines itself, in its common or ordinary life, as in the
sphere of its conscious thought or purpose, it opposes the people of God and his
kingdom, and especially, by the device ot lustful and drinking banquets, it could work
great injury to the church of God ; and yet must ever, in the sphere of its con-
scious feeling, in the impetus of its inspiration through the Spirit of the Lord, be car-
ried beyond itself, bless the people of the kingdom, and testify of its salvation and
victory. This opposition between the purpose and the inspiration in the spheres
of worldly genius and culture is world-historical, not less so than the fact that even
the worldly genius in its philosophic systems, with its poetical and artistic culture,
prophesies of Christ and blesses his kingdom.

But Balaam's ass is destined to portray the fact, that the ass itself must become
a prophet, when the worldly prophet, who rides him, will become an ass. This
grand irony, according to which Genius in its fallen state is more blind and dumb
than the ass which it rides, according to which the prophet who rides the ass is
changed into an ass who rides the prophet, does not stand there as a perplexity to
the believer and a sport to the unbeliever. And it is truly the guilt of the apologetic
school theology if it falls into distress about the ass of Balaam, when the free-thinkers
lustily ride upon it.

That the species of the horse, to which the ass, especially the oriental ass, be-
longs, is inclined to be timid, and through its fright can draw attention to hidden
dangerous circumstances — indeed, that it has an inexplicable power to recognize
ghost-like appearances, or even in its way to see spirits, all this is confirmed through
the strangest things. More than once has the stumbling of a horse been an evil
omen to his rider, and Napoleon played the part of Balaam on the other side of the
Niemen.

That the voice of an act or event, thus even of the mighty utterance of the animal
loul, may become, in the plastic forming impulse of a visionary genius, a miracle of
rision, and most easily the Bath Kol, the voice, this needs no detailed explanation,}

* The booke o^ Moses, p. 71.

t Especially the wisdom of the Chaldees upon the Euphrates, sec Baumgarten, ii. p. 349.

J We may not here think of a barely inward event. The way, however, in which Badmgarten, iL p. 359, defendf

86 INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

But that, finally, repeated terrors of conscience may awaken the inward life of the
spirit and preserve it watchful, for the reception of the higher and clearer manifest
ations of the Spirit, thus in the prophetic region, even for angelic appearances, this
txperience teaches.

Balaam's ass is no subject for ridicule; least of all in a time when the noblei
mimals have a sensorium more open to the signs of the invisible world than
materialistic geniuses, whom the hostility to Christianity has raised to temporary
honor. The Spirit of God has made this ass to be a standing irony upon the thought-
lessness (to speak euphemistically) of the knights of free-thought, as they go upon
the expedition to destroy Christianity.*

ST.
The Arresting of the Sun hy Joshua (Joshua i.).

We will not speak here of the great exegetical history of this place. The papal
chair, which esteems fish not to be flesh, and once rejected the doctrine of the anti-
podes (according to which all the Jesuit missions in America rested upon a flagrant
heresy), compelled, it is well known, the philosopher Galileo to forswear the theory,
that the earth rolls round the sun. Modern Catholic theologians hold a modifica-
tion of the old view, that Joshua arrested the earth in its course. The spiritual
primate of Ireland (Cullen), however, has returned to the orthodox view, and quite
recently some Protestant voices are heard, which even in this point will recall " the
good old time." f

The presupposition of the established exegesis is the hermeneutioal principle thai
the Bible throughout uses languagu in the same way only, in which it is used in
ordinary records. In that case the symbolical contents of the record will be denied.
It will be emptied of its true religious, indeed historical character. Thus here the
peculiar triumphant feeling of Joshua will be entirely mistaken, since in that case
they only find the thought that he, through an unheard-of astronomical and mechani-
cal miracle, had arrested the rolling sun (or the rolling earth, as the case may be)
for about a day (v. 13). They thus gain perhaps what they cannot use, indeed
wherewith they are in the deepest trouble; while on the contrary they lose the
glorious typical event, which brings out into bold relief the fact, that all nature,

the out-ward speaking of the ass against Hbngstenberg, appears to us without weight or importance. If it is allowed
to the prophet to speak in his own dialect, then sureli' it may be to the ass.

[* Hengstenberg holds that there Is a real miracle, but that it is inward in the mind or vision of the prophet, not
outward ill the ass. He defends his view — wliioh is connected with a general theory as to the nature of prophecy or
-he stale of the prophets — with great ingenuity and ability. But there are serious and insuperable objections to it.
But even this view is preferable to that given above. Dr. Lange comes down here from the high vantage ground from
which he has discussed eo ably the previously stated diiiicultiefl, and stands very nearly upon a level with those who
merely seek to explain the miracle. If there is nothing more here than the naturally timid disposition of the animal,
and the working of a plastic fancy or genius upon the braying of the frightened and refractory ass, leading the pro-
phet to im;igine that he sees spirits or angels, and awakening his moral and spiritual powers, then the whole narrative
is easily explained, but then the miracle is lost. It is vastly better to hold that the record narrates the fact literally,
Nor is there anything improbable in such a miracle, that the ass should really use the words of men, if we regard the
circumB*iances of the case, and the ends which were designed to be reached. It is a fitting way to rebuke this prophet,
who had yielded himself to the blindness and brutaHty of his sin, that the ignorant, brute should reprove him. And the
b'^ent thus viewed, stands, a,s Lange shows, only with far greater significance and force than it can have upon fall
Iheoiy, as a perpetual rebuke to those who, with like hatred to the people of God, and with similar blindness, undel
the hrutalizinff power of sin, carry on their warfare against Cliristianity. Those who would see this record vindicated^
and its real significance brought out fully, may consult Baumgarten : Commentary.^A. Q.}

i For the different explanations compare Winer, Ariicle Joshua.

APPENDIX— THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. ST

Heaven, and earth, are in covenant with the people of God, and ever aid them tc
victory in the wars of his liingdom.

Although we do not share the view of those interpreters who think that we are
only dealing here with a poetical and symbolical style of expression (which the
papal ejcegesis could not use), which, in the sun of Giheon and the moon of Ajalon,
glorifies the sunniest and through midnight protracted, brightest day of victory, we
would not deny the relation of the text to a song of victory. It has been overlooked
perhaps, that in our history the storm of hail which terrifies and follows the hostile
Amorites, is placed significantly over against the sun and moon of Joshua, which
give light to the people of Israel. When the theocratic hero and conqueror, in the
view of such a terrible storm of hail, on the part of heaven, utters the prophecy :
we shall have the clearest sunshine upon our line of battle, and at the evening the
light of the moon, that is a peculiar miracle, which is closely joined as to its stamp
and character with the great Mosaic miracles of victory.*

XVL

I%e Old Testament Theocratic Miracles of Salvation, as parallel Miracles, or as extraordinary Phenomena
of Nature, which the Spirit of Prophecy recognizes, announces and uses as Saving Ordinances of God,
and in whicli it proclaims the Truth, that the miraculous points in the Earth's Development, from the
Flood on to the Final Grand Catastrophe at the End of the World, rung parallel with the Development
of the Kingdom of God in its Great Eventful Moments, and promotes its Salvation and Glorification.

That I may not unduly enlarge this essay, I remark that the above paragraph,
while it may be regarded as clearly intelligible in the outline given, finds its de-
tailed explanation in the work of the author upon miracles {Lehen Jem, 2 Bd.). In
some particular Old Testament miraculous deeds, the signs of the New Testament
miracles appear, i. e., the signs of the absolate victory of the theanthropio spirit
over the human, natural world.

XVIL

The Destruction of the Canaanitish People.

This must be viewed as the symbol of the continuous destruction of malefactors
in the Christian state. They were destroyed so far as they, as Canaanites, that is
here as the servants of Moloch, claimed the holy land, and would live under the
establishment, or in defiance of the establishment of Israel Two ways of escape
were opened to them : the way of flight from the land, or the way of conversion
to the Faith of IsraeL The cunning of the Gibeonites found a third way (Josh.
ix.).

[ * The great Mosaic miracles were wrought indeed in connection with natural agencies or forces, but were none the
less real miracles. The fact, that the storm was miraculous, does not meet the demands of the narrative of the arrest-
ing of the sun aud moon. There are great difficulties, unquestionably, involved in such a miracle as this, but difficuU
ties are not a matter of great weight, to any one who admits the miracle at all, and when therefure the question is
loerely one of the power of God. Keil, who holds strongly that if the passage in question is to be taken as a part %t
the historical narrative, we are not to be troubled by the difficulties supposed, contends with great ability, and ae a
mere exegatical question, that the passage must be regarded as a quotation from the poetical book of Jasher, which
is introduced into the narrative, not as a historical statement, but as a poetical description of the great victory, Sei
Eeil The book of Joshua. If, ho-vever, we may take the passage as historical, and then of course bold to the literal
miracle, that the earth was stayed in its conrse by the hand of God, how grandly it brings out the fact, as Lange statea
It, "that heaven and earth are in covenant with the people of God, and ever help them to victory in the ware ot'hiM
tingiora."— A.O.J

88 INTEODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.

XVIII.

7%e Ascension of Elijah in a Chariot of Fire, as the culminating Point of the consistent Development oi

the Mosaic Law.

The consistent unfolding of the Mosaic law, in its judicial punitive righteous-
ness, is completed in the form of the prophet Elijah. Hence the punitive miracle ia
the prevailing type of his work. He punishes the people of Israel for its apostasy,
with a three-years' drought and famine, he slays the priests of Baal, announces to
the house of Ahab its destruction, and calls down fire from heaven upon the two
captains of Ahaziah with their companies. In this consistent unfolding of the pro.
phetic judicial procedure, he is on the way to the final calling of the fires of the
judgment upon the corrupt of the world. The third captain of fifty, sent by the
king of Israel to bring the prophet, weeps and clings to his knees praying for merej,
and Elijah feels that he must arrest the judgment. But therewith he has the pre-
sentiment that he is about to leave the earth. He can no more endure the earth,
nor the earth bear him, and the fiery spirit is borne to heaven in a storm of fire.
The first persecution by Ahab drove him into the loneliness of the heathen world ;
the second by Jezebel, when she threatened him with death, drove him to Horeb,
the cradle of the law, where he would willingly have died. In bis fiery triumph
over the ofiicers of the third persecution, he appears already as a lofty Cherub with
a flaming sword, who sends down from the mountain the fiery judgments of heaven.
And still this is only the consistent fulfilling of his true Mosaic ofiice. He has a
tolerant heart, otherwise he could not have dwelt with a heathen widow and among a
people that had given to his land the corrupt princess Jezebel as queen ; a loving heart,
as is shown in his miraculous raising of the dead, a heart opened for the 2^resentunents
of the gospel, which appears in his trembling and awe at the still small voice, in the
feeling that Jehovah was now to appear, which he had not experienced in the storm,
and earthquake, and fire ; a merciful heart, and therefore he pauses in the midst of
his fieiy judgments and takes his departure from the earth. But the Lord prepares
for him a worthy end, when he permits him to vanish from the earth in a fiery
sign from heaven. We cannot so paint this history for ourselves as that school
which speaks even oi the hoofs of these fiery horses. Had the friends of Elijah seen
the hoofs of the horses, they would surely not have sent fifty men for three days to
search for the vanished prophet. But just as little are we to understand the nar-
rative as a mere description of a disappearance in some peculiar storm. If we see,
in this grand moment, a kind of end of the world, we shall also recognize in this
chariot of fire the mystery of a primitive original phenomenon.*

The opposition between Elijah and Elisha marks the turning point in the history
of Israel, with which the judicial office and rank of the law retires into the back
ground, and the providence of mercy comes into relief, out of which the prophecy
of salvation unfolds itself. Elisha inherits a double portion of the spirit of Elijah,
and this appears clearly, since he with his miracles of healing and salvation (in oppo-
gition to the punitive miracles of Elijah) forms the type of the coming gospel. The
punitive miracle indeed still appears in his life, but the essential and determining char
BCter of his work, forms a circle of helping, healing, and delivering miracles. Elijah
enters the history as a glorified Moses, Elisha as the type of the Christ to come.

[* That ';b, perhaps, the mystery of the Ideal death or of the mode of traneitlon to the higher life. See pp. 7S 71
■-A. P'

APPENDIX— THE SO-CALLED DIFFICULT PLACES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 89

XIX.

The Types 0/ tht New Testament Miracles, and of the Victory of the New Testament Spirit. Book ol

Daniel.

Tliere appears very early in the Old Testament a definite kind of helping and
saving miracles, which grows more distinct in the life of Elisha, and reaches its
highest culture and perfection in the book of Daniel. Elisha appears as one who
raises from the dead, in a greatly higher measure than Elijah; even his grave
restores the corpse to life. He heals the fountains of bitter waters with salt, and
the poisonous meal in the pot, makes the waters of Jordan a healing bath to
Naaman the Syrian, raises the lost axe from the bottom of Jordan in a miraculous
way, proves himself a spiritual reprover and saviour of Israel, triumphs over the
hostile hosts who were besieging him, by the help of the hosts of the Lord, and
sends away his enemies who fell into his hands, with mercy, to their homes. In
the miracles of the book of Daniel, which bear more distinctly the character of the
Sew Testament miracles, because they are the victorious miracles of suffering, the
New Testament time, the victory of the kingdom of Christ over the monarchies of
the world, is clearly announced. The three men in the fiery furnace, especially, pro-
claim with the greatest clearness, and in the grandest symbolism, the victory of the
Ohriatian martyrdom.

GENESIS {rmE2i2, n^izjsi-is);

OE,

THE riEST BOOK OF M0SE.3.

INTRODUCTION.

5 1. GENEBAIi INTEODUOTION TO GENESIS

trBNESis is the record of the creation of the material world, of the founding of the spintua.
ivorld, or kingdom of God, and of general and special revelation ; as such it stands at the head
of aU Scripture as the authentic basis of the whole Bible. It is consequently, in the first place,
the basis for all the books of the Old and the New Testament in general, a root whose trunk
extends through all Scripture, and whose crown appears in the Apocalypse, the now Genesis,
or the prophetic record of the completed new, spiritual world and city of God.

In the special sense, then, it is the basis of the whole Old Testament ; in the most special
sense it is the basis of the Pentateuch. The Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures in general,
we have already given in the "Commentary on Matthew." The Introduction to the Old
Testament precedes the present exposition. "We have yet to treat of the Introduction to the
Pentateuch, or the Five Books of Moaes.

Obsesvation. — Compare the beginning and the end of the Introduction of the " Commen-
tary " of Delitzsch. The author has said many valuable things of the deep significance of
Genesis. For example: "Genesis and Apocalypse, the Alpha and Omega of the canonical
writings, correspond to each other. To the creation of the present heaven and the present
earth corresponds the creation of the new heaven and the new earth on the last pages of the
Apocalypse. To the fifst creation, which has as its object the first man Adam, corresponds
the new creation which has its outgoing from the second Adam. Thus the Holy Scriptures
form a rounded, completed whole ; a proof that not merely this or that book, but also the
Canon, is a work of the Holy Spirit."

But Delitzsch confounds here and elsewhere (as also Kurtz) the significance of the biblical
book of Genesis, with the significance of the living Divine Eevelation that throughout precedes
the biblical books themselves and their historical covenant institutions. It might be going too
far to say : " The edifice of our salvation reaching into eternity, rests accordingly on the pillara
of this book." This edifice rests, indeed, on the living, personal Christ, although the faith in
Him is efiected and ruled by the Holy Writ. In a similar manner it must appear one-sided,
when the Pentateuch, as a book, is made the basis of the Old Covenant, or even of the New;
although it is, on the other hand, quite as wrong if we do not count the records of divins
revelation within the sphere of revelation.

LiTBRAET Supplements to the Bible nj genekal. — See Literary Catalogue in Heetwig'b
Tabellen ; Kuetz: "History of the Old Covenant," Introduction; Kieohhofee: Bilelhunde,
pp. 1, 2, 19 ff'. ; WiNEE, i. p. 75. Works on this subject by Griesinger, Cellerier, Kleuker. —
Koppen: "The Bible, a Book of Divine Wisdom." Prideaux, Stockhouse, Lilienthal, eta
Beam: "Surveys of Universal History," Strasburg, 18?P; Bbetsoh: " History of the Old CoTe-
aant and its People," Stuttgart, 1857.

Va, INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS.

A. THE PENTATEUCH.

( J. THE i-iiJMxAriSUCH, OB THE FIVE BOOKS OP MOSES— THE THOEAH. tJBGANIO UlflTT AMD

ARRANGEMENT.

The Hebrew Thorah (i. e., doctrine, especially doctrine of the law, — law), or the record of
the covenant religion of the Old Testament {fj naKaia SiaSriKr], 2 Oor. iii. 14; Sm^ij/ci; = ni-ia),
has its real principle not so much in the Mosaic law as in tiie Abrahamic covenant of faith aa
eflfeeted by the first preparation of the kingdom of God in the creation of the world and of man
(see Eom. iv. 1, ff. ; Gal. iii. 17).

Genesis is, therefore, not the introduction to the five books of Moses, especially to the law-
giving portion, as Kurz supposes ("Compendium of sacred history," p. 94; it is true, with the
restriction: "For the Israelitish standpoint the first book has only the import of an historical
introduction "), for this would correspond to a specific and Judaistio view of the Old Testament;
but it is the universal foundation for it ; i. e., for the temporary economic particularity of the
patriarchal state and of the law-giving. Genesis is the special root of the Thorah, and the gen-
eral root of the Holy Writ.

Hence the Pentateuch, including this basis, is developed in five books ; (Hebraice :
minn ^yiaiin nisan the five fifths of the law in rabbinical notation. Grece: 17 Trei-raTfvxof
sc' /3i'0X(,v. ' Latin': liber Pentateuclim). The number five is the half number ten. Ten is the
number of the perfect moral or historical development ; five is the number of the hand, of
action, of freedom, and so then also of their legal standard.

The founding of the law in Genesis unfolds itself in the triple form of legislation. Exodus
{Liber Exodi ; 17 €|oSor ; Hebrew: nisia) presents the prophetic side of the law throughout.
Even the Tabernacle, whose construction is described from ch. xxxv.-xl., belongs not mainly
on the side of the priestly service, but on that of the prophetic legislation of God, as the place
of the living presence of the lawgiver, and of the law itself (in the ark of the Covenant ; hence :
Ohel moed, Ohel haeduth, tent of meeting, tent of testimony).

Leviticus (Heb. : Nnpii • Gr. : \cuitlkov) embraces the priestly side of the law, the holy
order of service for the Israelitish people, according to its symbolical and universal significance
in its most comprehensive sense.

The hook of Numbers (Heb.: la'iaa, Gr. : apdiioC) is ruled throughout by the idea of the
princely or royal encampment of the people of Israel as an army of divine warriors, in which
are presented its preconditionings and its typically significant characteristics, revealing, as they
do, by manifold disorder, that this people is not the actual people of God, but only the type of
that people.

These three fundamental forms of the symbolical Messianic law, namely the prophetic, the
priestly, and the royal, are embraced in Deuteronomy (Heb.: Dinn";, Gr. : Sturfpoi/pnto)/), or
in the solemn free reproduction of the whole law again as a unity, in order to point from the
sphere of the legal letter into the sphere of the inner prophetic force of the law (compare Deut,
iv. 25; cb. v. 15, 21 — the ordering of house and wife; ch. vi. 5; x. 18-19; xi. 1; xiv. 1; xviii.
15 ; ch. xxviii. If. xxx. 6 ; xxx. 2-14 ; ch. xxxiii. 2-3).

Aa in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, the historical period of Israel is opened, so Deuter-
rnomy points forward to the prophetic period.

From the foregoing it appears that we can divide the Pentateuch into three main divisions,
namely, into Genesis as the universal foundation of the law, next into the particular law that
shows, with its Messianic, significant, triple division, the symbolical background of its whole
l^pearanoe {i. «., into the divisions Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers), and finally into Deuteronomy,
in which, along with the intrinsic character, the universal import of the law again prophet,
icallj" appears.

Obsbevation 1. For the more general category, Historical books of the Old Testament, ««!
the division in the general Introduction. In respect to the literature, see Literary Catalogue.

§ 2. THE PENTATEUCH, OR THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES.

_ Observation 2. The present division into Ave books Is considered by some (Berthold) a«
original and peculiar to the Hebrew collection of the Canon. According to others (Hiivernicli,
Lengerlje) it proceeds from the Alexandrians. In favor of the first view is the fact that Joseph iis,
who retained the Hebrew canon, was acquainted with this division {contra Apion. i. 8, alsu
Philo). De Witte seems also to incline to this opinion. Michaelis considered this division
older than the Septuagint, but not original. According to Vaihinger (see the article Pentatencli
m HEKZoa's Real-Lexicon), the division of the Pentateuch into five books was made before the
captivity. But the same learned authority supposes it not to have been made until after tlia
division of the Proverbs of Solomon into four parts, because the conscious influence of symbol-
ical numbers had not favored the number five imtil after that period, as with the division of the
Psalms into five books, and the presentation of the five Megilloth.

We do not consider this argument conclusive against the earlier division of Moses into fiva
books. The Jew could distinguish a significant number four, and a significant number five,
even according to this numerical symbolism. In the Pentateuch the number five seems to have
been indicated from tlie beginning by the variety of the originals. That Genesis is actually in
contrast with the following books, and that Deuteronomy is quite as specific, is evident. The
fundamental ideas of the three middle books, do not contrast less specifically with each other,
as appears from our division.

It serves even to a better appreciation of the import of tlie Tabernacle, when we consider
that it is an annex of the Decalogue, and of the whole fundamental lawgiving connected there-
with, and that, in accordance with this, it is repre.^ented in the second book as the place where-
in Jehovah, as lawgiver, is present to his people. The contents of the fourth, again, are in
strong contrast with Leviticus (as the book of the tribes). The ethical proplietical book of
Exodus is especially the book of God and his prophet. Leviticus, or the book of the divine
office, refers especially to the priests. Numbers, or the book of the tribes, more especially con-
cerns the people in a theocratic, political sense.

OssEiiVATioN 3. If we mark the number ten as the number of perfection, or completion,
and consequently the number five as the number of half completion (Vaihinger), such classifica-
tion seems much too general and indefinite, since the numbers three, seven, and twelve, are alsn
numbers of perfectiou, or completion, each in its kind. It will be our duty to treat of symbol-
icid numbers in Exodus. Here we will simply anticipate that clearly " the ten words" * indicate
moral completion, or perfect development, and so also the ten virgins in the gospel parable.
When, however, there appear five as foolish and five as prudent or wise, the number five may
indeed mark the number of the freely chosen religious and moral development of life. Five
books of Psalms indicate the moral and religious life-prime of the Old Testament, just as the
five Megilloth indicate five periods of the development of Israelitisli fife. The five fingers of
the hand are the symbol of moral action, as the five senses symbolize the number of the moral
reciprocity of man with nature. — Vaihinger rightly concludes from the signiflcancy of the num-
ber five, that the Decalogue should not be divided into three and seven, but into five .-lud five.

Obseevation 4. Our theological naming of the five books (Genesis, &c.) is the Alexandrian
naming of the Septuagint, followed by the vulgate (only that the gender of Pentateuch and
Exodus in Greek is feminine on account of /3i'/3Xos and oSoV, in Latin masculine on account of
liber).

The five books, which were comprised by the Jews under the above names: the five fifths
of the law, were individually designated by them, according to the initial words: Breschith, &c.,
as this naming has passed into tlie Masoretic Bibles. But the Jews had also a designation for
the five books, according to the contents, i. e., Genesis was called the book of the creation {see
Vaihixgeb in Hekzog's Encyclopedia, Art. Pentateuch, p. 293).

Observation 5. Vaihinger seeks f )r the five books of Moses a second half, and finds it in
the prophets (law and the prophets, Matt. xxii. 40). This division is interfered with by the inter-
vention of tlie Kethuhim. Then he finds the second half in the additional idea of the law as
promise in the New Testament. Without doubt, the New Testament is the converse of the Old ;
that, however, the number five, as such, requires a complement, becomes doubtful by the num-
ber of the bo ikfl of the Psa'ms, unless we are to consider the writings of Solomon as the comple-
ment of these five books of Psalms. It is true, a complement follows the five historical books,
in the Apostolic writings of the New Testament.

Obsebvatios- 6. It has been maintained by Ewald, Bleek, Knobel, and others, that the basis
of the Pentateuch was originally connected with the book of Joshua, and that the work was in
six parts {see Vaihinger, p. 293; Keil, Introduction, § 42, p. 143). It is curious that the same
criticism which on the one hand considers these books of Moses too Urge to have been original
un the other hand again thinks them dismembered out of larger, and comparatively modern
historical writings.

• JThe Hebrew phrase for the ten commandments, Di^^'HlH n*nlSS j Exodus xsuv. 28. — T. L.l

H mTRODtrCTION TO GENESIS.

( 3. ORIGIN AND COMPOSITION OF THE PENTATEUCH.

In the introductory paragraphs on the Old Testament criticism, it has been said, that in
treating the point in question, we neither feel dependent on tradition and the orthodox rule,
tliat; it is necessary for the belief of the canonical word of God to attribute to Moses all the fiv«
books of Moses iu the present form (except the report of his death), nor on the critical con-
jectures which in various ways, through their false suppositions, their want of intelligence of
the more profound relations of the word, and their great divergence from each other, prove
themselves unripe efforts.

That one must adopt a canonical recension of the originals of Moses (i. e., a recension falling
within the prophetic sphere of the Old Covenant), appears from the manifold indications ol
criticism. To these indications belongs, above all, the account of the death of Moses ; the judg-
ments on Moses, however, as of a third person, which is the object of the statement Ex. xi. 3 ;
Num. xii. 3, seem to us to decide nothing. Then there is the great chasm of 38 years in the
history of the wanderings of Israel through the desert (Num. xx.), as also other enigmatical
obscurities (see Vaihinger). Farther, the manifold indications of the combination of various
originals in initial and concluding formulas; the marks of a later period (Gen. xii. 6; xiii. 7;
xiv. 14; xxiii. 2, at that time the Oanaanites were in the land; Dan, Hebron, seem no conclusive
characteristics) ; the presumption of a book of the wars of Jehovah (Num. xxi. 14) ; the great
development of the genealogy of Edom oarried even to the appearance of its kings (Gen. xxxv.
1 1). The ambiguity of the expression " unto this day " (Gen. xix. 37 ; xxii. 14, ff.), is also
noticed by Vaihinger.

From many false presumptions of criticism on the other hand, it is clear that we cannot yield
to its past views. Here place especially the rationalistic starting-point of most critics, and tljeir
dogmatic prejudices. This is 1. the prejudice against supernatural revelation in general ; con-
sequently 2. against miracles ; and 3. against prophecies; through these many are impelled to
deny to tlie Pentateuch not only authenticity, but also its historical character. On this piiint
see Delitzsoh, p. 46. Here belongs also the ignoring of the great contrast between the names
Elohim and Jehovah, which in its essential signifioance extends not only through the whole Old
Testament (the Solomonic universalism, the Davidic theocratic Messianism), and through the
whole New Testament (the Johannean doctrine of the Logos, the Petrine doctrine of the Messiah),
but also through the whole Christian church to the contests in the immediate present (ecclesias-
tical confession and Christian humanism).

At a later period we may speak of some valuable references of Sack and Hengstenberg, to
the contrast between Elohim and Jehovah. "W"e also reckon here the supposition, that Moses,
the lawgiver, on account of this his peculiar office, could not also, at the end of his career, and
in his prophetic spirit, have given a deeper meaning to the law, as he looked out from the legal
sphere and over into the prophetic, even as from the mountain Nebo he looked over into the
promised land {see the quoted article of Vaihiugee, p. 315 ff.). The office of John the Baptist
was to preach repentance in the name of the coming Messiah; before his death, however, he
became the prophet of the atonement with reference to Christ: Behold the Lamb of God which
bears the sins of the world. It is everywhere wrong to assume that a lawgiver has known
nothing higher than what he finds within his calling to announce in form of law, according to
the degree of culture to which his people have advanced.

After these remarks we give a survey of the various views of the origin and the composition
of the Pentateuch, with reference to Bleek (p. 161 ff.).

1. The older supposition among Jews and Christians, that Moses was the author of the entire
Pentateucli. This is also the judgment of Philo and Josephus. Thus the Talmud : "Mosea
wrote his book, the Pentateuch, with the exception of eight Pesukim, the last eight, which were
Indited by Joshua. PhUo and Josephus even assume that Moses wrote the section concerning

is death in the spirit of prophecy.

2. The views of the Essenes, according to which the original theocratic revelation was falsi

§ 8 ORIGIN Am) COMPOSITION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 95

Bed bj- later interpolations, passed naturally over to the gnostic writings of the Jews, and ihi
Alexandrian gnostics. From this we may explain a similar account of Bleek, relative to the
gnostic Valentinus, the Nasorseans (as given by Epiphanius and Damai?cenus), the Olementinei
and Bogomiles. The source of these views is everywhere the same gentile, dualistic representa-
tion. They also coincide with those judgments of the gnostics, which in their various grades
are so inclined to throw away the Old Testament.

8. Doubts of certahi Jewish authorities of the middle ages about the authorship of the whoh
Pentateuch by Moses, Isaac, Ben Jasos, and Aben Esra. The commencement of a genuine crit-
icism is seen with them. They accepted, however, only later additions in certain passages, i. e.
Gen. xxxvi. 81.

4. The first critical doubts after the reformation, 16th century: Oaelstadx: Be eanonieis
tcripturk, Moses non fuisse scriptorem guinque liirorum. Andebas Masius : "The Pentateuch
in its present form is the work of Ezra or another inspired man." — 17th century: Hobbbs in his
Leviathan: "The Pentateuch a work aiout Moses, not hy Moses, yet based on originals by the
band of Moses." So also Isaac Peyebeitts, at first a reformed divine, then Roman and Jesuit :
Systema theologicum ex Pracadimitorum hypothesi, 1655. Spinoza in his Tractatus theologico-
poUticvs: "Ezra is the author of the Pentateuch and of the remaining historical books in their
present form." Riohaed Simon : " Critical History of the Old Testament " : " Moses wrote the
laws ; the history of his time he had written by annalists, from which followed the later com-
position of the Pentateuch." Oleeious, in his Sentimens, went still further, though in his " Com-
mentary on Grenesis" he took it mostly back, holding that only a few additions are Post Mosaic.
Anton Van Dale, Menonite : " The Pentateuch was written by Ezra on the basis of the Mosaic
book of the law, and other historical documents." — 18th century: At first a long-continued
reaction in favor of genuineness : Oarpzov, Michaelis, Eiohhorn (^Introduction, 1-3). Then fol-
lowed renewed attacks: Hasse, Professor at Konigsberg: "Prospects of Future Solutinns of the
Old Testament," 1T85 ; at the time of the exile the Pentateuch was composed from old rec-
ords." Later retractations (following the example of Clericus), according to which he accepted
only additions to the documentary Pentateuch. Fulda, whose conjectures are like Bleek's;
Corrodi, Nachtigall (pseudonym, Otmar), whose sweeping assertions were modified by Eoker-
man, Bauer, and others.— 19th century : To great lengths now went Severin the father, and De
Wette; these then were variously opposed under the confession of adduions and interpolations
by Kelle, Fritzsche, Jahn, EosenmilUer, Pustkuchen, Kanne, Hug, Sack, and others. Reconcil-
ing or medium views were presented by Herbst, Bertholdt, Volney, and Eichhorn, 4th Edition.
We then have the investigations of Bleek : " A few aphoristic supplements to the investigations
of the Pentateuch" (in Rosenmbllbe's Eepertorium, 1822). Later: "Supplements to the
investigations of the Pentateuch " (Studies and Criticisms, 1831). The proof that a great number
of the laws, songs, and similar pieces, were originally Mosaic, was not recognized by Hartman,
von Bohlen Vatke, and George. Bleek wrote against von Bohlen : De libri Geneseos Origine,
&c., Bonn, 1836. The complete Mosaic composition of the Pentateuch was on the contrary
again maintained by Ranke, Hengstenberg, Drechsler, Havernick, Wette, Keil, and Ludwig Konig.
Movers and Bertheau here follow with peculiar investigations and views. Tuch, in his com-
mentary on Genesis, follows in all material respects the views of Bleek, who also designates the
labors of Stahelin, De "Wette, Ewald, and von Lengerke, as the latest investigations of the Pen-
tateuch. The latter is eclectic, leaning on Bleek, Tuch, Stahelin, Ewald, and de Wette.

Stahelin passes over the authorship of Moses himself, and makes as the basis of the Pen-
tateuch and the following bonks an older writing, which extends from the creation to the occupa-
tion of the land of Canaan. The recension of the day falls in the time of king Saul, and may
have been by Samuel or one of his pupils.

De Wette in the edition of his Introduction, 5 and 6. supposes a threefold recension of th
whole work at the same time with the book of Joshua, 1. the Elohistic, 2. the Jehovistic,
8. Denteronomistic The latter made at the time of Isaiah. The sources of the first treatise
Bould have been partly Mosaic, though it is questionable if in the present form.

Ewald (History of the People of Israel) : " by Moses, originally, there was but little— merelj

96 INTKODUCTION TO GKNESIS.

the tables of the law and a few other short utterances." Bases of the present form of the Pen
tatench : four or five books involved in each other. See below the treatises on Genesis.

UuETZ, in the "History of the Old Covenant," in the supplement to Delitzsch, has taken the
view that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, but only the passages in the middle books where
something is expressly given as written by him, and besides that, Deuteronomy, oh. i.-xszii.
the Pentateuch, however, was written partly under Moses, and partly under Joshua, or not long
ftfter Joshua.* '

BiEBK (pp. 183 fi'.) has given very interesting and evident proof of genuine Mosaic originals,
in Leviticus, Numbers, and Exodus. At first it is shown of the sacrificial law, Leviticus i.-vii.^
that it comports in its literal acceptance only with the relations in the wilderness, as appears from
the contrast expressed ill such phrases as "in camp and outside the camp,'' "Aaron and his
sons," " heads of their fathers' houses " (Ex. vi. 14), &c. In Leviticus xvi. it is commanded that
one of the goats shall be sent into the wilderness. Similar indications of originality are found
Lev. xiii., xiv., &c. Bleek judges in the same way concerning the relations of the camp in Num-
bers, ch. i. if. Here may be added single songs, viz., the three songs, Num. xxi. — Then are
quoted, however, many signs as traces of the later composition of the whole : Gen. xii. 6 : " and
the Canaanite was then in the land" (comp. Gen. xiii. 7). Gen. xxxvi. 31 : "and these are the
kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of
Israel" Gen. xl. 15, Joseph says: "I was stolen away out of the la,nd of the Hebrews." Id
Gen. xiii. 18, the city of Hebron is mentioned. According to Joshua xiv. 15; xv. 13, the city
was formerly called Kirjath Arba (oomn- Gen. xxii. 2; xxxv. 7; see also the note on Hengsten-
berg's declaration, according to which it is possible that Hebron was the oldest name of the
city). Ill Gen. xiv. 14, the city is called Dan, on the contrary we read Judges xviii. 29 : " The
Dauites gave to the city of Laish the name Dan." Ex. xvi. 85 ; Num. xv. 32, 36 ; Deut. i. 1 ; ii-
12 ; iii. 2, &c. Bleek counts here also the law res])ectlng the king, Deut. xvii. 14-20. Again,
laws in Deuteronomy, which seem to anticipate the sojourn in Canaan: Deut. xix. 14; ch, 20.
Besides these tlie repetitions: Ex. xxxiv. 17-26; comp. oh. 21-23; Ex. xvi. 12, oomp. Num. xi.
&c. Then there are apparent disagreements, such as Num. iv. : "Period of service of the Leviteg
from the 30th year to the 50th; "—again, ch. viii. 23-^6 : "From the 25th to the 50th year."
Still further : " unnatural position of separate sections," e. g., Ex. vi. 14-27. Also the chasm in
the account from Num. xx. 1-20, where a space of 37-38 years is omitted. Finally, the im-
probability that Moses would leave behind an historical worK of such extent. We have already
in the General Introduction, given the results of Bleek's investigations, which we cite as fruit
of the untiring diligence of an honest, acute, and pious investigator, without considering them
absolutely evident (namely, what concerns those parts where the force of the prophetic predic-
tion seems ignored, or where the acceptance of repetitions and contradictions might be the
result of a want of insight into the construction of the books). The article Pentateuch, by Vai-
HiNGKE, in Hekzog's Real-Encyclopedia, appears to us very noteworthy in a critical point of view.
With respect to the present condition of the discussions in question, we refer to the aforesaid
labors of Bleek in his Inlroduction, to the article by Vaihinger, to the supplements by Hengsten-
berg, to the Introduction to the Old Testament by Keil, and to the Introduction to Genesis by
Delitzsch. A carefully prepared tabular presentation of the various views, may he found in
Hertwig's " Tables to the Introduction to the Old Testament," p. 26 ff.

After the above general remarks, we miglit, for the present, here come to a close, since we
have again to treat of the separate books of the Pentateuch in the proper place. One consider-
ation, however, which seems to us of special importance, and which might not receive its full
attention, is the internal truth of the religions periods of development, as ecclesiastical theology
has long shown it in the outlines. That the Jewish religion does not begin with the Mosaic
legislation, but with the Ahrahamitic promise, is presupposed in the New Testament, and is
■ilso based upon the nature of the case. The patriarchal religion is characterized as the original

* We make cursory mention of the criticism of Sorensen, wlio, with his Commentary on Genesis, forms a parki'iel to
the assertions of Bruno Bauer on the gospels of the New Testament. See Kubtz : Bistary of the Old CmenatU, pp. M
and 53.

§ 8. ORIGIN AND COMPOSITION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 97

of an inner life of revelation and faith, according to its beginnings in the sphere of life, as devel-
oped in chosen heads of families. It is clear that this theocratic religion of promise must be
distinguished again from the earlier universalistio religion, whioh it presupposes. It must alsa
present itself objectively in a form of law, externally commanding for a whole nation grown up
in slavish oppression and moral desolation. Since this rested, however, on the basis of an inner
character in the chosen ones of the people, it was necessary that there be a transition period,
(by means of the impulse of the inner life of faith), from the legal stage to the period of a new
and more general internal feeling, i. e., to the' prophetic period. When finally the spiritual lifo
of this prophetic period became more general, according to the popular measure among the
pious of the nation, then it was necessary to make the records of it, in their entirety, effectire
for the canonical guidance of the national life. The course of the development of the Christian
church forms throughout a parallel to this legal development of the Old Testament economy,
and it lies, in the slow manner of this development, that its separate stages must be indeed last-
ing historical periods. But what follows from this, in reference to the literature of the individual
periods!

It is clear that Genesis, in its essential character, does not point, in the least, beyond the
patriarchal standpoint. It consists of originals, which partly represent the universalistic view
of the primitive religion, partly the theocratic view of the religion of promise. Though these
originals may not have been conceived until the age of Moses as fixed and lasting traditions in
the house of Abraham, it appears settled that a Genesis could not have been invented in the
prophetic period, nor even in the transition period (from Samuel to Elijah), nor, indeed, in the
legal period. The intercourse of the Abrabamites with the Oanaanites, the relations of race,
the religious forms, everything spealts against it. The book of Job, it is true, transfers its rep-
resentations from a later period into an earlier one, or into what is still a universalistic relig-
ious faith- view ; but with all the art of representation, how openly appears the n)ore developed
religious stage which points to the period after Solomon. In view of the saoredness of the
originals of Genesis it is not probable that tlieir compilation. into one work should have fallen
beyond the age of Samuel, or even that of Moses.

As regards further the three books of the law (Exodus, Leviticps, Numbers), they bear in
their entire contents so decidedly the impress of the stern legal standpoint, that only the com-
pilation of them (not, however, the collection of their material parts) could faU beyond the
Mosaic age.

Finally, as above shown, it is not all inconsistent with, but corresponding to, the spiritual
life, if we suppose that towards the end of his days, and in his prophetic character, Moses may
have prepared the way, through a series of original writings, for the mediation of his legislation
with the future period of prophetic subjectiveness, and thus laid the foundation of the transi-
tion period beginning with Samuel. The moulding of these originals then belonged to a later
period. Should, however, Deuteronomy have been made in the prophetic period, it must have
unfailingly betrayed itself through Messianic traits, if not in reference to the personal Messiah,
at least in reference to the Messianic kingdom, which is not in the least the case.

The frequent quotation of Mosaic passages in the prophets (see Delitzsoh, p. 11 S.) may cer-
tainly prove the existence of such written originals, not, however, the existence of tlie respective
books in their present form (Vaihinger, p. 313). The fulness of these quotations ever remains
a proof that the written sources in question had such a degree of sacredness and respect, that we
cannot easily assume that at a period, later as compared with the quotations, they bad been dis
membered in the most various manner, and then again, as new material, been worked up into
new books. That the service in High Places was not conipletely abolished until the time of
Hezekiah. is no proof that Deuteronomy, with its prohibition of this service, did not appear until
his time (Vaihinger). In the same manner the manifold apostasy of the people from Jehovah
would speak against the authenticity of the legislation from Sinai itself.* It must be taken into
consideration, that the legal nature of the Mosaic faith would urge, in the most decided manner,

* The silence about Korah, Deut. si. 6, is explained as forbearance towards tlie reniaining children ot Korah, th«
leTont Korahites, who afterwards appear so prominently as psalm-singera.

7

9? INTEODUCTION TO GENESIS.

to the putting in writing and settlement of all definitions and explanations of the law. But from
this it does not follow, as Delitzsoh maintains, p. 6, that the Post- Mosaic history shows no traces
of developments of law. The sacerdotal regulations of David, and many other things, contra-
dict this. . It is perhaps also taken too little into consideration, that the contact of the Israelitish
traditions with Egyptian refinement and the art of writing rmut hare exerted an immense
infiiifnce. The periods of Joseph and Moses were certainly, therefore, more given to writing than
marvy a la.ter one. According to the degree of its religious development, its marks of inward
depth, and its indications of universality (as it appears, notwithstanding the great theocratic
severity of the book), according too to its stately, poetic, and sententious style, has Deuteronomy,
as It seems to us, an unmistakable aflBnity with the literature of Solomon in its wider sense, as
it, together with the three works of Solomon, comprises also the book of Job (comp. also the
Prayer of Solomon, 1 Kings viii. 22).

We must, therefore, suppose that the recension of it belongs to the transition period from
the legal to the prophetic era, which extends from Samuel to Elisha. The stern vindication of
the unity of the place of worship, oh. 12, appears even to presuppose the founding of Solo-
mon's temple ; as the regal law, ch. 17, certainly appears in its coloring to point to the errors
if Solomon. The same is true of the strong and zealous words against those who mislead to
apostasy. If we adhered to this point of view we might set Deuteronomy beside the Song of
Solomon and the 45th Psalm (v. 11). On the other hand, it is hardly credible that a Jewish
author, after the apostasy of the ten tribes, should have invented such a superabundant blessing
on Joseph as we find pronounced in Dent, xxxiii. 13.* Moreover, it is also not easily credible
that a theocratic spirit which, toward the end of the period of the Judges, compiled the originals
of the lawgiver Moses, should not also have compiled the Denteronomic originals of his later
days. On the ancient character and Egyptian recollections of Deuteronomy, see Delitzsch,
pp. 23 ff.

At the time of Jesus Sirach (180-130 b. o.) the Old Testament was extant in its tripartite
form as a closed canon (Preface, ch. 7). At the time of Nehemiah (444 b. o.j Deuteronomy
was already compiled, also the constituent parts of the Pentateuch (Neh. xiii. 1 ; 2 Maco. ii. 13,
speak only of a collection ef holy books on the part of Nehemiah). At the time of Ezra (468
B. 0.) there was developed a documentary learning, which extended to the law, i. «., to the legal
writings of Moses (Ezra vii. 6-10). For this reason tradition has placed the closing of the canon
in the time of Ezra and Kehemiah.

At the time of Josiah (639-609 b. o.) Deuteronomy was again found in the temple as a law-
book of an older period (2 Kings xxii. 8; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14). It is not at all improbable that
just this book, wiih its emphatic curses of idolatry, was the one that was forgotten or concealed
in the depths of the temple at the time of the idolatrous king Manasseh (comp. ch. xxxiii 7).
The various conjectures which modern criticism has connected with this circumstance proceed
from the npioTov ^fii$os that the Old Testament theocrats were at that time hierarchs in
the medieval sense, and might have permitted a pia fraus. And so, according to Vatke,
must the law have been made about this time. At the time of the king Hezekiah (725
flf.) "his men" collected the addenda to the proverbs of Solomon (ch. xxv. 1) ; this, however,
was not its beginning. Such a collection of the proverbs of Solomon presupposes far earlier

* [This remark, and the thought with which it is pregnant, are abundantly sufficient to do away all the reasons pre-
sented just ahove for asBiipiing the hook of Deuteronomy to the literature of the Solomonic period. What is said about
the connection of Deut. 12th with the founding of Solomon's temple, and of Deut. 17th with the law respecting the
royal office, and other things of a similar kind, would, if true, show something more than a mere recension with oc-
casional scholia. The remark of Lange, that Moses towards the close of his life wrote and spoke in the prophetic spirit,
which, whetLer real or imagined, is most evident from the style of the last part of Deuteronomy, fully accounts for all
this to one who reoeiyes the Bible as containing the prophetic and supernatural. What is said, too (p. 97), of the absence
of Messianic allusions in Deuteronomy, though intended to prove, as it does most conclusively, that the writing of it could
not have been as lato as the express prophetic period, would also exclude it from the Davidio or Solomonic. That the
MeJiianio idea had then come in is evident from such passages as 2 Sam. vii. 13-16, the last words of David, 2 Sam. niii.
5, together with 1 Kings ii. 4, 23. It was, at least, the idea of a Messianic kingdom and of a nover-endlng royal suooes-
rion. If the hook of Deuteronomy had been written, or even compiled and corrected, in the time jf Solomon, or 'at«r
jach an idea would never have been omitted, or left without any trace.— T. L.l

i 4. THE PENTATEUCH OF THE SAMARITANS. g|

eoUeotioDB with respect to the Psalms and the books of the law. Hence Isaiah can about thii
time go back with his prophecy to the predictions of Deuteronomy. "With the wonderful dis-
appearance of Elijah (896 b. o.) is in reality the purely legal period closed. His shower of fire
prefiguring the end of the world, is followed by the prophetic period, which the vision of Elijah
on Horeb, and much more the labors of Elisha in his healing miracles, had presignalled. Elijah
looks backwards as the final landmark of the death-bringing and destroying infiuence of th«
law ; Elisha looks forwards with evangelical omens which the evangelizing words of the Messi
anio prophets must soon follow. When David was departing this life (1015 b. o.), be could
already lay to the heart of his son Solomon, the law of Moses as a written one (1 Kings ii. 3)
The promise of the typical Messiah-king (2 Sam. vii.) presupposes already the promise of the typ-
ical Messiah-prophet (Deut. xviii. 15), and the promise of the Messiah-priest (Deut. xxxiii. 8 ff.j,
i. e., determinate originals of Deuteronomy ; since the prophets and priests are present in Israo'
before the kings.

0?siiEVA.TioK. It is not with entire justice that Kurtz remarks (History of the Old Covenant,
1, p. 46) : '' It is an historical fact that stiinds more firmly than any other f ict of antiquity that
the Pentateuch is the living foundation, and the necessary presumption, of the whole Old Testa-
ment history, not less than of the entire Old Testament literature. Both of these, and with them
Christendom, as their fruit and completion, would resemble a tree without roots, if the oomposi
tion of the Pentateuch were transferred to a later period of Israelitish history." * Does tht-
Old Testament theocracy rest then on the completed compilation of scriptural books, or, indeed,
on writings at all, or dues it n it rather rest on the living, aciual revelation of God, which pre-
ceded all writings? And now all Christendom I The church also rests, inileed, not on the
authenticity of the New Testament books, but on the living revelation of God in Christ, although
it is regulated by the canon of the New Testament. Moreover, it is well verified that the Pen-
tateuch, as the earlier foundation, is attested by all the followino; scriptural books. The inter-
nal testimony of the Pentateuch to the written compositions of Moses, to which Kurz, after
Delitzsoh, refers, is also of great import. He has also justly remarked that the canonical charac-
ter of the scriptural books would stand firmly, even if Ezra were to be regarded as their com
piler.

The whole of the present question is largely infiuenced by the distinction between the re'
ards of Elohim and Jehovah, to which we must return in the introduction to Genesis.

5 4. THE PENTATEUCH OF THE SAMARITANS.

It is a fact that the Samaritans (see article in question in Herzog, Winer, &c.) distinguished
themselves from the Jews by having a Pentateuch different from theirs in many particulars,

* [The importance of this remark cannot be overrated. The Old Testament is a unity of designed falsehood through-
out, or it is a unity of historical truth. The patched-up legendary view of mingled traditions, subjective fancies, pure
errors, and later compilations made from them, cannot account for it. The idea of an entire and continued forgery might
theoretically explain its existence, were it not for one thing, namely, its utter incredibility beyond any of the marrelloua
contained in it. It would require a superhuman power of inventive talsehood. The supposition of a forged Pentateuch,
at whatever time made, demands a forged history following it, a forged representation of a consistent national life growing
out of it, a forged poetry commemorative of it and deriving from it its most constant and vivid imagery, a forged ethics
grounded upon it, a forged series of prophecy continually referring to it, and making it the basis of its most solemn warn-
ings. There must have been a specific forgery of an incredible number of minute events, episodes, incidental occurrences,
having every appearance of historical truth, of countless proper names of men and places, far too many to be carried down
by any tradition, — a forgery of proverbs, national songs, memorials, apothegms, oath-forms, judicial and religious observ-
ftnces, &c., &c., all made to suit. It is incredible. No human mind, or minds, were ever capable of this. There is no place for
tt to begin or end, unless we come square up to an admitted time of an existing, historical, well-known people, for whom
all this is forged, and who are expected to receive it, and who do receive it. as their own true, veritable history, antiquity,
and national life-development, although they had never before known or heard of it.

The idea of compilations irom the legendary and the mythical explains well those early fabulous, indefinite, and
unchronological accounts of other nations, which are sometimes spoken of as parallel to what is called the mythical, of the
Hebrews. Nothing, however, could show a greater overlooking of what is most peculiar in the Hebrew Scriptures. The
Itatistical and strictly chronological character of the Old Testament utterly forbids the parallel. It shuts us up to the
conclusion of its entire forgery, or its entire truthfulness and authenticity. If the first is incredible, as even the Ratiomil.
iots are compelled to acknowledge, the second must be true. There may be points, here and there, where such a genera]
view may be supposed to be assailable, but the mind that once fairly receives it in its most general aspect, must find in it
91 power of conviction that cannot easily be disturbed. It compels us to receive what may be called the natural facts ol
the Bible history, and then the supernatural cannot be kept out. Such a people and such a book lying in the very hear*
yf history, and regarded in its pure human aspect, or simply in its natural and historical-marvellous, demands the super
oatursU as its most fitting, and we mav even say, its mc "- natural, accompaniment and explanation. — T. L.l

100 rNTRODUCTION TO GENESIS.

and that they possessed, and still possess this, regarding it as the only Holy Writ (other separate
writings, e. g.^ a Samaritan book of Joshua, different from the canonical, are of no special im-
portance). This is to be mentioned here for the reason that the existence of this Pentateuch
might, en the one hand, support the authority of our canonical Pentateuch, and on the other
him'i might also create a prejudice against it.

The earlier composition of the Pentateuch has been inferred from the circumstance that th«
Samaritans had a Pentateuch in common with the Jews. The Samaritans, it was supposed,
received their Holy Writ as a relic of the Israelites of the ten tribes, whose remains mingled
with theirs ; this explains why they possess only the Pentateuch.

The Israelites, as separated from the kingdom of Judah, accepted from the Jews no otlier
sacred writings, in consequence of their national hatred. Therefore the Pentateuch must have
been extant before the separation of the two kingdoms (Jahn). If now Vaihinger is of opinior
that this demonstration is contradicted by the proof of Hengstenberg that the Samaritans pro
ceeded solely fnim heathen colonists, and not from a mixture of Jews and heathen, the argument
itself is not duly established ; for this matter compare the article " Samaritans " in Winer. Again
the circumstance that the Samaritan Pentateuch contains elements which are intended for the
glorification of their mountain Garizim, does not oblige us, with Petermann {see article "Sama-
ria " in Herzog's Real-Eneyclopadie), to transfer the whole present compilation of the Pentateuch
to the time of the separation of the Samaritans from the Jews, that is, between Nehemiah and
Alexander.

If we presuppose among the Samaritans a far earlier existence of the Pentateuch, according
to its present entirety, nevertheless the paganizing character of the people, which vacillated
between overstrained judaistio institutions and a heathen fondness for fables, would prefer the
interpolations which are peculiar to their versions. On the other hand, it is not easy to per-
ceive why the ten tribes, on the separation from Judah, should have been in possession only of
the Pentateuch. Moreover, the great harmony of the Samaritan Pentateuch with the Septuagint,
permits the inference of earlier Jewish revisions, which would make the old text more pleasant
to the pagan culture of the period, by avoiding anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms.
Therefore Vaihinger assumes that the Samaritans first received their Pentateuch through Ma-
nasseh, son of the high-priest, as Josephus calls him (Archaeology xi. 7, 2 ; comp. xiii. 9, 1), who
fled to them and drew many Jews with him to apostasy. Welte also assumes {see the article
"Samaritan Pentateuch" in the Church- Lexicon of Catholic Theology, by Wetzee and Welte),
that the Samaritans first received their Pentateuch through that Jewish priest, who (according
to the account of Nehemiah), went over to them as the son of the high-priest Jehoiada, and he-
came the first high-priest of their rewly-erected worship on the mountain of Garizim. At the
time of this priest, or later, a more acceptable, falsified compilation of the Pentateuch might easilj
have crowded out a purer and more ancient one ; for it is neither historical that the Samaritann
until then had been pagans, nor probable that they, as worshippers of Jehovah, had remained
without a book of the law. The Israelitish priest, sent to instruct them in the religion of the
land, might also have taken charge of the Hebrew service under the form of image and calf-
worship. So much, however, is certainly clear, that the careful perseverance of the Samaritans
in the legal stage, even after the coming in of an imperfect hope of the Messiah, their want of
ft living development under the influence of a prophetic spiritual life and prophetic writings,
with their careful reverence for the Pentateuch, is very significant testimony that the Pentateuch
belongs essentially to a legal period that far preceded the prophetic one.

That the deviations of the Samaritan Pentateuch cannot injure the authority of the Jewish
masoretic one, appears from their manifold harmony with the Septuagint, from their moderniz-
ing character, as well as, finally, from the manifest falsifications, which have not spared even
the Decalogue. For further particulars in reference to this subject, see the articles in the Real-
Encyclopedias of Heezog, and of Wetzee and Welte ; also the article " Samaritans " by Winee,
whicl. latter refers especialiv to 5~ssenius : Be Pentateuehi Samaritani origine, indole et auct^
HtaU. Hslle, 1845.

§ 6. THE CHARACTER OP GENESIS. JQ)

I 5. THEOLOGICAIi AND HOMILETICAL LITEEATUfiE ON THE PENTATEUCH.

See Waloh, Biblioth. theol. iv. p. 444 ff.

The Universal Worterbuch, by Danz, under the article " Pentateuch," p. 754 ; also the supple
ment, p, 81.— Winbb, Theol. Literature i., p. 196 ff. ; Supplement, p. 31 ff.— Kuez, History oj
the Old Covenant, pp. 22 and 53. A survey of the writings on the Old Testament in Keil's In
trcduction (p. 61) to the Pentateuch, p. 64. — Separate works : Olerici Gommentarius in Mosii
Prophetm libros v., Tubingen, 1733. Moldbnhauee, Translation and Explanations of the Booh
of Moses, Quedlinburg, 1774 to 1775. Jerusalem, "Letters on the Mosaic writings and Philoso-
phy," 3d ed., Braunschweig, 1783. Hess, " History of the Israelites, and Moses in particular,"
lee Danz, p. 675. Vatbe, " Commentary " (1802-1805), 3 vols. Ranse, " Investigations of the
Pentateuch," 2 vols., 1834-1840. Hbngstbnbeeg, "Authenticity of the Pentateuch," 1836-1889
The same: " The most important and diflBonlt sections of the Pentateuch explained," 1 vol
*' History of Balaam and his Prophecy," Berlin, 1838. The same: "The Books of Moses and
Egypt," with supplement ; " Manetho and the Hyksos," Berlin, 1841. E. Bebtheau, " The seven
Groups of Mosaic Laws in the three middle books of the Pentateuch," Gottingen, 1840 (the
writings of George, Bruno Bauer, The Religion of the Old Testament, Vatke). Baumgaeten,
" Theolog. Oommeatary on the Old Testament," 2 vols., Kiel, 1843. Kuez, " History of the
Old Covenant," 1 and 2 vols., 2d Ed., Berlin, 1853. Bahe, '■'■Symbolih of the Mosaic worship,"
Heidelberg, 1837. Also other works to be hereafter named, referring to the Mosaic worsliip,
Knobel, "Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus;" also "Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua: " "Con
cise Manual," Leipzig, 1861. Delitzsoh and Keil, " Biblical Commentary on the Old Testa
ment," 1st vol. " Genesis and Exodus," Leipzig, 1861; 2d vol. "Leviticus, Numbers, and I>euter
onomy," Mecklenburg. Scriptura ac Traditio, Commentaries perpetuus in Pentateuchum, Leip
zig, 1839. Schuschan Eduth, i. e., "Exposition of the five books of Moses," Heb. and Ga-man,
with notes by Aenhbim. — Herzheimer, 1853-1854. Thorath Emeth, "The five books of Moses,"
by Hbinemann, Berlin, 1853. The works on "Church History," by Natalis Albxaisdee, aud
many other older theologians, especially of the reformed church ; also Lutheran, Buddeus, &c. ;
Catholic, StoUberg, &c. — Homiletical, see Winee, ii. p. 115 ff. "Sermons," by Hohnbaum, Bal-
DAUE, Bailee, &o. Zinzendoef, Extracts from his "Discourses on the five books of Moses and
the four Evangelists." Published by Clemens, 9 vols., 1763. Bbybe, " History of the Israelites
in Sermons," 2 vols. Erfurt, 1811. G. D. Kettmmaohee, "The Wanderings of Israel through
the Wilderness," Elberfeld, 1828. Meueee, " Moses, the servant of God. Spiritual Discourses,"
Leipzig, 1836. Appuhn, "Moses, the servant of God," Magdeburg, 1845. Oosteezee, "Moses,
12 Sermons," Bielefeld, 1860. Treatises on the Doctrine of Immortality of the Old Testament,
especially that of Moses, and on the separate books, will be mentioned in their respective
plac-es.

B. A SPECIAL VIEW OF GENESIS.

5 6. THE CHAEAOTEE. OS GENESIS.

If we can regard as the conclusive mark of the genuine oanonicity of the scriptural books,
the fact that the spirit of divine revelation (which in the historical sphere has gradually entered
into human nature until the perfect union of the Godhead and humanity) has appeared, and that
this spirit, cousistently progressing, has entered into human writing belonging to revelation,
then it appears quite in accordance with nature that such a spirit of revelation has, in Genesis,
Qnited with the very earliest and most childlike form of human authorship, and that it does not
manifest itself as a completed sacred work of art of theocratic Christian authorship, until the end
of the whole biblical literature in the Apocalypse. The accounts of Genesis, taken in their
human aspect, seem like loosely arranged and simple narratives of childlike sieech, in con-
trast with that perfect symbolical composition of the Apocalypse, whose deep significance
surpasses the comprehension of the most celebrated judges. But though Genesis forms a self

102 mTEODUCTION TO GENESIS.

inclusive and connected whole, which sheds a bright, divine, infallible light over all beginning!
of primitive time {see § 1), we nevertheless see therein the fact that here the living God has, in
!he most emphatic sense, prepared liis praise " out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.'' At
the same time this fact gives us a satisfactory solution of the character of inspiration ; how at
every period it is perfect in the sense, that on the divine side it is continually the voice of the
same divine spirit (and in truth of a spirit which completely commanded, in their respectiva
tasks, those human minds that were apprehended and held by its influence), whilst, on the
human side, it was to proceed from the imperfection of childlike, pious utterance and story
through a series of degrees, until it had reached the full adult age in the new covenant ; and all
this the more so, as on the line of its chosen ones it had continually to break through the opposi ■
tion of human sinfulness, which ever surrounded its nucleus of light with colored borders and
shadows. "With respect to what is centrally fundamental in the Old Testament books, it ma^
be said, that one Godlike thought, or thought of God, ranges itself on the other, in proportion
to the degree of divine revelation, or to that of human development. As regards the outer circle
of these writings, we may find them burdened with all kinds of human imperfections, if we wiU
judge them according to the New Testament, or draw them on the model of practical historical
writing, or of natural science, &c. We must then, however, at the same time, well understand
that those supposed imperfections are controlled by the principle of revelation in the books, and
that, in our criticism of the style of revelation, we toil towards heterogeneous points of view.
Such a process has a relative justification only in presence of an orthodoxy which emphasizes
the said literal meanings in order to make from them abstract history, geography, natural science,
&o., for the authoritative belief.

Genesis corresponds now to its design, according to which it is the revelation of God con-
cerning the origin of the world, of mankind, of the fall, of the judgment, and the redemption.
Not only that it presents these origins purely in their ethical idea and physical development, in
accordance with the monotheistic principle, but also that whilst on the one side it clearly brings
out the periods in the economy of the preparatory redemption (Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah,
Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph), and connects these periods with persons, wholly in ac-
cordance with the principle of personality in the kingdom of God (according to which edch par
ticular form of religion is the form of a covenant between the personal God iind the personal
man) ; it also presents praoticaliy, on the other side, the great contrast between universalism
according to which God is Elohim for all the world and all mankind, and theocratic particular-
ism, according to which He is Jehovah for His chosen ones. His covenant people, and Hid king-
dom of salvation, in its full redemptory historical significance. Thus the history of Genesis
passes through a series of contrasts, in which that particularism, which in the second book of
Moses becomes legal, appears ever more defined, whilst, at the same time, there is seen more
clearly the mutuality of this economic particularity and of the teleological universalism as it
rests on prinoipial universalism (Genesis, i.-iii.). Thus the promised seed of woman, ch. iii.,
confronts the fall of the human race. Then the line of Gain with its God-forsaken, worldly
culture (oh. iv.) is confronted by the line of Seth with its sacred worship, elevating the duration
of life (ch. v.). The line of Seth was to become a salvation to the line of Cain, but the former
conduces to the perdition of the latter through its overhasty carnal and spiritual intercourse
(ch. vi.). The house of Noah in the ark forms then a contrast to the mass of mankind sinking
in the flood ; but even to these the saving of the ideal humanity in Noah's house was to be of
advantage, according to 1 Peter, iii. 19, 20. A new and twofold contrast is then formed amonf
the sons of Noah ; to the contrast of piety, and pious culture, and barbarism (Shem and Japhetb
as opposed to Ham), is presented now the contrast of a one-sided worship (Shem) blest of God,
and of a one-sided culture, also blest of God (Japheth). The culture of Japheth is no longei
accursed, as that of Gain ; after its propagation in the world, it is to return to the tents of Shem
and be brought into unity with the perfected faith of revelation (ch. ix.). Tims is the forma-
tion of the contrast between theocracy and heathendom introduced, as it is unfolded on th«
basis of the universal genealogical table (oh. x.). With the development of heathendom (ch.
xi.) is contrasted the founding of theocracy (ch. xii.). That, however, the contrast thus opened

§ 6. THE CHARACTER OF GENESIS. 103

is no absolutely hostile one, appears not merely from the preventive thought of the dispersioB
of nations (Gen. xi. 6-7), but rather from the whole series of antitheses against heathendom, oi
heathenisli ciiaraoteristios, which now runs through tlie life of Abraham. Tlie first antithesis
is formed between Abraham and his father's house, witli its heatlienish indecision in respect tt
the true faith (ch. xii.). His father, Terah, was already on the way to Canaan ; but he let him-
eelf be detained by the fertile Mesopotamia. Tlie second antithesis of Abraham is Pharaoh in
Egypt and heathen despotic caprice (oh. xii.). The third antithesis is Lot and heathen selfish
ness and worldliness (oh. xiii.). In the fourth, Abraham meets the heathenish, robber-like wai
fare, with the liberating holy war of freedom, and, in consequence of this, is greeted by the
prince of heathen piety, Melohisedek, as the prince of the theocratic faith (oh. xiv.). Then the
antithesis enters into the very house of Abraham himself. Not the son of his faitliful servant
Eleazer shall be his heir (ch. xv.), not the son of his body begotten of Hagar the maid (ch. xvi.),
not even his posterity itself in unoonseorated birth ; no, — circumcision must distinguish between
the consecrated and the unconsecrated in his own life and race (ch. xvii.). So far the contrast be-
tween Abi'aham and the heathen world is clearly softened through the light of peace, as he, in
deed, has been separated from the heathen world, in order that in his seed all races of the earth may
be blest (ch. xii.). Pharaoh and Lot, and the men allied to him in war, were no godless heathen ;
Melcliisedek could even surpass him in certain respects. But now the contrast opens between
Abraham and a Sodom ripe for judgment. Abraham, the highly favored confidant and friend
of God, pleads for Sodom in an extremely persistent manner. His intercession shows in what
sense he is chosen, and at least profits Lot and his daughters (ch. xix. xx.). The position oi
Abraham in respect to Abiraelech of Gerar is again no contrast between bright day and dark
night; the weakness of Abraham in the duty of protecting his wife, is contrasted with the ar-
bitrariness of Abimeleoh in matters of sex (ch. xx.). In what a mild light, however, appear
Ishmael and Abimeleoh (ch. xxi.), and Hagar, to whom also the angel of the Lord as such ap-
peared at anearlier period in her great necessity (oh. xvi.)! And later, Abraham must distinguish
between the human sacrifice, as oifered in the heathenish spirit, and the theocratic devotion of
the soul (ch. xxii.), as he was previously obliged to distinguish between unconsecrated and con-
secrated connection of sex, generation, and birth. The manner in which Abraham buries Sarah
is not the heathen manner of interment; and so also his seeking a wife for his son has its the-
ocratic traits (ch. xxiii. xxiv.). The antipathy against heathendom, together with a friendly
relation to the heathen themselves, runs throughout the life of Abraham, as this meets us finally
in the children of his second marriage. Here follows now the great contrast between Isaac and
Ishmael. Ishmael cannot be the theocratic heir; he has his inheritance, huwever, and also his
blessing. The same may be said of the contrast between Jacob and Esau. The hitter is only
rejected under the point of view of the theocratic hereditary power ; he also has his blessing.
Finally, a contrast is even formed between Joseph and his brethren. And then also between
Joseph and Judah ; and Judah becomes inferior to Joseph the very moment he gives himself up
as security for Benjamin (oh. xhv. 18 ff.). Thus in Genesis throughout there is presented the
relation between theocratic particularism and heathendom. The heathen element is rejected,
what is noble and pious in the heathen is acknowledged. The bond of humanity in relation to
the heathen is retained in illustration of real sympathy, just reception, and kindly treatment.
But where the economic particularism, ordered by God, tends to become a human or inhuman,
pharasaical fanaticism (as in the crime of the brothers Simeon and Levi at Shechem), there the
spirit of revelation pronounces through the mouth of the patriarch a verdict of decided con-
demnation (ch. xxxiv. 30 ; xlix. 5-7).

Already, therefore, does Genesis constitute an economic and conditional contrast between
ludaism and Heathendom, and consequently also a religion which is at the same time theocratic
in its particularism and human in its universalism, resting, as it does, on a self-revelation of
God, according to which he is, on the one hand, the God of the whole world and all nations ;
on the other hand, the God of the chosen ones, the God of Israel, of his covenant people, of hia
kingdom.

The simplicity with -jrhich Genesis presents the whole history of antiquity in biographicaJ

104 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS.

forms, is, at the same time, its sublimity. Its God is a personal God, and its world and historj
do not consist of peisons who are puppet images of impersonal things, but of personalities from
whose reciprocal action with God are developed the real relations. Thus is unfolded that his-
tory of the heroic acts of faith, with which the old heroes of the faith introduce the revelation,
piece by piece, into the world, according to Heb. xi. The faith of Adam and of all primeval
mankind in the creation, is followed by Abel's faith in sacrifice, Enoch's faith in immortality,
jfoah's faith in judgment and deliverance, Abraham and Sarah's faith in promise, the faith of
Abraham in a resurrection, and the faith in hope and blessing of the patriarchs in general.
Abraham, however, is especially the father of the faithful, because he not only believed for hlm-
aelf, as Melchisedek did, but also for his race (Rom. iv.). He is, consequently, at the same time
the man of active obedience to the faith, the man of deed or doing. Isaac, on the contrary, ie
the type of all sufferers or waiters in faith. In the life of Jacob finally, acting and suffering in
the faith alternate in the most manifold style, i. e., he is preeminently the faith fighter, or one
who fights the fight of faith ; his name Israel implies this. In the wonderful story of providence
which expresses itself in the history of Joseph, we meet, more decidedly than in the life of Jacob,
tlie type ot humiliation and exaltation, which hereafter continues to be the basis of the conduct
of the faithful, and which finds, therefore, its last and highest fulfilment in Christ.

The characters of the twelve sons of Jacob are individually presented to us in such firm and
practical features, that we receive the decided impression that we have everywhere to do with
persons, not with personifications. Those critics who will transfer the personifications of
heathen mythology to patriarchal history (Nork, Kedslob, &c.), overlook the great world-histor-
ical conti'ast, according to which the heathen consciousness has lost itself in the impersonal,
the material, the worldly; whDst the history of theocratic consciousness is the history of the
reli^iious spirit raising itself above nature, or of the self-comprehension of significant personalities
in the communion of the personal God. For this consciousness, the remembrance of great per-
sona was more indelible than that of great masses of people ; the remembrance of great personal
experience of faith, and of deeds of faith, more important than that of great events. As the mono-
theistic faith was peculiar, so also was the monotheistic memory. The faith of the patriarchs
could not have become the religion of the future, had it not struck correspondingly strong roots
in the past. Their faith in the future went beyond the end of the world ; their faith remindings
were, therefore, obliged to go back beyond the beginning of the world.

We must not forget that the illumination of God corresponded, throughout, to the inquiries
and efforts of the religious spirit of man. Therefore visions were seen backwards as well as
forwards, and the power of personal interest explains the gradually retroceding prophetic
significance of many names.

Supplement. The nomenclature of Genesis, see in the translation itself.

5 7. SOtlECES AND COMPOSITION OF GENESIS.

A. PATniAECFAL TeADITION.

Genesis, which in its age surpasses all monuments of old religious literature, although fh«
oldest manuscripts of it do not go back of the ninth century after Christ {see Delitzsgh, p. 5)
comprises a space of more than 2,000 years (according to Delitzsoh, p. 4, comp. p. 15, 2,306
years). In its contents it touches only the beginnings of the art of writing ; * its real basis can
therefore be no other than tradition, or sacred legend, and even this is not suflicient, in so fai
it goes back beyond the origin of the human race to the beginning of the creation.

Genesis has, therefore, in the first place a basis, which precedes all human tradition. Thi
basis rests without doubt on divine communication ; the only question is through what human,
mediation. These communications of the earliest chapters of Genesis, which precede all prime-

* For the art of writing among the Hebrews, compare Hekgstenbeeo : " Authenticity of the Pentateuch," i. p. 4 16 1
WiNEK : "Article : the Art of Writing ; " Delitzsch, pp. 20, 21 (especially against "Von Bohlen and Tatke . The EgyT>
rans had at that time already a priestly and secular literature.

§ 1. SOURCES AND COMPOSITION OF GENESIS. lOft

sal traditions, Kurz has referred to a prophecy looking backwards. Delitzsch does not contest
the prophetic, but the vision conception (609). This contrast does not rest on a good propheti*
Iisychology, for it appears from many passages of the sc-ipture that the human side of the factf
of revelation is always the vision, — the vision, as in so far the human mediation of all prophecy
See Introduction, § 38.

Sacred legends are ranged beside the visions of the past ; legends, not in the sense of th«
mythological system (in which legends follow myths, as a concrete heathen morality follows
concrete heathen dogmatics), but narratives of the patriarchs in a religious symbolical form.
The process of this tradition would in the highest degree be placed in doubt, if we were to sup-
pose a series of ordinary generations through 2,000 years. But we are here speaking of long-
lived, men who continued through centuries (concerning the subsequent abbreviation of the line
of generations, that communicated the ancient sacred legends, see Zahn, " the kingdom of God,"
p. 33, and the precious words of Luther and Hamann, p. 24), olpairiarchs, whose favorite think-
ing was religious contemplation, hope, and recollectidu, oi heirs of the faith, whose most sacred
inheritance was the religious legacy of their ancestors, of sober anti-mythological spirits, by
whom, with the fable-matter of heathendom the fable-form also was hated in their very soul.

It lies, however, in the nature of the case, that for the beginnings of the art of writing tbera
could be known no more pressing use than the fixing of the sacred legends in sacred memora-
bilia.

B. TnE DlEFEBEylE BETWEEN THE SECTIONS OF ElOHIM AND THOSE OF JehOVAH.

The character of Genesis itself seems to refer to the difference of said memorabilia in con-
nection witli the fact that in it the name Elohim (God) alternates in a very remarkable manne*
with the name Jehovah (to which neither the translation : the Lord, nor the Eternal, clearly
corresponds). It is the same in Exodus to oh. xiv. 6.

We have first concisely to present the fact, then the critical endeavors to explain it.

With respect to the fact itself, Delitzsch distinguishes from three to four classes of sections,
p. 63. Oomp. also the supplement to his commentary.

1. Sections in which the name Elohim either pre- 2. Sections in which the name Jehovah either pre-

dominates or is exclusively used. ' dominates or ia exclusively used.

Ui.oHiSTio Sections. Jehovistio Sections.

Ch. i.-ch. ii. 3. The world and man under the Ch. ii. 4^ch. iii. 24. Man, the Paradise world, the

universal coamo genetic point of view. loss of Paradise, and the beginning of the economy of

salvation.^ Theocratic point of view.
Ch. T. Tholedoth of Adam. The Sethites. The Oh. iv. Eve's theocratic hope. Abel'a theocratic

religioua men of the univeraal religion of the first era. sacrifice. Cain'a banishment and the Cainitea under
Verse 29. Gltnoe at the judgments of Jehovah. the ban of sin. At the conclusion (ver. 25) Eve thanka

Elohim for her son Seth, because her theocratic hope

aeema darkened. The calling upon Jehovah revives

with Enoa, son of Seth, ver. 26.

Ch. vi. 9-S2. Tholedoth of Noah. He with hia three Ch. vi. 1-8. The destruction of the first race of man.

sons and th'iir posterity are to be saved. Therefore The Lord rejects the old race, but Noah finds favor with

aniveraalistic. him.

Ch. vii. 10-24. The beginning of the flood. The Ch. vii. 1-9. The deliverance of Noah, through eu •

entrance of Noah with the pairs of all flesh is ordered trance into the ark, guaranteed on account of his up-
by Elohim, but Jehovah, the deliverer of the theocracy, Tightness. The special command, that the clean ani-
shuts him in, as God of the Covenant. Ver. 66. mala shall enter the ark by seven pairs, with referenca

to the theocratic covenant of sacrifice.
Ch. viil. 1-19. The egress of Noah from the ark as Ch. viii. 20-22. The thank-offering of Noah and

egress of mankind and of the beasts ; univeraaliatic. the resolution of Jehovah to have mercy on men. Thi

order of nature now theocratic.
Chap. ix. 1-17. Blessing on Noah and the new race Ch. x.-ch. xi. 31. The genealogical table. Jehovah

afman. Univeraal right of man. Univeraal covenant only twice mentioned, ch. x.; with reference to Nim
»f divine mercy with men. Universal sign of peace, rod, ch. x. 9 ; and twice, ch. xi., with reference to the
fee rainbaw. Universalistic. confusion of languages at Babel. Theocratic

106

INTKODUCTION TO GENESIS.

Ch. xvii. 9-27. The order of circumcision on the
part of Elohim. The founding of the covenant of cir-
cumcision for all the posterity of Sardh («. g. Esau) and
also for Isbmael. Universalistic.

Ch. xix. 29-38. A glance at the destruction of Sod-
om, with reference to the deliverance of Lot, and the
incest with his daughters. Moab. Ammon. Univer-
salistic.

Ch. xxi. 1-21. Ishmael's expulsion. Only ver. 1,
Jehovah. Mostly universalistic.

Ch. xxi. 22-24. Abraham's covenant with Abime-
lech. Only ver. 33, Jehovah.

Ch. XXV. 1-18. Sons of Keturah. Abraham's death.
Tboledoth of Ishmael. Ver. 11, Elohim blesses Isaac.
Also with reference to Esau.

Therefore universalistic.

Ch. xxvii. 46-xxviii. 9. Jacob's wandering. Esau's
marriage. Once Elohim, once El Schadai.

Ch. XXX. Rachel. 6'ee the mixed Sections.

Ch. xxxi. Jacob's departure from Laban. Only
ver. 3 and 49, Jehovah.

Ch. xxxiii. Jacob's return.

Ch. XXXV. 11. God blesses Isaac. Universalistic,
with reference to Esau.

Ch. xli-1. History of Joseph in Egypt. (Only ch.
xlix. 18, Jehovah.)

Exodus, i. and ii. Israel's oppression in Egypt.
Universalistic.

Ch. xii. 1-ch. xvii. 8. Abraham's call, ch. xii. 1-8.
The protection of Sarah in Egypt, ver. 10-20. Abr».
ham's settlement in Bethel and separation from Lot,
ch. xiii. The deliverance of Lot, ch. xiv. It does no<
alter the character of the section that Melchisedek
calls on El Elion. Abraham praises Jehovah as £1
Schadai (a name which forms the transition to the
name of Jehovah, according to Ex. vi. 3). The cov-
enant of Jehovah with Abraham, its condition, the
righteousness of faith, ch. xv. Sarah and Hagar, with
reference to the heir of promise, ch. xvi. The Lord ati
the Almighty God, ch. xviL 8. Throughout theo-
cratic.

Ch. xviii.-xix. 28. The appearance of Jehovah to
Abraham in the plains of Mamre. Jehovah's judg-
ment on Sodom. Theocratic.

Ch. xxiv. Isaac's marriage.

Ch. XXV. 19-26. The twins.

Ch. xxvi. 2, 12, 24, 25. Theocratic testimonies and
promises,

Ch. xxix. 31-35. Jehovah takes Leah into favor.
The covenant God in reference to the covenant sens.
Ses the mixed sections.

Ch. XXX. 25-43. New treaty between Jacob and
Laban.

Ch. xxxviii. Jehovah punishes the sons of Judah.

Ch. xxxix. Jehovah with Joseph in Egypt. One*
Elohim. See the mixed sections.

" With Elohim alternate in these sectioK El Scha-
dai, and El in combinations, as El Elobe Israel, ch.
xxxiii. 20 and El Beth-El, ch. xxxv. 7 (comp. Jehovah
El 01am, ch. xxi. 33), or El by itself, ch. xxxv. 1, 3 ;
only one single time Adonai, ch. xx. 4."

Exodus iv. 15-31. Return of Moses to PJgypt. Theo-
cratic.

Exodus V. Pharaoh's scornful treatment of the
messengers of Jehovah. Theocratic.

*' Among these sections, Gen. ii. 4 till ch. iii. is dis-
tinguished by the predominance of the name Jehovah
Elohim, which in the whole Pentateuch only again oc-
curs in Ex. ix. 30. The name of Elohim is found in
that section only in the mouth of the serpent and of
the woman. There are very few exceptions to the pre
vailing use of Jehovah in the remaining sections, and
these are partly necessary, or of easy explanation.
Adonai alternates most frequently with Jehovah (al-
ways in the address), ch. xviii. 3, 27 j 30-33 ; ch. xix.
18. Both combined, Adonai Jehovah, is Jehovistic
Deuteronomic, Gen. xv. 2, 8 ; Dent. iii. 24 ; ix. 26, and
nowhere else in the Pentateuch. The two sections are
also distinguished by the alternation of the Elohistifl
with El as the Jehovistic with Adonai (comp. however,
Adonai in the mouth of Abimelech, oh. xx. 4)."— D*

LITZSCB.

8. Mixed sections, in which there is the use of Jehovah and Elohim as equally divided. Ch.
a. 18-27. Important passage: "Blessed be Jehovah, the Elohim of Shem. May Elohim
enlarge Japheth."

§ 1. SOURCES AND COMPOSITION 01' GENESIS. \(y)

Ch. xiv, Melohisedek is a priest of El Elion, and blesses Abraham in this name. But Abra
ham speaks in the name of Jehmah El Elion.

Oh. XX. Elohim punishes Abimeleoh. The latter addresses him as Adonai.

Oh, XX. 1-19. Also Abraham speaks of the fear of God (Elohim). He prays to Elohim foi
Abimeleoh's house ; for Jehovah, the protecting God of Abraham, has closed up the wombs of
the mothers.

Oh. xxvii. The words of Isaac as reported by Rebecca: to bless before Jehovah. Jacob;
Jehovah, thy God. Ver. 27 and 28 remarkable. Jacob is already theocratically blessed bj
Jehovah, Isaac gives him universalistically the blessing of Eloliim.

Oh. xxviii. 10-22. The angels of God. I am Jehovah, the Elohim of Abraham and tb«
Elohim of Isaac. Jacob : Jehovah is in this place. Here is Elohirri's house. Further on : St
God will be with me.

Oh. xxix. 31-xxx. 24. Jehovah takes Leah into favor with reference to the theocratic sons.
And thus she gives the honor to Jehovah. The blessing of fruitfulness in itself is the concern
of Elohim. Oh. xxx. 2. Rachel speaks of the blessing of Elohim (comp. oh. xxxi. 34). Elohim
gives ear to Leah in reference to the birth of the fifth and sixth son. Rachel thanks Elohim for
Joseph, but she pleads for another son from Jehovah.

Oh. xxxii. Elohim of my father Abraham, Jehovah. — Thou hast wrestled with Ood and
with man. He named the place Peniel, for I have seen Elohim face to face.

Oh. xxxix. Jehovah is with Joseph in Egypt. Joseph says to the wife of Potiphar : How
should I sin agninst Elohim ? — Jehovah is also with Joseph in prison. Ver. 21.

4. Latent sections, in which no name of God appears.

Oh. xi. 10-32 ; xxii. 20-24 ; xxiii. (exception ver. 6 : Thou art a prince of God [Elohim]
among us. Oh. xxv. 1-10 : God blesses Isaac. Universalistic with respect to Isaac's entire pos-
terity). Ver. 12-20 ; 21-24 ; 27-34 ; ch. xxvii. 41-46 ; xxix. 1-30 ; xxxiv. ; xxxvi. ; xxxvii. ; xl. ;
Ex. ii. 1-22.

"The name of Elohim as characteristic of entire large sections disappears from Exodus vi. 2
to ch. vii. 2 (the preparation of Moses and Aaron for their calling). Nevertheless a few aiiuslons
are still found, among which is .prominent the small Elohistic section Ex. xiii. 17-20 (beginning
of the wanderings of Israel)." — Delitzsoh.

According to the foregoing, the name of Jehovah appears so entirely in a Hieooratio relation,
and the name of Elohim so entirely in an Elohistic one, that we might easily assume these
various relations to be there intended where their Hebrew and canonical subtilily escape the
eye of the critic.

[This exegetical distinction in the divine name is quite old, but it is only of late that it has
been made to assume much importance in interpretation. It has been favored in Germany by
two widely difi^erent schools. Those who set the least value on the idea of inspiration find here
a fancied support, not only of what is called the documentary theory of Genesis, but also of their
favorite notion of earlier and later periods in the composition of the whole, and even of particular
parts. The other school, denying this inference, at least in the extent to which it is carried,
are still fond of the distinction as favoring the notion, or rather, we may say, the precious doctrine,
of a twofold aspect in the divine relation to the world, or universe at large, in contrast with
that which is borne to a divine people chosen out of the world from the very beginning, and
continued in its subsequent history, as a means of the ultimate regeneration of the world, and
of nature regarded as disordered, or under the curse. Hence the terms universalistic and
theocratic. Elohim has regard to the first aspect ; Jehovah, or Jahveh, to the second.

Admitting the distinction, we may still doubt whether it has not been carried, on both sides,
to an unwarranted extent. The first view is already curing itself by its ultra rationalistic extrav
Bgance. It reduces the Old Scriptures not only to fragments, but to fragments of fragments
it most ill-assorted and jumbled confusion. Its supporters find themselves at last in direct
opposition to their favorite maxim that the Bible must be interpreted as though written like
other books. For surely no other book was ever so composed or so compiled. In the same
portion, presenting every appearance of narrative unity, they find the strangest juxtaposition*

108 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS.

of passages from diflferent authors, and written at diflferent times, according as the one name oi
the other is found in it. There are the most sudden transitions even in small paragraphs having
not only a logical but a grammatical connection. One verse, and even one clause of a verse, ij
written by the Elohist, and another immediately following by the Jehovist, with nothing besides
this difference of names to mark any difference in purpose or in authorship. Calling it a com-
pilation will not help the absurdity, for no other compilation waa ever made in this way. To
make the confusion worse, there is brought in, occasionally, a third or a fourth writer, an editor,
or reviewer, and all this without any of those actual proofs or tests which are applied to other
ancient writings, and in the use of which this "higher criticism," as it calls itself, is so much
inclined to vaunt.

The other school is more sober, but some of the places presented by them as evidence of such
intended distinction will not stand the test of examination. What first called attention to thi?
point was the difference between the first and second chapters of Genesis. In the first, Elohim
is used throughout ; in the second, there seems to be a sudden transition to the name Jehovah-
Elohim, which is maintained for some distance. This is striking ; but even here the matter haa
been overstated. In the first chapter, we are told, the name Elohim occurs thirty times, with-
out a single interruption ; but it should be borne in mind that it is each time so exactly in the
same connection, that they all may be regarded as but a repetition of that one with which the
account commences. We should have been surprised at any variation. In this view they hardly
amount to more than one example, or one use of the name, carried through by the repetition of
the conjunctive particle. Thus regarded, the transition in the second passage is not so very
striking. It is not well to say that anything in the composition of the scriptures is accidental
or capricious, yet, as far as " the Bible is written like other books," we may suppose a great
variety of causes that led to it as well as the one assigned. It might have been for the sake of
an euphonic variety, or to avoid a seeming tautology. It might have been some subjective feel-
ing which the writer would have found it diflicult to explain, and that, whether there was one
writer or two. Again, it might have been that the single name suggested itself in the first as
more simple and sublime standing alone, and, in this way, more universalistic, as it is styled ;
whilst in the second general r6sum6 the thought of the national name comes in, and the writer,
whether the same or another, takes a holy pride in saying that it was the national God, our God,
our Jehovah-Elohim, that did all this, and not some great causa cauaarum, or power separate
from him. There might be a feeling of nearness in respect to the one name that led to its use
under such circumstances.

So in the New Testament, Christ is a wider name than Jesus, less near, less tender and per-
sonal ; and this difference may have led to the almost unconscious, yet still real though subjective,
choice of the one rather than the other under varying circumstances. Something made Paul
especially fond of the name Jesiis^ though he generally attaches it to Christ. So this name occurs
alone more frequently in John than in the other Gospels. It is found more in some parts of one
Gospel than in others, and yet this would be very poor evidence that such parts were by different
authors. The cases may not be perfectly parallel, yet they present sufficient resemblance to
show how insecure is any argument for or against authenticity that is based on such a distinction.

In the parallelism of passages presented by Lange, some are quite striking, and it would seem
rational to suppose that the more general or the more national feeling, as it predominated in one
or the other, may have occasioned the difference in the suggestion and the use of the names.

Again, there are other cases given, in which it is not easy to discover this, and even some
where the reasons assigned would seem capable of a direct reversal. Thus, in Gen. x., the
genealogical table of tlie nations has the name Jehovah and is pronounced theocratic. Of itself
it would seem to be just the other way. So the mention of Nimrod becomes theocratic, and yet
what name more remote from the idea of the people of God. Equally inconsistent would be
that view, or that argument, which ranks the ordinance of circumcision in Abraham's family as
universalistic. Surely if there is any one thing preeminently theocratic, it is this, and yet the
name here used is Elohim. Another example : the blessing of Isaac by Jacob is put in the nni-
fersalistio or Elohistio column. The inconsistency of this, with any rigid theory of the names

§ 1. SOURCES AND COMPOSITION OF GENESIS. t08

is attempted to be explained by saying that it was with relation to Esau. This only shows,
hcwever, if it has any weight at all, that the same event may stand in relation to either aspect,
according as it is viewed from this or that standpoint — a concession that would destroy tlit
exegetical value of a large number of these references, although enough might remain to shov
that there was some good ground for the distinction. — T. L.]

C. The Old Testament N^mes of God.

The diversities of the name of God presented in the preceding paragraphs, induce ns to pref
ace the further discussion with a short treatise on the names of God in the Old Testament. W#
divide them into three classes.

1. Universalistio : Elohim, El Eloah, El Eltoit, El Sohadai, Elohim Zebaoth.

In respect to nTi'bs see below, hn, very old Semitic name of the Godhead. A name of
Jehovah, Num. xii. 13 ff., &o. Also of the gods or idols of the heathen, Isa. xliv. 10, 15, &c,
For Jehovah, usually Ha-el bxn (Gen. xxxi. 13), or El Elohim. Jehovah El Elohim. El Elim
Dan. xi. 36. Or El with epithets: lii^S, I'nttj, cbis, &c., on account of the universality of the
name itself. Thence also El Israel, El Jeshurun. Usual derivation from b^x to be strong.
According to Furst bix, a primitive. It occurs in many proper names, mbs is predominantlj
poetical, instead of the plural Elohim; namely, in the Psalms, Job, Isaiah, Habakkuk, as also in
later writings: Daniel, Nehemiah, Ohronioles. Additional formation from hn mainly occurs
with secondary attributes: God of Jacob, God of strong-holds, strange God, &o. Most frequently
in the plural, o^n'bi* . 1- It is used of the true'God, especially with the article. It is construed
with the singular of the verb, though also with the plural, Gen. xs. 13. Afterwards this con-
struction with the plural was avoided as sounding polytheistic. 2. As protecting God oi
covenant God, referring to Abraham, Israel, &c., with other epithets, indicating the absolutism
and universality of God : God of the heavens and the earth, God Zebaoth, &o. — In such relations
t was also used adjectively, in order to indicate the highest, e. g., mountain of God. 3. Of
eathen gods, when more closely defined by the context. So also, 4, though only conditionally,
of vicegerents of God ; kings, judges, angels ; such examples very doubtful. In these cases tViere
is, however, an adjective, symbolical signification. Concerning the derivation, Delitzsch says,
p. 80: " Elohim is plural from Eloah, customary only in the higher poetic style, and this is not
from the verb pibx, to be strong, formed from bi.Xj but is an infinitive noun from nbs in the
signification of the Arabic aliha, to fear." *

We decidedly prefer the objective derivation to this subjective one (from the fear of God) ;
since all other names of God have an objective derivation ; this is especially so with the prefix

* [The subjective derivation of D^nbx, which connects it with the ideas of /ear, or terror^ has an interest for some
interpreters, hecanso it reduces the old Hebrew feeling to the level of the heathenish Seio-tSai^ioria, or superstition, which
is so different a thing from the mn"' nXT^, the loving reverence, or " fear of the Lord," of the Old Testament. The
connection with the Arabic aUha is far-fetched. It is the same root, doubtless, but worship, or religiom service, in alaha,
and terror in aUM, are later and secondary senses ; just as that of swearing is a later or derived meaning both in the
Hebrew and the Arabic usage. The idea of creative power is most fundamental in the word : a great being dwelling in the
Heavens above, and who made and rules the world. With this are easily associated adoration and awe, but the idea of
terror is foreign to every conception that Genesis gives us of the Sethitic and patriarchal life. Enoch's " walking with
God," the calm, holy communion of Abraham and Jacob ! nothing could be more opposed to the idea and the feeling of
the Greek SetiriSaifioviOL.

Power, greatness, vastness, height, according as they are represented by the conceptions of the day, carried to the farthest
extent aUowed by the knowledge of the day ; this is the idea of El and Elohim, as seen in the etymological congrulty of the
epithets joined to them in Genesis. There are three especially that Lange has mentioned and which thus denote power
or greatness in its three conceivable dimensions of space, time, and sublimity (or rank) : ^111) bx (El Shaddai), D-'U
tmnipotms, or Sens sufficiens, obw bs (El 01am), Veus elernitatis, "l^bs bs (El Blion), Deus aUissimus—Trai'ToicpaTwfi
"xpiTiaroi, aluivuK, vi(i<rTo!. Onr terms infinite, absolute, &c., add nothing to these in idea, though modem scienof
Bay be said (and yet even that may be doubted) to have enlarged the attending conceptions of the sense or tht
Imagination.

For the derivations of Allah by Arabic writers and philologists, see Speenoee : " Leben und Lehre des Mohammed,'
tol i p. 286.— T. I..]

110 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS.

El. — ^El Elion )i'''hs, superior, supremus, vi/^ioros; EI Sehadai, •^•svi potentissimm. Plur. Excel],
a iir rad. -niii. Septuaginta, navTOKpirap. Vulgate, omnipotent. Elohim Zebaoth, n'i.S3S
Singular M33 . ' 1. The host of heaven, the angels, 1 Kings xxii. 19 ; 2. Sun, moon, and stars,
Deut. iv. 19 ff. ; 3. generally all beings. Gen. ii. 1 ; Neh. ix. 2. God can make all things hli
hosts. Elohim Zebaoth is in so far the most universal designation of God.

2. Theocratic : Jehovah, Jah, El Sohadai, Adonai (Malbaoh Jehovah), i^p'^ •

a. The pronouncing the name : the very sacred name of God as the covenant God ot
Israel. Through superstitious fear, the Jews early began to avoid pronouncing this name
Such a motive seems to he the ground of the translation of the Septuagint (xiipior for
Jehovah).

Subsequently a prohibition of the utterance of this name was, by false exposition, supposed
to be found in the Commandments, Ex. xx. 7, and Lev. xxiv. 11 (Philo, Vita Mosit, torn, iii.).
Thence they designated this name as Tetragrammaton, as oia simply, or as B-i'sari Bui, and read
in place of it ■'s'ls . Hence also the Masorites punctuated the text-name ri"!!'' with the vowela
of Adonai, whereby the compounded Schewa became, according to the rules of Hebrew gram-
mar, a simple Schewa. On the combination, however, of the word with prefixes, the A-sound
again appeared. Instead of Jehovah the Samaritans said Schimah, that is Sohem (name). Bat
where Adonai Jehovah occurs in the text, there they read Adonai Elohim. In consequence of
thus avoiding the utterance of this name, the original pronunciation of it has been called in
question. On this point compare the lexicons (Diodorus on the word JoM ; the Samaritans, ac-
cording to Tiieodoret, Jahe; Jao in Clemens Alex. ; in Michaelis and Holemann Jehovah, Relan4
Jahve) and Delitzsch, p. 68. According to Caspari (on Mioha the Morathite) one has the choice
between n^n:: ("'H-) "I'^:- ("^H:)- Delitzsch decides for Jahavah.

b. Origin of the name. For its derivations from foreign religious names, compare Gesenius,
Delitzsch, but especially Tholuck : " Miscellaneous Writings," 1 vol. p. 377. — Here the deriva-
tion of the name from forei.i^n names of gods is distinctly denied. But the origin of the name,
as the full development of its significance, coincides clearly with the origin of the theocratic
consciousness. 8. Etymological signification of the name. The verb lying at the bottom of it
is an ancient one, but subsequently became prominent again, mn = n^n. Delitzsch asserts that
his word does not signify Ilvm but •yi'yr/fo-Sai, Jehovah, therefore, him " whose Ego is an ever
self-continuing one." Is then this the signification of yiyi/f o-3ai ? And might not a future of
yiyveo-'iai. contain the progressive idea of an ever becoming God ? But the future of mn cannot
exactly indicate the existing one (Hengstenberg). It indicates one who is ever to be or to live ; who
is ever going to be or live. With the future, in effect, its present is at the same time fixed, as
in Ehjeh asoher Ehjeh (Ex. iii. 14). And this then also refers back to a corresponding past.
Hence the true realistic interpretation of Eevelation i. 4, 8: 6 i>v koI 6 rjv km 6 (px6p.evoi (a cor-
respondence with the inscription of the temple at Sais : iya> el/ii to yeyoi/os Ka\ ok koI iaofievov).
In earlier times some were disposed to find the three tenses in the form of the word itself; but
this was an ignoring of the grammar. 4. Theocratic signification of the word. We have
already observed above, that the name Jahavah expresses the theocratic relation of God (as the
God of revelation and the covenant) to his people, in contrast with tlie nniversalistic designation
of the name Elohim. For more on this head, see below. — ri abridged from nin"' or proceeding
from an older, or abridged pronunciation of the word ■s.rv^ ^ It occurs especially in the poetic
and solemn style, hence Hallelu-Jah. Besides, Jah, like' El, is found in many proper names.
ijSx Lord. In this form it is used only of God, while the human possessor or lord is called
•jl-ij; (from -|is< allied to -p?i). The form Adonai is explained by many as Pluralis majestatis, by
others as a suffix of the plural : my lords = my lord, and further lord absolu'-ely, which explana-
tion Gesenius prefers, for weighty reasons. The word especially occurs 1. m addresses of God,
2. in self-presentations of God, 8. in treating of God generally, and, indeed, frequently with the
iddition of Jahavah or Elohim.— About the phrase "3n^ ixba see the proper place.

3. Thoocratic nniversalistic designations. Jehovah Elohim, Jehovah Zebaoth, Father.
Jehovah Elohim indicates the covenant God of Israel as God of all the world (1 Kings xviii,

ai>. From the wgnification of Jehovah it is plainly evident that Elohim is also Johovah. Oomp

§ 7. SOURCES AND COMPOSITION OF GENESIS. HJ

Ex. vi. 8, Jehovah Zebaoth. When the God of the kingdom of salvation summons the hosts of
heaven and of earth to realize his judgments and the aims of redemption, he is called Jehovah
Zebaoth. — as Isa. Ixiii. 16; xiv. 7, &c., God as the source of the spiritual existence of Israel,
especially of its spiritual life.

D. Elohim and Jehoyah.

The scholastics of the middle ages were mainly of opinion that the Trinity was indicated in
the name of Elohim, i. e., the idea of the God of revelation (Petrug Lombardus, especially). The
Jewish author of the book " Cosri" Rabbi JehudaHallevi, of the twelfth century, taught, on the
contrary, that the name Elohim had a relation antithetical to the heathen plurality of Gods
(which had arisen because the heathen made a God of every appearance of godlike power in the
world). The name Elohim was thus the most general name of tlje Godhead ; Jehovah, on the
contrary, the covenant God. This distinction has been brought back again in our time by
K, H. Saok : De uau nominum dei oTibx et mfT' in libra Geneseos, in his Gommentationes ad
theologicam historicam, Bonn, 1821. — To this may be added the treatise of Hengstenberg in his
work : " Contributions to the Introduction to the Old Testament," vol. 2d, entitled : " The Names
of God in the Pentateuch," p. 181. Hengstenberg makes the word Jehovah, as future form,
Jahve from the Hebrew mn=n'<n . But that this future shall have only the signification " the
Being,^' does not appear from the examples connected with it, Jacob, Israel, Jabin.* Rather do
these examples give to the future here tlie significance of the being which is continually realiz-
ing itself, consequently of the being who is going to be, and thus also the passage, Rev.
i. 4, interprets the name. Jehovah is the God who becomes man in his covenant-faith-
fulnes«, or that which is, and which was, and which is to be. Accordingly then as the
name Elohim (not as plural, but as denoting intense fulness) expresses the truth that is
found in heathendom, or the concrete primeval monotheism, whilst Jehovah, on the contrary,
expresses the peculiarity of the Jewish religion, whose God, in the power of his being ever re-
maining the same with itself (that is his truthfulness) enters into the absolute future form in the
becoming man, so again does the name Jehovah Elohim embrace in its higher unity both Judaism
and heathenism, whilst it so far represents Christianity as already budding in the Old Testament
{Langb: "Positive Dogmatics," p. 56).

The plural t Elohim has been variously explained. 1. Baumgarten (Richers) : It is numerical

* [The names to whicli Dr. ILange here refers are all Hebrew futures in form, api'\ bS'llU'^, l^a"^, but it is not easy
W) see how any inference could be drawn from them in respect to the divine name. The letter ^ ta some cf them may be
merely prosthetic — in others it may merely indicate somethiug hopeful or prophetic in the naming. — T. L.]

t [There may be a question whether it is strictly a plural at all, as thus frequently used, and not a very early euphonio
abbreviation of the construct phrase D'^nbfi<~b5<, as we iind it occurring in all its emphatic fulness, Ps. I. nlil^ D^illsX bx
God of Gods Jehovah (El-Elohim Jehovah) God of all superhuman powers, or of all that may be called Gods. The'easy
doubling of the b, of which the Hebrew furnishes such plain examples, and its being, irom its peculiar liquidity, pro-
nounced as one, would be m fe-vor of such an idea. It is thus in the word n'^"13bn, which is pronounced hallelujah, if
we give to the fe its double sound, though it is written n^"^bbn, as though it were to be pronounced ha-lelu-jah. The
regular piel-form would be ibkn hal-le-lu. An analogous case is furnished by the manner in which the diviae name has
come to be written and pronounced in the Arabic. It is in full 2U J^f Al-elah or Al-alah, with the article, and so it is un-
derstood etymologically, whilst it is not only pronounced, but written, icUf Allah. So D^n'bs bx El-Elohim, by vowel
changes easily explained, might come to be pronounced rapidly D^Jl'bbs El-llo-him, then El-lo-him, and finally Elohim,
10 as to become identical in appearance with the simple plural form of n'3E< . We are reminded here of that unusually
Bolemn invocation Josh. xxii. 22, twice repeated, mn^ C^nbN b5<. El Elohim Jehovah — El Elohim Jehovah. The
question is whether the two first are to be taken as separate, or to be read together as one name, Deus deorum. Easchi and
tCimchi take the latter view, though Michaelis thinks it is forbidden by the accent pisik, which is very slightly disjunctive.
We need not, however, pay much attention to it when it is thus disregarded by the best Jewish commentators. This wal
he solemn pronunciation, resorted to on very solemn occasions ; but this does not forbid (it z.ither favors) the idea, thai
the ordinary pronunciation was but a rapid abridgment of the formula. The name Tl^br bx El-Elion might have
Buffered the same abridginent, but for two reasons : it is much less common, and the more indelible guttural 5 stands in
the way. There is something like it in the joining of il^ with iT^n^ or mrf, so as to make it Jah-jab-vah, as we Iind
it in a few places of more solenm and emphatic import.

The fact that plural verbs or plural adjectives, as in Josh. xxiv. 19, are in a few cases joined with 0*^nb8<, where il
imdouhtedly denotes the One God, does not militate seriously against this view. The phrase by such abbreviation hav.

112 rNTRODFCTION TO GENESIS.

or collective, and denotes originally God, inclnding the angels, or God in as far as te reveah
himself and works through a plurality of spiritual beings. The first definition has a sense dif
ferent from the second and sounds almost polytheistic. 2. Hofman, partly opposed and partly
agreeing : The plural is abstractive, neutral ; it is the Godhead inclnding a spiritual plurality as
the media of an immundane efiicacy. 3. Aben Ezea : An original designation of the angexs, then
Plur. majestaticus as a designation of G"d. 4. Original designations of the Gods, then designa-
tion of God (Herder). 5. Delitzsoh : Plural of intensity. God as he who in his one person
unites all the fulness divided among the Gods of the heathen. Finally, Delitzsch again
approaches Petnis Lombardus : One cannot say, without efiacing the distinction of both Testa-
ments, that a'^nbs is Pluralis triniiatis ; but it may be said with perfect correctness, "the Tri-
nitas is the plurality of Elohim which becomes manifest in the New Testament " {see Delitzsch :
Genesis, p. 66 ff.). "We assume, on the contrary, that Elohim relates to the circumferential rev-
elation of God in the world and its powers (Isa. xl. 28), as Jehovah relates to the central rev-
elation of God in Christ. — Concerning the name Jehovah, Delitzsch declares : " I am, notwith
standing Hengstenberg (Revelation, i. p. 86) and Holemann (Bible Studies, vol. i. p. 59), stiD of
the opinion, that mrr' indicates not so much tlie becoming as the being (this should read: not
80 much the leing as the hecoming), or naturally not him whose existence, but whose revelation
of existence, is still in the process of becoming." According to Baumgarten and Kurtz, Elohim
designates the God of the beginning and the end, Jehovah the God of the middle, i. «., of the
development moving from the beginning to the end. Delitzsch coincides : " The creation is the
beginning and the completion of everything created, according to its idea, is the end. The
kingdom of power is to become the kingdom of glory. In the midst lies the kingdom of grace,
whose essential content is the redemption, mn^ is the God who mediates between middle and
end in tlie cnurse of this history, in one word, the Redeemer." And yet the name moreover of
the unfolded trinitas 9 How then could Jehovah, he who was, is, and is to be, be analogous to
Jesus Christ, yesterday, to-day, and in eternity ? Jehovah is also in the beginning of things and
from eternity {see Ev. John, i. 1), as also at the end of days (Ehje ascher Ebje, Ex. 3) ; Elohim
reigns also through the whole course of universal history. We repeat it : the pure and harmoni-
ous contrast of Elohim and Jehovah will be recognized only in the contrast of the universalistic
and the theocratic revelation of God .ind idea of religion, — only in the combination of Melchise-
dek and Abraham, of human culture and theocracy, civilization and churchdom (not civilization
and Christianity, because Christianity embraces both, just as the religious consciousness of faith
in the Old Covenant).

Therefore it is worth the while to follow the change of the two names through the Old
Testament beyond Exodus, vi. 3. "We can only give hints for this. It is to be expected, accord-
ing to our distinction, that the universalistic books, Koheleth, Daniel, Jonah, have Elohim
almost exclusively. And also that the strong theocratic historical books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel,
Kings, have mainly Jehovah. In the Proverbs of Solomon the wisdom of God is represented
as tending from the founding of the world to theocracy (see ch. ix.) and to the founding of a
right theocratic deportment ; hence we find Jehovah. Also the book of Job, in its prosaio
introduction, proceeds from the basis of the Jehovah faith; it becomes, however, in its poeiio
element universalistic with the name El Eloah. The change in the Psalms is remarkable. De-
litzsch remarks on this point, p. 33 (oomp. also Gesenius, Thesaurus) : " "We meet in the Psalter
with a similar appearance as discussed in my Syrribolai ad Psalmos illustrandos (1846). The
Psalter is divided into two halves, into Elohim-Psalms (Ps. 42-84), which mainly, and almost
exclusively, use the name oinbs, and besides are fond of compound names of God, and into Je-
hovah-Psalms, whieh include these, and with few exeptions use the name Jehovah. To infer

ing got the form and sound of a ijluial, grammatical euphony might, in a few oases, produce its syntactical conncetioi
with a plural verb or adjective.

The idea of there being anything polytheistic in this common use of Elohim, even if we regard it as a plural, is nol
only at war with the whole spirit of Genesis, but also with the inference to be derived from all the Shomitic languages.
AUah in the Arabic, Eloha in the Syriao, are singular, like the Hebrew Eloah, and there is to be found, neither in thcil
earlier or their later usage, any trace of a plural as thus used. Surely the religion of Abraham, as given through th«
ixabic by Mohammed, is not more monotheistic than as given through tke Hebrew by the author of Genesis.— T. L.I

§ 1. SOUECES AND COMPOSITION OF GENESIS. 113

different authors from the use of Elohim or Jehovah, would here be an error; for though the
Asaph-Psalms are all Elohim-Psalms, we have from David and the Korahites Psalms of Jeho-
vah as well as of Elohim. One and the same author at one time (?) pleased himself iu the
use of the divine name Elohim and at another time in the use of the divine name Jehovah. This
cannot he explained from any inner grounds lying in the contents of the Psalms. Hengsten-
berg explains the use of Elohim in the Psalms from this, namely, that in the Davidioal-Solo-
IQonian times, when the honoring of Jehovah was predominent in Israel, the absoluteness of
^ehovah was made prominent as against the heathen ; whereas in a later time (when even in
Isrfael itself the honoring of the heathen Elohim was pressing in), even the divine name Elohim
became distasteful to the worshippers of Jehovah. But this does not explain how just such and
such psalms have the name Elohim." The Elohistic Psalms extend from the beginning of the
second book of Psalms (xlii.) tiU towards the end of the third book (Ps. Ixxxiv. ; the end is
Ixxxix.). If we examine the Elohistic Psalms more closely, the universalistic feature of them
soon meets us in manifold ways. Longing for the living God, Ps. xlii. ; xliii. The contrast
of the people's God with the heathen, Ps. xliv. ; xlv. ; xlvi. The calling of the heathen, Ps.
xlvii., and the victory over their resistance, Ps. xlviii. ; xlix. A lesson for all nations in the
fall of the godless, &c.

That the love of both sacred names has induced the writers alternately to honor God under
both, and to adorn themselves with both, as Delitzsch maintains, is not confirmed by the pas-
sages quoted by him. For example: Gen. vii. 16 : They went in (into the ark) as Elohim (the
God of prominent natural events) had commanded him, and Jehovah (the God of the covenant
faithfulness, or of the yet to be delivered kingdom of God) shut him in. Genesi", xxvii. 27 :
"The smell of my son is as the smell of a field which Jehovah (the God of the theocratic
inheritance) has blessed." Therefore "Elohim" (the God of every universal blessing of heaven
and the world) " give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of earth," &c. " Nations must
serve thee." Ex. iii. 4 : " Then Jehovah (the covenant God founding the holy awe in Israel)
saw that he turned aside to see, and Elohim (the God of the world-fire in the bush Israel) called
unto him out of the midst of the bush." Still more clear is the distinction between the protect-
ing Jehovah and Elohim as ruling in the dispensations of nature. The temple is Jehovah's, the
ark of the covenant Elohim's (the moral law embracing all mankind). 1 Kings, iii. 5 : The Lord
appeared to Solomon ; and God said, "Ask what I shall give thee ; " because it is permitted him
to ask for worldly things. The passage Ps. xlvii. 6 is explained by Ps. xlvii. 7. We would
observe as especially significant, that Eve in her enthusiastic hope on the birth of Cain names
Jehovah, but in her depression at the birth of Seth, Elohim, the God of the universal human
blessing. In this spirit also Rachel speaks, oh. xxx., of Elohim's blessing the birth, while it is
Jehovah, the God of the theocratic blessing, who gives Leah her first theocratic sons. At Bethel,
however, Jacob exclaims: Jehovah is in this place, meaning he who appears as the covenant
God; here is the house of God (Beth-El), and the gate of heaven.

With the consciousness and significance of the distinction between the two names, is then
also naturally connected the consciousness and significance of their combinations as they so
frequently occur in the Psalms and the Prophets.

Moreover it must be remarked that the distinction of a twofold record in Genesis favors the
originality of the Mosaic tradition rather than the supposition of a direct composition of it, in
which naturally, along with the other indices of later additions, the recoids lying at the has-)
are also removed from their original sphere. But the question also arises on the distinction of
the records, or in how far the same author at a later period of his life can have assumed modifica-
tions of style which were not found in him at an earlier date. This transition of style to new
an-a^ Xfyd/iefa in the process of composition, is mainly to he noticed in the letters of Paul. A
relation similar with that which exists between Isa. i. ff. and Isa. xl. ff. could obtain betweeD
the Mosaic records before and after those appearings of Jehovah which form a turning-point in
the life of Moses.

In their respective places we will treat of the Binis 132 (1 Mos. vi.) and the -itfba mrc
(oh. xvi. T).

a

114 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS.

K. The Criticu. Tbeatises on the Biohtm and Jehotah Sections ik Oenebm and at the Beginniho of Zxosui

The Gompodtion of Genegis.

Various hypotheses : 1. The documentary hypothesis. Astetto, physician of Louis XIV,,
published in Brussels, 1753, an article entitled : Ooryectures mr Us memoires originaux dont A
parait que Moiae s'est semi pom composer le Iwre Gdnese. He sought to prove that Moses formed
Genesis from an Elohim record and a Jehovah record, with the aid of ten smaller memoirs.
Representatives of this view, under various modifications, were Eichhom, Jlgen, Gramberg,
Stahelin ("Critical Investigations of Genesis," Basle, 1830), Hupfeld, Bohmer.

2. The fragmentary hypothesis. The basis of Genesis was nothing but single, small frag-
mentary pieces. Michaelis, Jahn, Vater, Hartmann, Grunde. Varioas superscriptions, conclud-
ing formulas, repetitions, and varieties of style.

3. The complementary hypothesis. The author of the Pentateuch, the JehoTist, had before
him an older document, extending from the creation of the world to the death of Joshua, that
of the Elohist, and remodeled and extended it. Ewald, de Wette (later view), Bleek, von Boh-
len, Stahelin (later view), Tuch, &o.

4. Ewald's developed hypothesis. Designated by Delitzsch, as the crystallization hypothcsw.
Four constituent parts form mainly the basis of the Pentateuch: 1. the book of the covenant,
written at the time of Samson ; 2. the book of the origins (Tholedoth), composed at the time
of Solomon ; 3. a prophetic narrator of the earliest histories, a citizen of the kingdom of Israel
at the time of Elias or Joel ; 4. a second prophetic narrator from the period between 800 and
750. Ewald distinguishes two Elohists and two Jehovists. The fourth narrator divides him-
self again into a fourth and fifth, and his compilation of the earlier books receives yet material
additions at the time of the Jewish king Manasseh, and of the Jewish exile. It mu?t be ob-
served, that in comparison with these the critical hypotheses on the New Testament are always
quite simple in their appearance, and that this has decidedly the character of a book-making
hypothesis.

5. The hypothesis of original unity of Genesis (and of the books of the Pentateuch in com-
mon). The Rabbins and the older theologians (with exception of Vitringa, Olericus, Richard
Simon). Ewald: "The composition of Genesis," Braunschweig, 1823. Retracted since 1831
(see Bleek, p. 2.S2). Sack, in the work previously quoted. Hengstbnbeeg : "The Authenticity
of tlie Pentateuch," 1S36 to 1839. Havernick, Ranke, Drechsler, Baumgarten, Welte, Kurtz
(at an earlier date), Keil.

6. Modified complementary hypothesis. A middle standpoint between the older complementary
hypothesis and the unity hypothesis has been taken by Delitzsch, and after him by Kurtz (Vol. ii. of
the history of the Old Covenant, p. 1855). According to the view of Delitzsch, the author of the Elo-
histic sections composed these first, and avoided, or at least seldom used, the name of Jehovah, until
the passage Exodus vi. 2, where Jehovah declares that he was known to the fathers under the name
of El Schadai, not under the name Jehovah. The name El Sohadai formed in these sections a con-
necting link between the name Elohim and Jehovah. The Elohistic parts are distinguished,
however, from the later appearing Jehovistic ones, not merely by the diversity of their names
of God, but also through a series of otherwise peculiar expressions {see Delitzsch, p. ZT). Ac-
cording to this there is formed the following presentation : Tlie nucleus of the Pentateuch is the
scroll of the covenant. Exodus, xix.-xxiv., written by Moses himself. The remaining laws of the
wilderness Moses gave orally, but they were written down by priests in whose calling it lay
(Dent. xvii. 11 ; xxiv. 8; xxxiii. 10; Lev. x. 11; xv. 31). These parts were codified soon after
the possession of the Holy Land. A man like Eleazer, the son of Aaron, (Num. xxvi. 1 ; xxxL
21), wrote the great work beginning with xna piussna, in which he took up the scroll of the
covenant, and perhaps made but a short report of the last speeches of Moses, because Moses had
written them with his own hand. A second, as Joshua (Deut. xxxii. 44; Jos. xxiv. 26; oomp
1 Sam. X. 25), or one of those Elders on whom rested the spirit of Moses, completed this work

§ 8. THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETIOAL LITERATURE OP GENESIS. ng

and embodied in it the whole of Deuteronomy, which Moses had mainly written himself and
indeed a Jehovistic recension of the whole (p 23), p. 38.

The adherents of the complementary hypothesis lie under manifold imputations of having
abandoned the presumption of Mosaic originals ; the adherents of the unity hypothesis an
chargeable with permitting the canonical authorship to commence at the beginning without th«
originals forming the basis. The hypothesis of Delitzsch is injured by the improbable assump.
tion that Deuteronomy is to be attributed to Moses in great part, and much more early and
literally than the preceding books. On the contrary, we can by no means set aside the supposi-
tion of the representatives of the unity hypothesis, that the names Elohim and Jehovah alter-
nate with each other in consequence of their internal significance. We believe rather that this
significance will receive new importance when we more clearly appreciate the contrast between
the univerealistio and the theocratic designation of the Old Testament covenant God, of the
covenant and the spirit. Without this contrast, the significant names yet want their substruc-
tion. Delitzsch distinguishes thus : " This only is true, that the two narrators bring out diverse
yet equally authorized sides of the one truth of revelation. The Jehovist seizes with preference
whatever brings out the world-historical position and destiny of Israel, its mediating calling in
the midst of the nations of the world, and the universalistic ( 1 ) tendency of revelation. He
notes just those patriarchal promises of God, which extend beyond the possession of Canaan,
and pronounce the blessing of all nations through the mediation of the patriarchs and their
seed (ch. xii. 2, &c.). On the contrary all the promises of God, that kings will descend from
the patriarchs, belong to the report of the Elohist (oh. xvii. 6, &c.). He has more to do with
the priestly royal glory, which Israel has in itself, &;c." This appears to. us to be just about the
opposite of the real state of the case. The universalistic relation is the relation of God to the
Logos in the whole world, to the Sophia, to the godlike in the foundation of humanity and the
creation, the circumferential form of revelation. The theocratic relation is the central form
of revelation, its relation to the covenants, the theocracy, the historical appearance of the
kingdom of God.

We leave it undecided, how far this contrast here also, separately taken, might give an
insight into the difference between the Elohistic and the Jehovistic Psalms.

If Moses, as a learned man, according to the Egyptian cultivation of his time, and familiar
with the art of writing, could write down the basis of his legislation, or could cause it to be
written down (according to Bleek), then we may confidently distinguish two periods in the
writing of Mo-es, the composition of Elohistic memorabilia before the new period of revelati(m
(Gen. vi. 3), and Jehovistic memorabilia and laws after it. By considering the effect of Egyptian
culture, we can easily explain how (apart from its great significance in itself) the memorabilia
of the life of Joseph, on whose life-history reposed the origin of the nation in Egypt, and all
right and title of Israel in Egypt, have received so wide an extension. The settlement of the
Israelites in Egypt may have also been an inducement to gradually fixing the sacred legends of
the people. We permit ourselves therefore to assume a fourfold group of memorabilia (not of
complete books), as the foundation for the first four books of the Pentateuch. First, primitive
legends reduced to writing; secondly, memorabilia of the life of Joseph; thirdly. Mosaic
records from the Elohim or El Schadai period of Gen. vi. 3 ; fourthly. Mosaic records from the
Jehovah period. The last group is continued in a fifth, namely, in the Deuteronomio prophesies
of Moses. The recension of those parts in the form of the Pentateuch would fall, then, at the
latest, into the time of the prophets of the school of Samuel, i. e., into the last days of the era
of the Judges ; and the recension of Deuteronomy, perhaps, into the period of the development
»f the Solomonic mode of view.

< 8. THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETIOAL LITERATtTBE OF GENESIS.

See the General Commentaries preceding. Then, Waloh : " Biblioth. Theol." iv. p. 452 ft,
JTinbr: "Theol. Literature," i. p. 199. Supplement, p. 31. Danz: "Dictionary," p. 312,
Supplement, ji. 38. Bleek: "Introduction," p. 110 flf. Kbil :" Introduction," p. 64. Kxtetz;

116 DfTKODUCTION TO GENESIS

"History of the Old Covenant." "Introduction," p. 37 ff. Especially Delitzsoh: Genesia,
p. 71 ff. The Patristic literature; mainly Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, Oyrillus, Alexandrinust
Hieronymns, Augustinus, &o., p. 73. The EabMnic literature: Solomon Isaac (Raschi, under
the erroneous name Jarchi), Aben Ezra, David Kimschi, &c. P. 57, more general view. The
Parristic period and the middle ages. The era of the Reformation, &o. — Here Luther and Oal
via precede all (newly published by Hengstenberg, Berlin, 1831). We name Oalvinus and Ger-
hard of the Lutherans, and the Reformed, Mercerus, Grotins, Spencer, Olericus, &c. We misa
especially Zwingli, Oooeejus, Venema, Dissertationes ad Genesin, 1747. Specially quoted and
justly blamed ; Jacob Bohme : Mysterium magnum (an accompaniment, Sohwkdbnboeg, Arcana
cceleitia. Mainly what is found in Genesis. German by Tai'el, 1855). — Recently : Michaelis,
Severin Father, von Bohlen, Rosenmtlller's Comments, Schuman, and then the more weighty
commentaries of Tuoh and Knobel. With respect to the deeper investigation of Old Testament
Exegesis are named : Herder ("The oldest Record of the Human Race," Riga, 1774), Hamann,
Dr. Leidemit by Moser, F. A. Krummacher's "Paragraphs on Sacred History" (1818j, the
unfinished Commentary of Tiele (Erlangen, 1836), the Theol. Commentary on the Pentateuch by
Michael Baumgarten (Kiel, 1843 and 1844), Hofmann, Prophecy and Fulfilment. Bible lessons
on Genesis by Heim (Stuttgart, 1845). Exposition of Genesis by F. W. J. Schroder (Berlin>
1846), "A collection in which all remarkable things ever said of Genesis are arranged on the
thread of the author's peculiar and fimdamental nnderstanding.'" Le?s prominent names are
numerous, viz., in respect to criticism and isolated articles ; for instance, modern : Giesebrecht,
Rfidiger, Ilgen, Larsow, Berlin, 1843. Pustkuchen, the Primal History of Mankind, Lemgo,
1821. The same. Historical Critical Investigations, Halle, 1823. — Critical Investigations : Heng-
stenberg, Supplements, Ranke, Drechsler, Kurtz, 1846. (Sorenson, profane, eccentric.) Hup-
feld, 1853. — Bohmer, liber Genesis, Halle, 1860. The same, the first book of the Thorah, Halle,
1862. Bahmer, Quaestiones in Genesin, Breslau, 1863. Also von Schrank, Gommentariris in
Genesin, 1835. Delitzsch, Commentary on Genesis, 3d ed. Leipzig, Franke, 1860. Delitzsch
and Keil {see Pentateuch). Wright, the book of Genesis, London, Williams and Norgate, 1859.
Leipzig, Hartmann.

Thboeetical fbactical Literatube.

See Winer, Theological Literature, p. 115 ff. — Val. Herberger, Beyer, History of the Primal
world in Sermons. Leop. Schmid, Explanations of the sacred writings, 3 numbers to Genesis
XXV. 18, Mllnster, 1834. Heim, Bible lessons (Stuttgart, 1845 ; see above). Wunsche, Bible
essons, Ist and 2d part (1st part: Genesis, 2d part: Job), Berlin, 1858. Schwenke, Bible
-essons on Genesis, 2 vols. Erfurt, 1860. (Dietrich, Old Testament Bible lessons.) Taube, 43
sermons on running texts of Genesis, Breslau, Diilfer, 1858. See Literature of the Old Tes-
tament and the Pentateuch.

[To this list of special works on Genesis add the following: English; The Holy Bible, Genesis
and Exodus, by Charles Wokdswoeth, D.D., Canon of Westminster, London, 1864. A critical
and exegetical commentary on the book of Genesis, by James Murphy, Professor of Hebrew,
Belfast, Edinburg, 1863. American : Questions and notes on Genesis, by George BrsH, 1832.
Notes, critical and explanatory on the book of Genesis, from the creation to the covenant, bj
Mblanohton W. Jaoobus, New York, 1865. Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, by Samuei
H. TuRNEE, D.D., Professor of Biblical Learning, Columbia College, New York. — T. L.]

THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

THE OEEATION. THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF THE WOELD, AND NATURAL 80IBN0B. THE SIX

DATs' WORK.

See the paragraphs of the Introduction on the prastioal Exposition of the Old Testament
A-lso "Matthew," p. 11, Damik, p. 318. Winer, i. p. 200. Joh. PMloponus, in caput i. Genaen

§ 8. THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL LITERATURE OF GENESIS. U',

edit. Corderius, Vienna, 1630. Eiohhorn : Primeval History, 2 vola. Altorf, 1790. Hasse : Discover
iea in the Field of the Oldest History of Earth and Man, 2 pts. Halle and Leipzig, 1801. Wer-
ner, Historical Comprehension of the first three chapters of Genesis ; with a Supplement on th«
Genuineness of Deuteronomy, Tiibingen, 1829. Hug : Be opereaex dierum, Freiburg, 1827. Beke:
Origines iiblicae, or Eesearches in Primeval History, London, 1834. Buckland : Geology and
Mineralogy, considered with reference to Natural Theology, London, 1836. Hitchcock: Th«
Religion of Geology, &c., Glasgow, 1857. Hugh Miller : The Testimony of the Rooks on Geology,
Edinburgh, 1857. Reginald Stuart Poole : The Genesis of the Earth and of Man, &c., London,
1860 {see the notice of Zockler : Periodical of Theol. Literature, N. 5 and 6, 18G1). Kalisoh :
Qistorioal and Critical Commentary of the Old Testament Genesis, London, 1858. Godefroy:
La Oosmogonie de Revelation, Paris, 1861. Marcel de Senes: The Cosmogonie of Moses, in Ger-
man, Tubingen, 1841. "Waterkeyn: Kosmos hieros. Quoted by Delitzsch (p. 609): American
writings of Hitchcock, Smith, Crofton ; especially the Treatise by Means : The Narrative of th«
Creation in Genesis, in the American Bibliotheoa Sacra, with special reference to Guyot's Lec-
tures on the Harmony of the Mosaic account of the Creation with modern Science, delivered in
New York, 1852. Tholuok: What is the result of Science in reference to the primeval world?
At the same time a catalogue of the most important writings on this subject. In his miscella-
neous writings, 2d part, p. 148 ff. Lange's Miscellaneous Writings, vol. i. p. 49 ff. ; p. 74 if.
Lange : The Land of Glory, with reference to Pfaff : Man and the Stars. Kurtz : The Bible and
Astronomy. (Schaden : Theodicy, Karlsruhe, 1842.) Keil : Apologia Mosaicae Traditionia, &c.,
Dorpat, 1839. O. Heer: Harmony of the Creation, Zurich, 1847. Fred, de Rougemont (set
"Matthew," p. v.) : Fragmens Wune Histoire de la terre, d'aprh la Bible, Neufchatel, isil. The
same : Bu monde dans ses rapports avee Dieu, Neufchatel, 1841. Histoire de la terre, 1856, Ger-
man, by Fabarius Mutzl : The Primeval History of the Earth, Landshut, 1843. Hugo Reinsch :
The Creation, 1856. Euen : The History of the Creation, according to the Researches of Mod-
eru Science in its Connection with the Faith and the Church, Referat, Stettin, 1855. Flasbar:
Whether the astronomical contradicts the Christian View of the World, Berlin, 1857. Ebrard :
The Faith in the Holy Writ and the Result of Researches into Nature, Konigsberg, 1861. (The
writings on this subject by Eioliers. Wolf: Primeval History of Genesis, ch. i. ver. 6-8.) Jahn :
Nature in the Light of Divine Revelation, and the Revelation of God in Nature, Berlin, Sohulze.
Nature and Revelation, organ for the mediation between natural researches and faith (a period-
ical), Miinster, Aschendorf, 1855 ff. B6hner: 1. The Freely Inquiring Bible Theology and its
Opponents, Zurich, Orell, Fiissli. 2. Researches of Nature and Civilized Life. 3. Kosmos, Bible of
Nature, Hanover, Rilmpler, 1862. Zockler: Theologia natwalis. Plan of a systematic natural
Theology, Frankfort on the Main and Erlangen, 1860. Moller : History of the Cosmology in
the Grecian Church until Origen, with Special Investigations of the Gnostic Systems, Halle, 1860.
Keerl : Man the Image of God. His relation to Christ and the world. An Essay on Primeval
History, Basle, 1861. Wisemann: On the Connection between the Results of scientific Investiga-
tion and Religion. Pianciani (of the Collegium Romanum) : Elucidations of the Mosaic History
of the Creation. Von Schrank : Eexaemeron, Augsburg, 1838. Gfrorer : The Primeval History
of the Human Race, Sohaffhausen, 1855. Reinke: The Creation of the World, 1859. Reusoh:
Lectures on the Mosaic History and its Relation to the Eesults of Investigations in Nature, Bonn,
Freiburg, 1862. Works on the Creation from the scientific stand-point, by Andreas Wagner
(Neptunism), and others. See Delitzsch, p. 1 10. Schubert : The Structure of the World Qnen-
stedt: Epochs of Nature, Tubingen, 1860. Pfaflf : History of the Creation, Frankfort on the Main,
1855. (Hudson Tuttle: History and Laws of the Process of Creation, German, Erlangen, 1860,
A flood of kindred popular writings and periodical articles.) Treatises, see Kurtz, p. 55. Of
great merit is the recension of the work of Buckland, Geology and Mineralogy, considered wit!
reference to Natural Theology, by W. Hoffmann in Tholuck's Literary Advertiser, 1888, Nr. 44 fl
6aer: Which comprehension of animated nature is the just one? Berlin, 1862.

118 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS

■WORKS OOHOERNING MATEEIALI8M.

Materialistic : Moleschott, Bucliner, Vogt, Ozolbe, &o. Mayer in Mentz, Materialism anfl
Bpiritualism, Giessen, 1861. Periodicals, Treatises, Articles.

Counter-publications : R. "Wagner : Creation of Man and Substance of the Soul. A. Wagner
Liebig, Fabri : Letters against Materialism. Schellwien : Criticism of Materialism. Woysch :
Materialism and the Christian View of the World. Ewen, Berlin, 1856. Schaller, Weber : Ma-
terialism and the People's School, Stendal, 1856. Alb. von Gloss (especially against Bilchnel
andVogt). Michelis : Materialism and Implicit Faith. " Circular to the K-epresentatives of Mod-
ern Materialism in Germany. Ootta, Burraeister, Eosmassler, MuUer, Uble, Ozolbe." Baltzer :
The new Fatalists of Materialism. Frosohamer : Walhalla of German Materialists, Munster
1861. Bona Meyer ; Critical View of materialistic controversial Literature, Evangelical Church
Gazette, 1356, June, &c.

Homiletics: Harms: On the Creation, 9 sermons, Kiel, 1834. (Free discursive texts. The
treatment of the subject occasionally extravagant.) Sei the more general collections to Genesis,
Deuteronomy, and the General Introduction.

SECOND CHAPTER OF GEKESIS.

See "Matthew." The article Eden in Winer's Real-Lexicon. Monographs by Hnetins,
Hopkinson, Schnlthess, &c. Bertheau: The Fundamental Geographical Conceptions m the
Description of Paradise, Gottingen, 1848.

Comp. Kurtz : History of the Old Covenant, p. 5V ff. K. von Eaumer : Palestine. Maydorn :
The Gospel of Paradise. Eight Lent-Sermons, Breslau, DtQfer.

Male and female sex. Anthropological Works. Works on marriage.

Unity of the Human Race. See " Matthew." Liicken : Unity of the Human Race, Han-
over, 1845. See A Catalogue of the Opponents and Defenders of the Unity of Descent, Kurtz,
p. 61. Lange's Positive Dogmatics, p. 330.

Anthropology and Psychology. Hug : The Mosaic History of Man, Frankfort and Leipzig,
1793. Outlines of the Doctrine of the Soul from the Sacred Writ, by Roos. From the Latini
Stuttgardt, 1857. Hauamann. Beck: Scriptural Doctrine of the Soul, 2d ed. Zeller; Concise
Psychology, 3d ed., Calw, 1857. Delitzsch: Scriptural Psychology, 2d ed. Von Rudloff: The
Doctrine of Man, founded on Divine Revelation. Anthropology of Steffens, by J. H. Fiohte*
Leipzig, 1858. Schubert ; History of the Soul. H. A. Hahn: Commentatio Veteris Testamenti
de natura hominis exposita.

Language. Fr. Schlegel : Philosophy of History, p. 44 ff. Schmitthenner : Primitive Gram-
mar. Herder, Hamann, W. von Humboldt: On the Kavi-Language. Introduction. Jacob
Grimm: The Origin of Language, Berlin, 1852. Stovesand: The Mystery of the Language of
God in Man, Gotha, Perthes.

Immortality. See Dantz : articles Immortality, Sleep of the Sonl, Migration of Souls. Add
Supplement, p. 108. Oehler: Veteris Testamenti sententia de rehus post mortem futuri^, Stutt-
gardt, 1846. A. Schumann: The Doctrine of Immortality of the Old and New Testament.
Bottcher. Brecher : The Doctrine of Immortality as held by the Jewish People, Leipzig, 1857.
Engelbert : The Negative Merit of the Old Testament in Relation to the Doctrine of Immortality,
Berlin, 1857. A. Fiohte : The Idea of Personality and continued Individual Existence, Elber-
feld, 1834. Lange's Philosophical Dogmatics, p. 243. Weisse: The Philosophical Mystery of
Immortality, Dresden, Kori. H. Ritter : Immortality. First volume of Entertaining Instrnction,
Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1851. Gumposch : The Soul and its Future, St. GaUen, 1849. Sohnltz
Splittgerber : Death, Life after Death, and Resurrection. A biblical apologetical Essay, Hall<\
1862.

Religion. See Winer: Theological Literature, i. p. 28. Supplement, p. 45, &o.

g 8. THEOLOGICAL AND HOMILETICAL LITERATURE OF GENESIS. lU

THIKD CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

THE PALL. LOST PAEADISE. DEATH.

Nysa : Philosophio-historioal Treatise on Genesis 2(1 and 3d. Eleutheropolis, 1790. Sohel
ling : Antiquisaimi de prima malorum humanorum origine PMlosophematis Oen. 3 explicatio,
Tubingen, 1792. Writings on the Sin of Man, Krabbe, J. Milller. See also the catalogue in
Kurtz : History of the Old Covenant, p. 61. Umbreit : Sin. Supplement to the Theology of th«
Old Testament, Hamburg, 1858. Bram: The FaO. lUustration of the 3d chapter of Genesis,
Barmen, 1857. Graber : Sennons on the Lost Paradise.

FOURTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

ON SAOBIFIOE.

See Literature, Kurtz, p. 71. On the extension of the Human Race.

FIFTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS.
On the Macrobians. See Kurtz, p. 73 ff.

SIXTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

Fr. de Rougemont : Le Peuple primitif. Several volumes, Paris and Geneva. H. Kurtz :

-The Marriages of the Sons of God with the Daughters of Men, Berlin, 1857. The same: Th«

Sons of God, in Genesis vi. 1, 4, and the Sinning Angels, in 2 Pet. ii. 4, 5, and Jude, ver. 6 and

7. Polemic treatise against Hengstenberg, Mitau, 1858. See also Kurtz : History of the Old

Covenant, pp. 76 and 77.

SIXTH TO NINTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

THE FLOOD.

Buttmann: On the Myth of the Flood, Berlin, 1812 ('19). Stollberg: History of Religion
and the Church, 1vol. Further literature: Kurtz, p. 80 ff. Oroner: 18 Sennons from the
Ffistory of the Flood, Erfurt, 1568. Gessner : Noah, Five Addresses to Christians, Basle, 1823.

TENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

THE OENEALOaiCAL TABLE.

See Kurtz : History of the Old Covenanf,, p. 88 ff. A. Feldhoff : The Line of Epochs of the
Holy Writ, from Adam to the Pentecost, Frankfort on the Main, 1831. The Genealogical
Table of Genesis in its Universal Historical Significance, Elberfeld, 1837. Krilcke : Illustrations
of the Genealogical Table, Bonn, 1837. Knobel : The Genealogy of Genesis, Giessen, Ricker,
1850. Breiteneioher : Nineveh and Nahum. With reference to the latest discoveries, Munich,
1861. Layard : Popular Report on the Excavations at Nineveh, German by Meissner, Leip-
3ic, Dyk, 1852.

ELEVENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

BXJII.DINO OP THE TOWEB OF BABEL. GENEALOGY. CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

Kurtz, p. 86 ff. Kaulen : Confusion of Tongues at Babel, Mainz, 1861. Niebuhr ; Babylon

lao INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS.

Heathendom. Dollinger : Heathendom. Stiefelhagen. Writings of Lasaulx, Nagekbach,
Wuttke, Mohler, and others. See Kurtz, p. 91. Fabri : The Rise of Heathendom and tha
Problem of Heathen Missions, Barmen, 1859. Lubker: Lectures on Civilization and Christian-
ity, Hamburg, 1863.

TWELFTH TO THIRTY-SIXTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

THB HISTORY OF THE PATEIAECH8. .

See Kurtz, pp. 104 and 116, especially 119 and 129. Heidegger: De historia sacra Patria/r
eharwm, Exercitationes selectae, Amsterdam, 1667. J. J. Hess : History of the Patriarchs, with
maps, 2 vols. Zurich, 1776. Mel: The Life of the Patriarchs, 2 parts, Frankfort, 1714 (on the
last Chapters of Genesis).

A. Abraham.

See Danz : Abraham, p. 14. Winer : Scriptural Real-lexicon. Biblical Dictionary, oy Zel-
ler. Herzog : Theological Encyclopedia. So also the following names. Roos : Footsteps of the
Faith of Abraham in the Descriptions of the Life of the Patriarchs and the Prophets. Newly
published, Tubingen, 1837. Baohmann: Sermons on the History of Abraham. Passavant:
Abraham and Abraham's Children. By the author of Naeman, 2d ed. Basle, 1861. W. Heu-
eer: Abraham's Doings, in 12 sermons. A parting Gift, Barmen, 1861. Boswinkel: Fourteen
Sermons on the Life of Abraham, Barmen, Bertelsman. Bram : Traits of the Domestic Life of
Abraham, Neukirchen and Solingen, 1855. — On the angel of the Lord. Kurtz, p. 144, and the
treatise in its respective place. Ishmael. See Kurtz, p. 203.

B. liaac.

See Kurtz, p. 203 flf. The Talmud accounts of him in Otho : Lexicon Talmud. Passages of
the Koran in Hottinger's Biblioth. Orient.

0. Jacob. The Blessing of Jacob.

See Danz, p. 315. Jacob's History, by Seeger (in Klaiber's Studies i. iii. 60-81). G. D.
Krummacher: Jacob's Contest and Victory, 4th ed. Elberfeld, 1867. Alting Schilo, Franeker,
1660. Chr. Schmidt, Giessen, 1793. Friedrich, Hoifmann (Andreas Wilhelm), Stahelin, Wer-
lin, Zirkel, Petersen (see Danz : Genesis, and Winer i. p. 199). Diestel : The Blessing of Jacob,
Braunschweig, Schwetsche, 1853.

D, Joseph.

See Danz, p. 815 and p. 4713. Winer : Biblical Dictionary. Zeller : Biblical Dictionary.
Herzog. Felix Herder: The History of Joseph in Sermons, Zurich, 1784. Teachings from the
History of Joseph. First part, Frankfort on the Main, 1816.

5 9. THE FUNDAMENTAL THOrOHT AND DIVISION OF GENESIS.

Under the universo-cosmical point of view. Genesis is divided into two main divisions: the
aistory of the primeval world before the flood (ch. i.-viii.) and the history of the theocrati
OTmeval period after the flood (ch. viii.-l.).

Heidegger: Enchiridion; 1. Historia originis rerum omnium, ch. i. 11. 2. Historia mundt
prioris, ch. iii.-viii. 8. Historia posterioris mundi, oh. ix.-l. Delitzsch : " If we divide all
history into the two great halves of a history of primeval time and a history of the mid-world,
separated by the beginning of sin and the plan of redemption going into effect (Oooceius), Genesis
embraces the complete hisrtnry of the early world (oh. i.-iii.). It also follows the history of tht

§ 9. THB FUNDAMENTAL THOUGHT AND DIVISION OF GENESIS. ' 121

after-world through three periods, whose first extends from the Fall to the Flood (oh. iv.-viii
14), the second from the covenant with Noah to the dispersion of the human race in nations and
languages (oh. viii. 15-ch. xi.), the third from the choosing of Abraham to the settlement of the
family of Jacob in Egrpt (ch. xii.-L). These first three periods are the first three stages of th«
history of salvation, into which, through divine mercy, the world and the history of nations in

In the mean whUe the theocratic point of view predominates, and under it also Genesil
appears to fall firstly into two halves : The history of primal religion, from ch. i.-xi., and the
history of the patriarchs, ch. xii.-l.

Thus Kirchofer : Bibliology, p. 16 : " Genesis is consequently divided into general and special
history."

If we look however more closely, there are three main divisions in contrast with each other,
1. The history of the primeval world and earliest period of the human race, as the history of the
primal religion (or the Tholedoth of heaven and earth (Gen. ii. 4), and the Tholedoth of Adam
(ch. V. 1) until the development of heathendom (ch. xii.) ). 2. The history of the patriarchal
faith or the religion of promise, or the Tholedoth of Shem, &o., to the Tholedoth of Jacob, from
ch. xii.-oh. xxxvi. 43. 3. The history of the Genesis of the people of Israel in Egypt out of the
twelve tribes of Israel : from the Tholedoth of Jacob, ch. xxxvii., to the death of Joseph in
Egypt, under the prophetic prospect of the return of Israel to Canaan (ch. 1. 26).

Schneider: Compendium of the Christian religion (Bielefeld, 1860): "We would divide Gen-
esis most simply according to its five heroes : Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, did it
not contain in itself a decimal division (the ten Tholedoth)."

If we keep in view their difierent relapses into sin and their turning again to redemption, it
may be appropriate to distinguish : a. the foundation-laying in creation, ch. i. and ii. ; b. the gen-
• eral fall of man, ch. iii.-v. ; c. the fall of the first human race, ch. vi.-x. ; d . the buUding
of the tower of Babel (heathendom and the patriarchal state), ch. xi.-xxxvi. ; e. the sin of the
brothers of Joseph and its event, ch. xxxvii.-l. (Isaac's error and its event, an episode, ch. xxviii.
-xxxvi.)

The name Genesis, referring to the initial word of the book (r"'U!J<">3) and to its foundation,
may indicate in the first place the origin of the world and the human race. But we can also
conclude from the frequent headings "TAoMoi/i" (nnbin) which mark individual sections,
that it is especially chosen in reference to the contents of the entire hook, or the human origins
in general (origin of sin, of judgment, salvation, final judgment, renewal of the world, heathen-
dom, covenant religion, and the Israelitish nation). Hence Vaihinger (in Herzog's Real-Lexicon)
and Delitzsoh in his Commentary have divided Genesis according to the separate Tholedoth.
Delitzsch counts ten Tholedoth. 1. Tholedoth of heaven and earth, ch. i. 1-oh. iv. 26 ; 2. Tho-
ledoth of Adam, ch. v.-ch. vi. 8 ; 3. Tholedoth of Noah, ch. vi. 9-ch. ix. 29 ; 4. Tholedoth of
the sons of Noah, ch. x. 1-ch. xi. 9; 5. Tholedoth of Shem, ch. xi. 10-26 ; 6. Tholedoth of
Terah, oh. xi. 27-ch. xxv. 11 ; 7. Tholedoth of Ishmael, ch. xxv. 12-18 ; 8. Tholedoth of Isaac,
oh. xxv. 19-ch. XXXV. 29; 9. Tholedoth of Esau, ch. xxxvi. 10; 10. Tholedoth of Jacob, ch.
xxxvii.-l.

Besides the headings Tholedoth, ch. ii. 3 ; v. 1 ; vi. 9, &c., the fact, that the Bible throughout
has the point of view of the personal life, and that the Tholedoth as generations seem to cor-
respond to it, would especially favor this division. But in that case we should not, at least,
speak of the Tholedoth of heaven and earth before the Tholedoth of Adam, as Delitzsch does.
And it is just this Genesis of heaven and earth, which cannot properly be designated by the
word Tholedoth, that has, nevertheless, mainly given to the book its name. We ought also to
distinguish between the documentary genealogical foundations of Genesis, its ideal unitary com-
position, and the ideal construction which proceeds from it. Therefore we seek such a divisioB
of Genesis as results from the actual distinction of its principal periods, and the essential arrange-
ments of these periods.

122 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS.

rmST PKRIOD.

History of the primeval world, of the earliest period of the human race as history of the
earliest religion till the development of heathendom and its contrast in the budding patriarch-
dom, oh. i.-xi.

I. DIVISION. The Genesis of the world, of the contrast between heaven and earth, and of th«

first man, oh. i. and ii.
let Section. Heaven, earth, and man. The physico-genetical creation and world development,

ch. i.-ch. ii. 3.
2d Section. Man, Paradise, the pair, and the institutions of Paradise. The reversed principial

development, proceeding from man. The symbol of the Tree of Life, ch. ii. 4-25.

II. wvisioir. The Genesis of the world-history, of the temptation, of the sin of man, of the

judgment, of death, of salvation, of the contrast between a divine and worldly direc-
tion in humanity, of the common ruin. The anomism of antediluvian sin, ch. iii. 1-oh,
vi. r.
■ 1st Section. The Lost Paradise, ch. iii.

2c! Section. Gain and Abel. The Oainites. The ungodly, secular first culture, ch. iv. 1-24.
3d Section. Adam and Seth. The Sethites or Macrobians. The living worship and the bless-
ing of renewed life in the line of the sods of God, ch. iv. 25-ch. v. 32.
4fA Section. The universal godless ruin in consequence of the mixture of both lines, ch. vi.
1-7.

ni. DIVISION. The Genesis of the judgment of the world and its renewing by means of the
separating flood. The flood and the drowned race. The ark and the saved humanity.
(The a,rk a type of the pious house, of the pious state, of the church.) The first typical
covenant, ch. vi. 8-oh. xi. 19.
1st Section. Tlie calling of Noah and the ark, ch. vi. 8-eh. vii. 10.
2d Section. The flood and the judgment of death, oh. vii. 7-24.
Sd Section. The ark, the saved and renewed humanity, ch. viii. 1-19.

ith Section. The first typical covenant. The original moral law (commandments of Noah)
The symbol of the rainbow, ch. viii. 20-ch. xi. 19.

rv. DIVISION. Genesis of the new world-historical human race ; of the contrast between the
new sin and the new piety, as they respectively appear, between curse and blessing. The
Genesis of the contrast between the blessing of Shem (worship, germinating tlieocraoy)
and the blessing of Japheth (culture, humanism), of the contrast between the dispersion
of nations and the Babylonian union of nations, between the Babylonian dispersion of
nations, or the mythical heathendom, and the united symbolical faith in God or patriarch-
dom, ch. xi. 20-oh. xi. 32.
Ut Section. The revelation of sin and piety in Noah's house. The curse and the blessing of

Noah. The double blessing and the blessing in the curse itself, ch. xi. 24^29.
2d Section. The genealogical table, ch. x. 1-22.
&d Section. The building of the tower of Babel, the confusion of tongues, and the dispersion of

nations, ch. xi. 1-9.
Ith Section. The history of Shem, and the wandering, commenced and interrupted, of Terah
to Canaan. The Genesis of the contrast between heathendom and the budding patriaroh-
dom, ch. xi. 10-82.

SECOND PERIOD.

The Genesis of the patriarchal faith in promise, and the covenant religion ; of the hostilt
contrast between faith in promise and heathendom ; of the friendly contrast between the patri-
archs and the humanity of the heathen world. Patriarchal religion and patriarchal custom, ch.
xii. 1-ch. xxxvi. 43.

g 9. THE FUNDAMENTAL THOUGHT AND DITISION OF GENESIS. IV a

A. Abbahau xbb Friend of Qod A2fs his Acts of Faith, Gh. xii. 1-Oh. xxt. 10.

M Section. Abraham's journey to Oauaan. His call. The first promise of God. His feUow-
ship with Lot. First appearance of God in Oanaan, and first homeless alienage in th«
promised land. Abraham in Egypt, Pharaoh, oh. xii.

'Ji Section. Abraham as a testimony of God in Oanaan, and his self-denying separation from

Lot. New promise of God. His altar ia the plains of Mamre, ch. xiii.
d Section, Abraham and his war of deliverance for Lot against heathen robbery. The vic-
torious warrior of the faith and his greeting to the prince of peace Melchisedek. His bear-
ing towards the king of Sodom and his confederates, ch. xiv.

4tA Section. Abraham the tried warrior of the faith, and God his shield. His longing for an
heir, and his thought of adoption. The great promise of Gud. Abraham's faith in view
of the starry heaven. The symbol of the starry heaven. Tlie righteousness of faith, tha
covenant of the faith, and the repeated promise, ch. xv.

^th Section. Abraham's yielding to Sarah's impatience. Abraham and Hagar. Hagar's flight.
The angel of the Lord. Hagar's return and Ishmael's birth, ch. xvi.

6th Section. Abraham and the repeated promise of God. The name Abram changed to
Abraham. The personal covenant of faith now a covenant institution for him, his house
and his name. Oiroumoision. The name Sarai changed to Sarah. Not Ishmael but
Isaac the promised one, ch. xvii.

7th Section. Abraham in the plains of Mamre and the three heavenly men. Hospitality of
Abraham. The distinct announcement of the birth of a son. Sarah's doubt. The an-
nouncement of the judgment on Sodom connected with the promise of the heir of blessing.
The angel of the Lord, or the friend of Abraham, and the two angels of deliverance for
Sodom. Abraham's intercession for Sodom. Sodom's fall. Lot's deliverance. Lot and hi?
daughters. Moab and Ammon, oh. xviii. and xix.

%th Section. Abraham and Abimelech of Gerar. His and Sarah's renewed exposure througl
his human calculating foresight, as in Egypt in the presence of Pharaoh. Divine preserva-
tion. Abraham's intercession for Abimelech, oh. xx.

9tt Section. Isaac's birth. Ishmael's expulsion. The covenant of peace with Abimelech at
Beer Sheba, cb. xxi.

\Oth Section. Sacrifice of Isaac. The sealing of the faith of Abraham. The completion and
sealing of the divine promise, oh. xxii. 1-19.

11th Section. Abraham's family joy and suffering. News of birth in the home land. Sarah'a
death. Her burial at Hebron ; the germ of the future acquisition of Oanaan, oh. xxii. 20-
ch. xxiii. 20.

X^th Section. Abraham's care for the marriage of Isaac. Eleazer's wooing of Rebecca for
Isaac. Isaac's marriage, ch. xxi v.

\Mh Section. Abraham's second marriage. Keturah and her sons. His death and burial, ch.
XXV. 1-10.

B. Isaac and his Faith-Bndueanoe, Ob. xxt. 11-Oh. xxvin. 29.

1st Section. Isaac and Ishmael, oh. xv. 11-18.

2i Section. Jacob and Esau, ch. xxv. 19-34.

Zd Section. Isaac in the territory of Abimelech at Gerar. Appearance of God and confirmed
promise. His constrained imitation of the maxims of his father. Exposure of Eebeoca.
His yielding to the injustice of the Philistines, ch. xxvi. 1-22.

Uh Section. Isaac in Beer Sheba. Treaty of peace with Abimelech, oh. xxvi. 23-33.

ith Section. Isaac's sorrow at Esau's marriage with the daughters of Oanaan, ch. xxvi. 34
and 35.

S<A Section. Isaac's prepossession in favor of the first-born, Esau. Eebeooa and Jacob deprive
him of the theocratic blessing. Esau's blessing. Esau's hostility to Jacob. Rebecca's pre-
paration for the flight of Jacob and his journey with a view to a theocratic marriage,

124 INTEOD0OTION TO GENESIS.

Isaac's commands for the journey of Jacob (counterpart to the dismissal of Ishmael). £fiaa'l
pretended correction of his injudicious marriages, ch. xxvii.-ch. xxviii. 9.

0. Jacob-Iskael, the God-Wbe6tlee and his 'Wakdeeisqs, Ch. xxviii. 10-Oh. xxxvi. 43.

lai Section. Jacob's journey to Mesopotamia and the ladder of heaven at Bethel, ch. xzviiL
10-22.

2d Section. Jacob and Eachel, Laban's younger daughter. First and second treaty with La-
ban. His involuntary consummation of marriage with Leah. The double marriage. Leah's
sons. Rachel's dissatisfaction. The strife of the two women. The concubines. Jacob's
blessing of children, ch. xxix. 1-ch. xxx. 24.

&d Section. Jacob's thought of returning home. New treaty with Laban. His closely cal-
culated proposition. (Prelude to the method of acquiring possession of the Egyptian ves-
sels.) God's command to return home, ch. xxx. 25-oh. xxxi. 3.

4<A Section. Jacob's flight. Laban's persecution. The alliance between both on the mountain
of Gilead. Departure, ch. xxxi. 4-55.

5th Section. Jacob's journey home. The appearance of the hosts of angels (as on his setting
out). Fear of Esau. His wrestling in the night with God. The name Israel. Meeting
and reconciliation with Esau, ch. xxxii. 1-oh. xxxiii. 16.

6th Section. Jacob's settlement in Canaan. At Suocoth. At Sichem. Dinah. Simeon and
Levi. The first appearance of Jewish fanaticism. Jacob's reproof, and departure for Bethel,
ch. xxxiii. 17-ch. xxxv. 15.

7th Section. Journey from Bethel to beyond Bethlehem. Benjamin's birth. Rachel's death,
ch. xxxv. 18-21.

8th Section. Reuben's transgression. Jacob's sons. His return to Isaac at Hebron. (Rebecca
no more among the living.) Isaac's death. Burial of him by Esau and Jacob, ch. xxxv.
22-29.

Qth Section. Esau's family record and the Horites, ch. xxxvi.

THIED PEEIOD.

The Genesis of the people of Israel in Egypt from the twelve tribes of Israel, or the history
of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph, the patriarch of the faith-guidance, through humiliation to
exaltation, ch. xxxvii.-l.

1st Section. Jacob's error in respect to Joseph. Joseph's dreams. The envy of the brothers.

Joseph sold into Egypt, ch. xxxvii.
id Section. Judah's transient separation from his brothers (probably in dissatisfaction at theii

deed). His sons. Tamar, ch. xxxviii.
Sd Section. Joseph in the house of Potiphar and in prison, ch. xxxix.
ith Section. Joseph as interpreter of the dreams of his fellow-prisoners, ch. xl.
tth Section. Joseph as interpreter of the dreams of Pharaoh. He is advanced and cared for,

ch. xli.
6th Section, The famine, and the first journey of the sons of Jacob to Egypt, ch. xlii.
7th Section. Second journey. With Benjamin. Joseph makes himself known to his brethren.

Their return. Jacob's joy, oh. xliiii.-xlv.
6th Section. Israel goes with his house to Egypt. He settles in the land of Goshen. Jacob

before Pharaoh. Joseph's poUtical economy. Jacob's arrangement for his burial in Ca-
naan, oh. xlvi. and xlvii.
ith Section. Jacob's sickness, his blessing of his grandchildren, Joseph's sons, ch. xMii.
IQih Section. Jacob's blessing on his sons. Jndah and his brethren. Jacob's last charge. Hia

burial in Canaan. His end, oh. xlix.
IMh Section. Joseph's mourning. Jacob's funeral in Canaan. The fear of Joseph's brethren

and his word of peace and faith concerning them and his history. Joseph's last charge;

provision for his return to Canaan in death, similar to the provision of his father, oh. L

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

TO THE

FIBST CHAPTER OF GENESI8

Bt the American Editor.

As there is no chapter in the Bible more important than the First of Genesis, so also may
it be said that there is no one whose interpretation is more likely to be aifeoted by the prejudge
ments, popular, scientific, or philosophical, which the reader brings with him. Dr. Lange is
remarkably full and clear on this portion of Holy Writ, but as its great subject has given rise to
much discussion in this country, the American Editor has deemed it no disparagement to the
learned author of this commentary to present a few general and fundamental ideas by way of
special introduction to the American reader.

It has been found convenient to divide it into five parts.

PART I.

Essential Ideas of Creation. Creation as the origin of matter. As the giving form to mat-
ter. Eelative importance of the two ideas. Question in relation to the principium mentioned
in Genesis. Whether to be regarded as the absolute or a particular beginning. Opinions ot
Jewish interpreters. Is the creation mentioned in the first verse intra sex dies f

PART n.

The Hexaemeron. Nature and duration of the days. The distinction of Augustine. The
account self-interpreting. The Light, the Darkness. The word Day. The Morning and the
Evening. Each Day an Appearing. Each Day a Beginning, but its work continuing in those
that follow. Ps. cxxxix. 15, 16.

PART m.

Helps in the interpretation of the First of Genesis to be derived from other portions of
BoriptTsre. The Fourth Commandment. Proverbs viii. Micah v. 1. Psalm civ. Job xxxviii.,
xxviii., &o.

PART IV.

The Ideas of Law, of Nature, and the Supernatural, as found in the Bible. Distinction
between the Idea of a Law and its Science. Distinction between the Supernatural and the
Miraculous. " The Finger of God." The Great Natural.

126 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

PART V.

How was the creative account revealed ? Its Grandeur and Simplicity. Other Cosmogoniei
copies. This an Original Picture. The Vision theory. Internal Evidence. Compared with
the Apocalypse. Objective and Subjective Eevelation. Vision of the Past analogous to Proph-
ecy, or Vision of the Future.

PART I.

ESSENTIAL IDEAS OF CREATION.

He who made one world in space, made all worlds in space. He who made one world in
time, made all worlds in time. He who gave matter its forms, gave it its origination, or that
which is the ground of all its forms.

These truths are so inseparably linked together by the laws of our thinking, that the revela-
tion of one is the revelation of the rest; since we cannot believe one speculatively withont
believing all the rest, or deny one logically without losing our faith in all the rest. Whatever
■dew, then, a true exegesis may most favor, — whether the account in Genesis be found to havo
in view, mainly or solely, a universal or a partial creation, whether the principium there men-
tioned be the particular beginning of the special work there described, or the principium prin-
cipiorum, the beginning of all beginnings, — the Bible is, in either case, a protest againt the
dogma of the eternity of the world, or of the eternity of matter. In the fact clearly revealed
and believed that a personal divine power was concerned in the creation, even of a plant, we
have the essential faith. As a dogma merely, the great truth might have been here expressed
in a single sentence : " God made all things to be, and without bim there was nothing made tljat
is " — even as it is given to us in John i. 2. "Why then this most graphic and detailed account
of the creative work ? It is the same design, we answer, that appears in the other historical rev-
elations that are made to us in the Scripture. It is to impress us with the glory of the creator^
to make the thought something more than a speculative belief, to give it strength and vividness
so as to become a living power in our souls. Whatever exegesis has the greatest tendency to
do this, is most likely to be true in itself, and is the most favorable to the absolute verity.

The best Jewish commentators, such as Aben Ezra and Rabbi Sohelomo, attach much im-
portance to the fact that n''U)XT , Gen. i. 1, is grammatically in the construct state, and there-
fore limited by something of which it is the beginning. It reaUy is so in form here, «nd in
actual regimen everywhere else, except in Deut. xxxiii. 21, which Lange cites. Even there,
however, the construct form has its limiting meaning : ib n^ffixi Si''l " and he provided the
chief part for himself" — that is, the chief part of the territory. It was no poverty of language
that compelled the choice of n^ffisl . A word used absolutely, and of the undoubted absolute
form, such as njiirs-i or nsitux^a, might have been employed to denote an absolute principium,
unlimited, ante omnes res alias, unconditioned by any other things or times, — first, and first of
all. The construct form (since there is nothing arbitrary in language) must denote, or would
best denote, the beginning of a creation, or of some creation, or some assumed point of commence-
ment in it, which is determined by the context. Thus these learned Jewish commentators here,
»lthough of all theists the most free from any tinge of pantheism, or belief in the eternity of mat-
ter, interpret this account as setting forth simply the creation of our world and heaven,
regarded too as commencing with them in a certain unformed condition. So that by these writers
creation (the Mosaic creation) is regarded as formation rather than as primal origination of
matter.

In aco xdanoe with this view of rT'tBKi, Eabbi Shelomo (Rashi) interprets the whole pas-
aaffe • M', jr-ixi B"'aiB nsiia nifflXia, " In the beginning of the creation of the heavens and th«

PART L— ESSENTIAL IDEAS OF CREATION. 127

earth, when the earth was tohu and bohu, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the
spirit was brooding over the waters, then God said, Let there be light," &c. Or, " In the begin-
ning when God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was, &c., God said ; " that,
according to them, was the beginning with which we here have to do. All before is descriptive
and determinative of it. Rabbi Schelomo compares it to Hosea i. 2, mni 131 nbnn "In the
beginning of God's speaking by Hosea," or literally (for lan is the preterit and not the infin-
itive), " The beginning God spake," that is, vshich he spake, or when he spake.* So also Exodug
vi. 28, mni nan dV3 , " in the day when the Lord spake," where the construct state of the noun
may be regarded as in like manner put in regimen with the verb. Aben Ezra supports the same
view of rritas-i being grammatically in regimen with the verb K-13 or rather with the whole
following context, by the example of Isaiah xxix. 1, mi nan n-np, where the construct n-^^p
seems to stand in precisely the same relation to the verb nsn as pims-i to x-13.

But the word K-13, it is maintained, denotes primal origination, and some would even con-
tend, in defiance of etymology, that such is its primary and radical idea. It is certain, however,
that everywhere else in this account it must mean something quite diiFerent. It is constantly
afterwards used of divine acts or works which could only have been the giving form to matter
that already is. In all the dividings, the gatherings, the evolutions of the plants and animals,
the ordaining and disposing of the heavenly lights, the firmament, and even the making of the
human body, there is no new matter. This is well represented by Aben Ezra in his comment
on tiie word xia. "There are those," he says, "who maintain that ns-iia, creation, is (ety-
mologioally) the bringing out of nothing, and they refer to Numb. xvi. 30, mni xnai nsina dn,
'if the Lord make a new thing' (literally create a creation, &o.), but they forget how it is said
here that God created the great monsters (Ang. whales), and how it is said three times in one
verse (37), God created man, and how also it is said, He creates the darkness (Isai xlv. 7, N-ii"
^an), though the darkness is only the negation of light, which is the real existing thing." Oom,
mentary on Oen. 1.

All these are constructions, formations, dispositions of matter ; and this is certainly creation,
whilst there is no evidence, except an assumption (not exegetical but rationalizing), of its mean
ing something else quite different in the first verse. It does indeed denote, as its most usual
sense, a divine supernatural act, such as man, or any nature of itself, could not do, — although in
the distinct piel form, and in its primary sense of cutting, it is sometimes applied to human
works, as in Joshua xvii. 15. It is the divine supernatural making of something new, and which
did not exist before. But n&w forma, especially as divinely established, are new things; and
this, in fact, is the only proper sense in which they become things, res, realities, manifestations
of something, vehicles of ideas, by which alone any material object becomes an object of thought,
that is, a thing. The opposite notion is born of the prejudice which would make the forms of
matter lower things than the formless matter itself, — if that can be called a thing instead of a
substratum, power, or capacity for receiving forms, and thus becoming things.

Besides, this idea of primal origination of matter could have been otherwise well expressed
in Hebrew. Such language as we have, Psalms xxxiii. 9, " He commanded and it was " (though
that also may be used of formal creation), would have been better adapted to such a purpose.
By contrast, at least, with the decided structural or formative style that succeeds, it might have
made it less doubtful whether the creation mentioned in the first verse was really and essentially
different from that of the verses following. So also the language, Isaiah xlviii. 13, " I call to
them, they stand up," which probably was intended to express this very idea of primal origina-
tion; though in the context it may be taken as simply a reference to these Mosaic formations :
" They stand up together " (nn"' or at once, ana as theLXX. render it, Vulgate simul), or it may
mean tne whole creation, from first to last, as brought into being by the divine command,
epresented as one and instantaneous, though running through a vast chain of sequences. Just

• In the same way tne Judaico- Arabian translator, Arabs Erpenionns, as be is commonly called, (S^,T>. Lx \Jm\
]i\^\» "I I ■■■ ^tj "Tne beginningof God's creatingthe heavens and the eartb"—orthe firstcieatingoftheheaveuf
and the earth which God created.

128 SPECIAL INTKODtrCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

before this, however, the prophet's language is in the highest degree formative and stmctnral :
" My hand laid the foundations of the earth, my right hand spanned the heavens."

It may be admitted that the author of the account in Genesis probably regarded himself ai
describing the creation of the all, since to his knowledge our immediate earth and heaven, with
the phenomenal luminaries appearing as fixed in it, and belonging to it, were the all ; but that
he meant to tell us of the first matter, even of this, or of its coming out of nothing, cannot be
certainly determined by any etymology of words, or by any infallible exegesis of the passage.
There are certainly some things that look the other way. The implication, however, of the
great fact is enough for us, even though the bare words of Moses might be thought to confine
themselves to a more limited sphere. So Lange holds to the creation in the Bible being the
absolute first origination, yet, from some things he has said, he seems to be content with the
idea last mentioned as answering the theological inquiry, without enlarging the words in Genesis
by any exegetical strain which they may not be able to bear. This is shown particularly in
what he says, p. 165, about " the earth-light, or the earth becoming light," as being the analogue
wherein is presented the primal origination (if light, just as in the creation of man there is sym-
bolized the creation of a spirit-world collectively. The argument or implication is : He who
made light to be at one place or time, made it to be at all times, even at that time which was
the absolute beginning of its existence; He who made the human spirit must have made all
spirit, whether coeval with or immeasurably more ancient than man.

Since then it is very difiicult to make the fair verbal exegesis speak decidedly either way,
may we not infer from this that we overrate the importance of one aspect of the question as
compared with the other. Besides the clear implication aforesaid, which would make the
recognition of a stractural creation at some particular time inseparable from the recognition of
an absolute flirst origination of matter in its own time or times, there may be a question as to
which is really the greater work, or more worthy of revelation, or which ought to have the
greatest place ia our minds, — this bare origination of the first matter, or the giving_/orTO to that
matter. The first, many would say, unhesitatingly ; the second, they would regard as the lower,
the less important, the less manifestive of the divine power and glory, or, in a word, as the easier
work. Our philosophical thinking, in which we so much pride ourselves, and which we would
fain ascribe to God, whose " ways are so far above our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts,''
leads to this. It is favored by certain metaphysical notions which are not recognized, or but
little recognized, in the usual style of the Scriptures. This first matter, hyle, force, heat, nebular
fluid, world-dust, call it what we will, goes beyond all our sense conceptions, and, therefore,
we think it must be something greater, more important, more difiicult, requiring more of power
and wisdom, and therefore higher in the divine estimation, than that informing, structural,
architectural, idealizing, systematizing, developing work which builds up, and builds out, this
first matter, force, &o., into glorious forms for the contemplation, and magnificent worlds for
the indwelling, of rational, spiritual beings. If we do not greatly mistake, both the style and
the manifested interest of the Scriptures are the other way. The Bible does not talk to us, like
Plato, of the hyle, the mother of matter, the substance that has none of the properties of mat-
ter yet is capable of receiving them all, or of matter itself as something distinct from lody ; it
does not speak to us in the language of Aristotle about the first motion, the first mover, and the
first moved, nor does it, after the more modern manner, have much to say of the first cause and
the first causation, tlirowing all causality after it into the inferior place, or burying it in a godless
nature. On the other hand, its high design is to impress us with the superior greatness of this latter
outbuilding (kt-iXeiv, Eph. iii. 9, KaTi/priVSat, Heb. xi. 3) as the peculiar work of the Logos, or Word,
which gives form and life, and, in this sense, its higher or more real being, to this conceptionless
first matter, or first force. This was the great work, if we mayjudge by the importance the Scripture
attaches to it ; this was pre-eminently the work of creation as carried on by the artistic Wisdom,
Prov. viii. 22-32 ; and to this well corresponds what is said, John i. 3, 4, according to the old patris-
tic division and interpretatior, of the passage, o yiyov^v tV aira f^^ xjv, " that which was made (or
origmated) in Him was life " — became life in Him. It is easy to see what is prominent in the
Bible. It is not God the first motion, or the first force, or the first cause, or even as the origin-

PART I.— ESSENTIAL IDEAS OF CREATION 121>

ator of force and matter, but God the Great Architect ; this is the idea which the Scripture
language aims to impress so as to make it a living and controlling power in the soul, giving life
and value to the other ideas, and preventing them from becoming mere scientiflo abstractions
on the one hand, or dead naturalistic or pantheistic notions on the oiher. The abstract notion
is ever assumed in the Bible as included in its creative representations, whilst it makes vivid the
other and greater thought as the quickening power of all personal theistic conceptions.

The only notion we can form of matter in its lowest or primal entity is that of resistance in
space, or the furnishing bare sensation to a supposed sentiency, without anything beyond it, either
as form for the intellect, or as qualifying variety for the sense. The manner of putting thia
forth, we may not know, but that does not give it the higher rank. Taken as a fact it is the
lowest thing in the scale of the divine works, if we may be allowed to make any relative com-
parisons among them. It is simply an exercise of the divine strength. On the other hand, the
giving form to matter, which is so clearly and sublimely revealed as the true creative stage, is
the work of the Divine Wisdom, and might be supposed worthy of God, as an exercise of his
infinite intelligence, even if it had no other than an artistic end. The carrying these forms into
the region of the moral, or the impressing moral designs upon them — in other words, building
the world as the abode of life and the residence of moral and spiritual beings capable of witness
ing and declaring the glory of the Creator — is the work of the divine Love. In reversing this
scale of dignities, the actually lower work comes to be regarded as the higher and the greater
merely because it is the more remote from us. Nothing but some such feeling as this could
have led to the strong desire, in modern times, of finding here a revelation of the metaphysical,
as though this alone were creation proper, or as though the divine power and wisdom were not
even more sublimely manifested in the creative evolution and formation of the physical. The
painting is a much greater and higher creation than the canvas, even though the making of
both were admitted as belonging to the same artist.

In discussing these questions exegetically much also depends on the correct interpretation of
the substantive verb nn^n (and was) in tlie second verse. Does it denote a time cotemporaneous
with the verb sia in the first verse, or does it denote something succeeding, either as state or
event, — namely, that the earth and heaven which had been created by a distinct and separate
act there related, was afterwards (whether as having been left so, or as having become so by
some cause or causes not mentioned) tohu and bohu ? Or does it mean (as the Jewish authorities
maintain) that this oonditiim, whose time is denoted by nnin, was the beginning of the creation
described, or the chronological date when this creation (called the Mosaic) began ? In other
words, can the expression nnifi v-isni denote, grammatically, a succeeding instead of a
cotemporaneous event! Certainly the far more usual form, if an after event, or an after state, had
been intended, would have been inn!!, with ^ conversive,' as in all the steps following, each
distinctly marking succession, or one event coming out of and after another, as ifnil — bia^l —

sipii — sTil iryi "iBXil and so throughout. The usage in this very chapter is suflncient to

establish the rule, even if it were not so common everywhere else when a series of successive
acts are thus laid down.

Another question arises. Was all the creation that Moses intends to describe intra sex dies,
within six days, or was that part mentioned in the first verse extra dies, as it must be if the six
days chronologically began in the evening, that is, in the tohu and bohu, or when darkness was
upon the face of the deep ? But such exclusion would seem to be in the face of the express
declaration in the fourth commandment : " in six days (within six days) God created the heavens
and the eartli." If, then, there was anything extra dies, or before the chronological beginning
of the first day, which is so distinctly marked by its evening, it could not be intended here as
part of this account; for, from the time God began this creative work (whatever it might include)
until he rested in the evening after the sixth, there were six days, be they long or short, and no
more. The reasoning is plain. The six days began with the evening of the tohu, followed by
the nax"' , or command for the shining of the light, which was the first act in the formation of
the heaveng and the earth afterwards described. If, then, the first verse denotes a beginning
before this, it must have been extra sex dies. If we would bring it within, then it must ha
&

130 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

lesarded as caption to the whole aooonnt, or as a summary of the process afterwards in detail se*
forth. If it is without, then what is meant by the heavens and the earth (especially the eartli)
therein mentioned ? Or it might be asked (and it would be very difficult to answer the question)
what part of the first day, or how are we to get any part of the first day, or first night, betweer
the Kia of the first verse and the nnin of the second?

Again — in the expression nnin v-ism it is to be noted that the subject stands befcre the
verb, which makes it emphatic, or is designed to call attention to it as being the very same eartij
mentioned before, and whose creation is now going to be more particularly described: and a
for the earth (or, hut as for the earth, as there is abundant authority for rendering the particle
1), it was so and so, — in such a condition, as though to separate it from the heavens (the earth
heavens) which is not created, th?t is, divided from tlie general mass, until the second day, when
God first named it historically by calling the firmament heaven.

But can we conclusively rest on such a grammatical exegesis ? Certainly not. The usual
law of the Hebrew tenses, though strongly favoring it (aided as it is by the other considerations
mentioned), is not sufiSciently fixed and without exceptions, seeming or real, to warrant any inter-
preter in speaking positively from such data aloue; but certainly this applies with stUl greater
force to those who would be dogmatically positive in muintaining the other view. Grammatical
exegesis, even when most thoroughly pursued, may fail of reaching the absolute truth, for that
truth may be in itself ineffable. It is, however, the true way, and the only way, of getting at
the order of the conceptions as they existed, or as they arose, in the mind of the writer ; and
this is of the utmost value, even though it may have to be determined by the bare collocation
of a word or a particle. Still, the conception is itself but a species of language representing the
idea even as it is itself represented by the words. It is the last thing in language to which we can
reach, and we must take it as standing most immediately, if not most infallibly, for the truth
that lies still behind it.

" And darkness was upon the face of the deep," the oinn , or formless waste. Darkness is
nothing of itself, yet still it denotes something more than a mere negation, or a mere absence.
It indicates rather the obstruction of something that already is. As its Hebrew name implies
(with the slightest etymological variation -tiun for "iliJn), it is a holding back, like the Latin tene-
brcB from teneo (the m in umbrce, emtrce, being phonetically lost in its kindred labial b, as in
lambda, labda), and the Greek o-kotos with the same ultimate radix (sk=hsk). This darkness was
chronologically the first or commencing night of the Hexaemeron, just as the light that follows
is, beyond all question, the first morning of the first day. It was even then the shadow of some-
thing coming (its skadus, Gothic, or shade, same as Greek sk, o-kotos). During all this night it was
the obstruction of a power, or the sign of such obstruction, until the brooding spirit loosed its
(Tftpas fo(^ou, or " chains of darkness" (2 Pet. ii. 4), and the voice of the "Word was heard com-
manding that power to come forth. Nothing is more certain than that in the Mosaic account
the light there mentioned comes phenomenally, and historically, after the darkness, and even
after the water of the tehom, whetljer we regard it as gas-form or liquid-form, that is, water
proper, according to Lange's distinction. What a most serious difficulty is this for those who
say that; the Mosaic account in its first mention of light has respect to its primal original, or first
being, — whether it be the material or dynamical entity merely, or that glorious form of power
which is called God's garment (Ps. civ. 2), and in which he is said to dwell (1 Tim. vi. 16) as in an
element most real yet unapproachable by human vision ! Can we doubt that light was even
then a latent power in the tehom before it was commanded " to shine out of darkness," « o-ko-
Tovs (2 Corinth, iv. 6), and upon the darkness, and that it had existed before this earthly morn-
fng, and that, too, not as a formless hyle merely, or first matter, but in forms ineffably bright
and glorious, — not as a mere force or dynamical entity which never before had had visibility, bnt
M recognized by the angels and sons of God who shouted for joy (Job xxxviii. 7) at this ita new
form, and that first appearance upon the earth which God called dav 2

PABT n.— THE HEXAEMERON, OR THE CREATIVE DATS. 13j

PART II.

THE HEXAEMEEON, OR THE CREATIVE DAYS.

What mean these daya, says the great fatLer Augustine, long before geology was born — these
itrange sunless days: quid volunt dies transacti si-ne luminaribus f An ista dierum enumeratii
ad distinctionem valet inter illam naturam quae non facta est, et eas quae factcn sunt, ut mant
Twminarentur propter speciem, vespera vera propter privationem : " does the enumeration of days
and nights avail for a distinction between the nature that is not yet made (not yet formed oi
brought into form) and those which are made, so that they should be called morning, propter
spticiem {i. e., in reference to manifestation, coming out, receiving form, or species) and evening
pupter privationem (i. e., their want of form, or formlessness, total or comparative)." Be Genesi
ad Literam, Lib. ii. ch. 14. Hence he does not hesitate to call them natures, natures, births or
growths, also mores, delays, or solemn pauses, in the divine work. They are dies ineffabiks ;
their true nature cannot be told, — dies cvjusmodi sunt, aut perdifficile nohis aut etiam impossibiU
est cogitare, quanta magis dicere. Hence they are called days as the best symbol by which the
idea could be expressed. They are God-divided days and nights, inter quce divisit Deus, in
dist/nction from the sun-divided, inter qum dixit ut dividant luminaria. Common solar days,
he bays, are mere vicissiludines cceli, mere changes in the positions of the heavenly bodies, and
not spatia morarum or evolutions in nature belonging to a higher chronology, and marking their
epochs by a law of inward change instead of incidental outward measurements. As to how long
or how short they were he gives no opinion, but contents himself with maintaining that day is not
a name of duration ; the evenings and the mornings are to be regarded not so much in respect
to the passing of time (temporis prmteritionem), as to their marking the boundaries of a period-
ical work or evolution, per quendam terminum quo intelligitur quousque sit natural proprius
modus, el unde sit naturm alteriiis exordium. This is not a metaphorical, but the real and proper
sense ot the word day— the most real and proper sense, the original sense, in fact, inasmuch as
it contains the essential idea of oyelicity or rounded periodicity, or self-completed time, without
any ot the mere accidents that belong to the outwardly measured solar or planetary epochs, be
they loiiger or shorter: ac sic unus est dies (one day, a day by itself) non istorum dierum intel-
ligenduj quos videmus circuitu solis determinari atque numerari, sed alio quodam modo.

It is sometimes said, if Moses did not intend the common solar day here, why did he not give
ns some mtimation to that effect? The devout, scripture-loving and soriptnre-revering Augustine
saw sucu intimations in abundance, saw them on the very face of the account. There was no
doubt-raising science then, nor anything in philosophy, that drove this most profound yet most
humble and truth-seeking mind to such conclusions. He could not read' the first of Genesis and
'Jiink of ordinary days. It was the wondrous style of the narrative that affected him, the
wondrous nature of the events and times narrated ; it was the impression of strangeness, of vast-
ness, as coming directly from the account itself, but which so escapes the notice of unthinking,
ordinary readers. Wonderful things are told out of the common use of language, and therefore
common terms are to be taken in their widest compass, and in their essential instead of their
accidental laea. It is the same feeling that affects us when we contemplate the language of
prophecy, or that which is applied to the closing period, or great day of the world's eschatology.
No better term could be used for the creative mores, pauses, or successive natures, as Augustine
styles them ; and so no better words than evening and morning could be used for the antithetical
vicissitudes through which these successions were introduced. See Augustine wherever the
inbjeot comes up, m his books Be Genesi ad Literam, Contra Manichceos, and Be Givitate Bei.

Carrying along with us these thoughts of the great father, we get a mode of exegesis which
Is most satisfactory in itself, and which need not fear the assaults of any science. It transcends
science ; it cannot possibly have any collision with it, and can, therefore, never have any need of
what is called reconciliation. It treats of origins or beginnings in nature, — things to which science
cat never reach. It is a mode of ex*egesis most satisfactory as being most exclusive, — that is,

132 SPEOUL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

from the very nature of the things related, based directly on the account itself as mainly anO
necessarily self-interpreting. Notions in science, notions in philosophy or in theology, thai
stand outside of it, and even etymologies or modes of naming that become fixed in language
at later periods, may suggest ideas, but they are not to control the interpretation of a document
JO isolated from all other writings and of such exceeding antiquity.

As with the account as a whole, so is it, in great measure, with each part. It interprets
itself. Thus in the first day : each name is so connected with the others as to present little cr
no difficulty in determining their general meaning in such relation, though on a scale which, of
itself, separates them from their ordinary nse in other applications. Keep within the account
and there is light; the obscurity and the diflaculty increase when we resort to helps outside of
it. If we seek for the meanings of yom, ereb, boqer, day, evening, and morning, we find them
in the very order, and mutually interpreting significance, of the facts presented. These are oleai
as facts, however ineifable in their comparative magnitude and evolving causalities.

"And the earth was tohu and bohu." What was that? It was the opposite of the form-
assuming conditions and evolutions immediately afterwards described. !inn occurs, besides this,
eighteen times in the Old Testament, but the general idea, to which we are led by the context
and contrasts here, furnishes the best exposition of their special applications elsewhere. It is a
striking illustration of what may seem a paradox to some minds, but which is, nevertheless, s
fundamental law of language, that the general precedes the particular in the naming of things.
The word is applied to a desolate city, Isai. xxiv. 10 ; xxxiv. 11, to a desert in which the waters
evaporate and disappear, Job v\. 18, to a wilderness in which there is mo way, -[Ti sb inn, Job
xii. 24, Psalms cvii. 40, to the earth and heavens going back to ruin, as seen in the prophetic
vision, Jerem. iv. 23: "I saw the mountains, and they were trembling, and all the hills were
moving fast ; I looked and behold there was no man, and all the birds of tlie heavens were gone ;
I beheld the earth, it was tohu and bohu ; I looked to the heavens, there was no light." Hence its
moral applications, Isaiah xli. 29 ; xxix. 21 ; and especially Isaiah xliv. 9 ; idolatry is moral con-
fusion, an obliteration of all moral forms and distinctions. These places, instead of being necessary
to explain Gen. i. 2, get their meaning from it. The first is lexically the key passage. The words,
however, that immediately follow are, to some extent, an exegesis of these names. And dark-
ness was upon the face of the deep. It was formlessness in its two modes of invisibility and
indivisibleness. It was an undistinguishable wasteness. There was no light whereby to see, and
there was a want of that division and separation into distinct objects, without which there is no
true visibility, even if the light were present. Hence the LSX. well renders in:i inn aoparoi kqi
aKaTao-Keuao-Tor, invisible and unf irmed. Next, we have the first mention of the separating, form-
giving power. — "The Ruah Elohira, the Spirit of God, was brooding upon the waters." Then
comes the Word, and morning breaks. Light is the first separation. It is dividedyroTO the darkness,
which shows that it had before existed in the tohu, and in combination with it. And God calls it
day whilst the former state he calls night. It is his own naming, and we must take it as our guide
in the interpretation of the words. It is not any duration, but the phenomenon, the appearing
itself, that is first called day. Then the term is used fur a period, to denote the whole event, or
the whole first cycle of events, with its two great antithetical parts. And there was an emening
and there was a morning, one day. We look into the account to see what corresponds to this
naming. What was the night? Certainly the darkness on the face of the waters. What was
the morning? Certainly the light that followed the brooding spirit and the commanding word.
How long was the day ? How long the night, or the darkness ? The account tells us nothing
about it. There is something on its face which seems to repel any such question. The whole
spirit and style of the account are at war with the narrowness and arbitrariness of any such
computation. Where are we to get twelve hours for this first night? Where is the point of
commencement, when darkness hegan to be on the face of the waters? All is vast, sublime,
immeasurable. The time is as formless as the material. It has indeed a chronology, but on
Bnother scale than that which was afterwards appointed (v. 14) to regulate the history of 8
completed world with its sky-gazing human inhabitant. One who thinks seriously on the diffi-
onlty of accommodating this first great day to twenty-foui'hours, as" we now measure them, neede

PART II.— THE HEXAEMERON, OR THE CREATIVE B^TS. 13J

30 other argument. And yet the decision here settles the whole question. This first day is th«
model, Ia this respect, for all the rest. There is certainly no determined time here, unless wa
assume tnat a fixed duration, as now measured by the sun, is not merely an incident, but the
essential .ind unchangeable idea of the word day, never departing from it, whatever may be the
condition and circumstances to which it is applied. And for this, neither tlie essential laws of
language, nor the usages of language, give us any authority, whilst everything looks the other
way. All is indefinite except the fact of the great separation accomplished, with its two con-
trasted states and one completed period, to which the names ereb, hoqer, yom, evening, morning,
day, are respectively given. Our English translation of the closing formula is deficient. It fails
to present the reason of its own introduction, and the relation it bears to what preceded : "And
the evening and the morning were,'''' — there is no article to justify this ; there is no mention of
evening and morning before to which it might be supposed to refer. The evening and the
morning may indeed be said to have made the day quantitively, but that is not what is here
expressed; otherwise the verb should have been plural, as in ch. ii. 24, Tn.s -raab vn " they
shall be one flesh." Neither is day the predicate after ^nil, but stands by itself as the time
when. The Hebrew, to correspond to the English as given in our version, would be
irx mi ip3m aisn l^n^l. The true rendering is; "and there was an evening, and there waa
a morning, the first day." So the Syriac and the Septuagint : Km eyevero ecrnepa xai e'yei/ero n-pmi.
In like manner Maimonides : " and there was an evening and there was a morning of the first
day." But why is the assertion made here, and what is its force ? It is not a mere tautology,
such as our English version would seem to make it. It is exegelioal ; it is designed to give us
an intimation of something strange and peculiar in the lauguage, and to explain its application.
This ante-solar day, marked by no sunrising or sunsetting, or any astronomical measurement,
and without any computed duration, had still an evening and a morning of its own, and might
therefore, be justly called a day. What this evening and morning were, is left for the reader U
discover in the account itself. As applied to a supposed ordinary day, the assertion, especially
as it reads in our version, would have little or no discoverable force. On the other supposition, it
has a most emphatic meaning, and this we may regard as the reason of its formal utterance, and
its solemn repetition at the close of each similar period. In a similar manner they all had an
evening and a morning, however strange it might seem, without a shining sun. Each is marked
by the same great antithetical distinction ; each has a new appearing ; but as this is somewhat
different in each creative stage, so is there a demand in each for the same essential announce-
ment. And there was an evening, and there was a morning, second day, — third day, — fourth
day, and so on.

The clear apprehension of the first day opens up all the rest. The same exegesis would bear
repetition in every one. " And God said : ' Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters
and led it be a dividing between the waters and the waters, &c. ; ' and it was so ; and God called
the firmament heaven ; and there was an evening, and there was a morning, day second." We
look back to find them. Where was the morning here? It was this second dividing and the
appearing of this new glory as its result. It is the sky, the atmosphere, with its auroral light.
It is the causality represented in tliis purely phenomenal language by which Moses describes it,
according to the onceptions he had of it, and which no more guarantees any vulgar notion, than
it does any science or philosophy, perfect or imperfect, that might be brought to explain it.
The more clear determines that which is less so. The new appearing of the firmament being
the morning, that from which it had been divided, or that preceding state in which the earth
had been left after the separation of the light, and in which the fluid masses of air and water
yet remained in their chaotic formations, is the night. And so, as the formula seems to imply,
each time it is repeated ; in this way there was also an evening and there was a morning, second
day, — in this way, or the only way that exegesis will allow ; for there was no visible sunrising
or sunsetting, no astronomical measurements to make a morning and an evening of any other
kind. The appearing of the dry land as it rose out of the waters, and the quick growth of bloom-
mg vegetation that covered it, was the third morning, And then that scene of glory, the flrst
appearing of the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament, now prepared for their revelation, —this

134 SPECIAL INTRODUOTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OP GENESIS.

was the fourth great morning to which the name is given, and not to any particular rising of th«
Bun in the east as the beginning of a common day. As there had been a commencement of light
of life, so now there is a commencement of astronomical time with its subordinate periods of
gun-divided days, not to be confounded, as Augustine says, with the great God-divided days of
vvhich the fourth was one as well as the rest. Life moving in the waters, and soaring in tha
air, this was the fifth appearing ; and so, according to the ever-preserved analogy, the fifth great
Horning of the world.

Again a solemn pause, with nature left to its repose, how long or short is not revealed, and
the sixth morning breaks. It is the latter portion of the sixth day. Now man appears, whether
in its earlier or later stage. He is surrounded by the animal world, over which he is to exercise
his more immediate dominion. The seventh is the morning of the divine rest. The evening
that precedes is not named in the first chapter, but perhaps we may find it in the supplementary
account of the second, where there are mentioned two remarkable evolutions that seem to have
no other period to which they can be assigned. They are the naming of things, or the divine
aiding the human in the development of language, and that mysterious sleep of humanity (was
it long or short ?) in which by a process most concisely symbolized, but utterly ineffable in
respect to the manner, the female human is brought out as the closing work, and man awakes
complete in the likeness of God. " In the image of God created he him ; male and female created
he them.''''

It may be said that such a representation seems to make the days run into each other. This
may be admitted without regarding it as any valid objection. The darkness still left is the
remains, gradually diminishing, of the primeval chaos. Each night is a daughter of the ancient
Nox, whilst each new morning is a rising into a higher light. In other words, the evening to
each day, though still a disorder and a darkness, is a diminution of the darkness that went before,
whilst the positive light of each new morning continues on, adding its glory to the mornings
that foUow, and " sliining more and more unto the oiin Ti=3, the perfect day," or perfection of
the day (Prov. iv. 18), the finished and finishing day — the all-including day, mentioned Gen. ii.
4, as the day when God made the heavens and the earth. And so, as Lange observes (and it ia
a most important remark, both for the scientific and scriptural view), each is " a glory that ex-
celleth," but still a' building on, and a carrying on, the energies that preceded. Each is a new
swell of the mighty organ, combining all the former tones, and raising them to a higher and stUl
higher chorus, until

The diapason closes full on man.

Each day is a new beginning, bringing out a new state of things to be blessed, or called good
but it is not necessarily a finishing of that work until the " heavens and earth are finished
with all their hosts," and there is pronounced that closing benediction (ixa ■ym all good, "very
good ") which ushers in the sabbath. Each day, as a beginning by itself, contains the incipient
powers and elements of its peculiar work, but does not exhaust those energies. The light ia
still evolving in the second day; the fluids are still parting in the third; the firmament, though
Iiaving its auroral light before, is becoming still brighter in the fourth ; vegetable and animal
life are coming to still greater perfection in the fifth and sixth.

May not the same be said of man ? On the sixth day, his " bringing into the kosmos " be-
comes complete; the divine allocution, "Let us make man," receives its accomplishment, and
the process by which liis material and physical structure is educed from the earth is finished;
but may we not suppose that the preparation for this last and crowning work, and so the work
itself, runs through all the previous cycles? " Thine eyes did see my substance yet unfinished, and in
thy book all my {members) were written, the days they were fashioned, when there was not one in
them," Ps. cxxxix. 16. This remarkable passage may apply primarily to the individual genera-
tion ; it doubtless includes it ; and yet there is something about it which seems to indicate a wideT
and a deeper application to the origin of our generic physical humanity, and to its first germ ci
material, as it lay in the formlessness of the cliaoB.

Tiie Septnagint has rendered laij (Ps. cxxxix. 16) by a word very similar to that by which it

PART m.— ALLUSIONS TO THE SIX DAYS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE IJIBI,E IS.--

iescribes the tohu, aKarljiyaiTTAv /xov, my unformed or unwrought — Vulgate: imperfectum meum.
my unmade. But the most striking resemblance is suggested by the o^a"', the days, which oui
translators have rendered ''in continuance," thereby greatly impairing the force and significance
of the language. " Thine eyes saw it then unfinished," during all the days in which it was receiv-
ing formation, i-is"' Dia^, when they were being formed, or written down in thy book,
nna nns vh\ Tbese last words have puzzled all the commentators. If the passage may be
referred to the primal formation of humanity, then it would be, not only a fair view, but even
the most legitimate one, grammatically, to refer nnx, as also the prououn in ona to oiai just
preceding — '■'■during the days they were formed, and even when there was no one (no first day)
among them." "Even before the day " (compare Isaiah sliii. 13) God was writing or preparing
this book of the human record ; it dates from the very foundation of the world — Eph. i. 4, Heb.
iv. 3, Eev. xiii. 8.

The full formation of man in the sixth day does not oppose the idea that the powers and
evolutions of matter that were finally sublimated into the imperishable germ of the human body,
and the types from lower forms that finally went into the human physical constitution, were
being prepared during all the days. This was his being formed out of the earth, that is, out of
nature in its evolving series. Here, too, it may be said (though with the difiidence that becomes
every exegetical attempt to penetrate these creative mysteries), we have some light upon that
dark and puzzling language, " when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest
pa/rta of the earth,'''' Ps. cxxxix. 15 — in inferioribus terrw, — in profundissimis natures. The
common explanation that refers this language to the maternal womb does not satisfy, and it has
no exegetical authority in any similar use of such a metaphor in the Bible Hebrew. It becomes
more easy, if we regard it as the womb of nature, the earth out of which the Lord God formed
man. In the language, too, of the thirteenth verse •'jBan (compare Ezek. xxviii. 14, 16 — 3113
-jDlon — cma-Kcdcret, Luke i. 85), "thou didst overshadow me in my mother's womb," there is a
striking resemblance to the image of the spirit brooding or hovering over the formless tehom.
It is not strange that the author of this most sublime Psalm should have had in view, either
primarily or suggestively, this remoter generation. Man, generically, in his appointment to
dominion, is clearly the subject of Psalm viii. 4, 5, 6 ; why should his generic origination be
thought too remote an idea for the profound and contemplative cxxxixth?

PAKT III.

ALLUSIONS TO THE SIX DAYS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE BIBLE.

The most clear and direct is found in the Fourth Commandment, Exod. xx. 11 : "Six days
shalt thou labor and do all thy work, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth." This
language is held to be conclusive evidence of the latter having been ordinary days. They are
of the same kind, it is said, or they would not have been put in such immediate connection.
There could not be such a sudden change or rise in the meaning. This looks plausible, but a
careful study shows that there is something more than first strikes us. It might be repHed that
there is no difierenoe of radical idea — which is essentially preserved, and without any metaphor
in both uses — but a vast difference in the scale. There is, however, a more definite answer
furnished specially by the text itself, and suggested immediately by the objectors' own method
of reasoning. God's days of working, it is said, must be the same with man's days of working,
because they are mentioned in such close connection. Then God's work and man's work must
also be the same, or on the same grade for a similar reason. The Hebrew word is the same for
both: " In six days shalt thou labor and do (n^BS) all thy worJc; for in six days the Lord made
nas, made, wrought) heaven and earth." Is there no transition here to a higher idea? And
so of the resting: " The seventh shall be to thee a sabbath (nam, a rest), for the Lord thy God
rested (njil) on the seventh day," — words of the same general import, but the less solemn or
more human term here applied to Deity. What a difference there must have been between God'f

136 SPECIAL INTEODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

work and man'a work, — above all, between God's ineffable repose and the rest demanded fdi
human weariness. Must we not carry the same difference into the times, and make a similar
ineffable distinction between the divine workmg-days and the human working-days, — ^the God
divided days, as Augustine calls them, and " the sun-divided days," afterwards appointed to us
for " signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years," of our lower chronology? Such a point-
ing '3 a higher scale is also represented in the septennial sabbath, and in the great jubilee period
of seven times seven. They expand upwards and outwards like a series of concentric circles,
but the greatest of them is still a sign of something greater ; and how would they all coUapse,
and lose their sublime import, if we regard their antitype as less than themselves, or, in fact
no greater than their least 1 The other analogy, instead of being forced, has in it the highest
reason. It is the true and effective order of contemplation. The lower, or earthly, day is made
a memorial of the higher. "We are called to remember by it. In six (human) days do all thy
work ; for in six (divine) days the Lord made heaven and earth. The juxtaposition of the words,
and the graduated correspondence which the mind is compelled to make, aid the reminiscence
of the higher idea. An arc of a degree on the small earthly circle represents a vastly wider
arc as measured on the celestial sphere. A stg7i of our swiftly passing times corresponds to one
ineffably greater in the higher chronology of world-movements, where one day is a thousand
years, and the years are reckoned from 01am to 01am (Ps. xc. 2), whilst the Olams themselvep
become units of measurement {alave? tu>v alavmv) to the Malouth col Olamim,* or "' kingdom of
all eternities," Psalm oxlv. 13, and 1 Tim. i. 17. There is a harmony in this which is not only
sublimely rational, but truly Biblical. It is the manner of the Scriptures thus to make times
and things on earth representatives, or under-types, of things in the heavens, — virodeiyixara rai/
ev Toct ov^am'is, Heb. ix. 33. Viewed from such a standpoint these parallelisms in the language
of the Fourth Commandment suggest of themselves a vast difference between the divine and the
human days, even if it were the only argument the Bible furnished for that purpose. As the
work to the worJc, as the rest to the rest, so are the times to the times.

But what was the impression on the ancient Jewish mind? It is important to understand
this, if we can. Had the Jews commonly conceived of these creative days as being of the ordinary
kind, could the fact have been so utterly unnoticed in the frequent references we find to the
account of creation, and the frequent use of its imagery, in the Hebrew poetry. Almost all the
other wonders of the narrative are alluded to in Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Amos, and such
passages in the historical books as ISTehemiah ix. 6. Every other striking feature of the account
is dwelt upon but this wondrous brevity, the greatest marvel of them all, as it would impress
itself upon the mere human imagination picturing it on its sense-scale. All creation begun and
finished in six solar days ! The earth, the air and seas, with all their swarming spheres of life,
the hosts of heaven, sun, moon, and stars, angels and men, all called from non-existence, from
nothingness we may say, and their evolution completed in one week, such weeks as those that
are now so rapidly passing away! — a week measured, as to extent, by our present time-scale,
though the index of that scale — and this adds still to the wonder— had not yet been set in its
commencing stages. It is liard to believe this. Not the fact itself, we mean, of such a creation,
— for there is nothing repugnant to reason either in its shortness or its instantaneousness, if God
had so willed it — but the utter silence respecting such a wonder in every other part of the Bible,
There must have been something in the most ancient conceptions of time, especially of eeonic or
world-times, that led to this. It is shown by their use of the great Olamic plurals before
referred to, and the transfer of the same usage to the seons of the New Testament. Our most
modern thought of eternity is that of blank, undivided duration, ante-mundane and post-mundane,
with only a short week (measured, too, on the scale of the thing yet uncreated), and the brief
secular human history intervening like a narrow isthmus between two unmeasured and immeasur
able oceans. Without our saying which is the true view, it may with great confidence be niairc
tained that a Tnode of thinking and conceiving, so blank in the one aspect, and so narrow in the

* D'^T^by -ID nlDblOj Ps. cxlv. 13. Our translators have rendered this, euerZarfiTi^ Hn^dom. It is a spocimen of till
fanner in which these mighty Hebrew plxiralities are covered up, and their vast significance obscured by vague and ton
»epti unless tennfi.

PART m.— ALLUSIONS TO THE SIX DAYS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE BIBLE. IST

other, would never have given rise to such an Olamio language (if we may call it so) as w«
actually iind in our Hebrew Bible, even in its most ancient parts. The very fact that oui
moderu translation everywhere avoids expressing, or covers up these Olamic and seonic plurals
shows the change in the modern conception. Our authorized version is more defective her«
than the old Wickliffe, which being made from the Vulgate, resembles more in this the old
versions.

The Jewish mind, prophetical, contemplative, and poetical, seems always to have conceived
of creation as vast, indefinite, and most ancient. "We see this especially in that sublime passage
Prov. viii. 32 : " The Lord possessed me," says the eternal Logos, or Wisdom, vnK 1a^px! " from
the antiquities of the earth," — as though that, instead of being about three thousand years and
one week over, were the remotest conception to which the human mind could reach. I was
with Him, ov — m", — day — day — day after day, even with "the Ancient of days," before each
of Ms " works of old." Before the tehom, before the springing of the fountains, before the
mountains were settled, before the hills arose, before the i:n miss lUX^, or primeval dust of
the world, — when he was preparing the heavens, when he was setting a compass upon the
face of the deep, when he made the rakia, or estabUshed the clouds to stand above, when he
made strong the fountains of the deep, and put his law upon the sea; during all this time I was
there, yom, yom ; I was the Architect (the Mediator, 6 KaTapTia-Trjp, as ■jias should be rendered,
lee Heb. xi. 3), rejoicing always before Him. But the greatest joy of the Logos was in the human
creation, " My delight was in the Sons of Adam," — he "loved us before the foundations of the
world." How it fills the mind to overflowing with its ever-asoending, ever-expanding climaxes,
its mighty preparations, and preparations for preparations! How it goes continually back to
the more and more remote 1 How it seems to tax language to convey a conception of vast and
ineffable antiquities I What a chain of sequences ! If we would fix it still more impressively
on the mind, in one all-embracing declaration, turn to Hebrews xi. 3 : "By faith we understand
that the worlds were formed {KaTrjpTiir'iai. roiis alavas) by the Word of God." How has it escaped
so many commentators here, that the word for worlds is not xoa-fiovs, worlds of space, and never
used thus in the plural, but almvas, corresponding to the Hebrew o^abs, and presenting an idea
unknown to its classical usage, or worlds in time ? " By faith we understand that the ages,
the eternities, the SKOula, or great world-times, were mediated {Karriprla'^aC}, or put in order, by
the Word of God."

There is an allusion to the creative days in Micah v. 1, although it is unnecessarily obscured
inourEng'ish version: "And thou Bethlehem Ephratah, — out of thee shall He come forth
whose goings forth have been of o\i.,from the days of eternity" — or "from the days of the
world " : obis laiTS dir' apxqs f I npepav alasvos, Vulg. : egressus ejus db initio, a diebus efernitatis.
Both of these expressions, mpia and obw la-'B, may denote an ancient time generally in the
history of the earth, or of the chosen people, as in Isaiah Ixiii. 9, 11, Micah vii. 20; but here, if
the passage refers to the Logos, as it is understood by all Christian commentators, the reference
to the still greater antiquity of the creative times, or the creative days, is unmistakable. It is
the contrast between the humble going forth at Bethlehem, and those ancient outgoings of the
Word, which are recorded each day in the First of Genesis, from the first emphatic nax-'l of
vei-. 3, until the crowning one, ver. 26, where the plural is used in the solemn allocution
BIN nu)S5 B^nbs lax^T " and God said. Let us make man." Thus regarded, the parallelism
between it and Prov. viii. and Hebrews xi. 3, seems very clear. We need only revert to the
well-known fact, that the ancient Targumists or paraphrasts explain these declarations by the
S-iaia (Mimra), or Verbum Dei, which is doubtless the same with what is intended by the Logos
in John i. 1, 2. The language of Prov. viii. 22 fi'. and the an apxvs of the LXX. in Micah v. 1,
re sufficient to explain the origin of the phraseology in John i. 1, Heb. xi. 3, and Oolossians i. 16,
without the aid of any Platonic or Philonio suggestion. So Eabbi Schelomo (Rashi) interprets
Micah V. 2, of the Messiah, and explains oipa, and obw la^a, by a reference to Psalm Ixxii.
17, lam iiji Bniu ■'3Sb which the Ohaldaic interpreter renders, "before the sun his name was
.ireordainefi," obis laia " from the days of eternity ; from everlasting was I anointed (tbD!
tee the s»me word Ps. ii. 6\ from the beginning, or ever the earth was."

138 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS,

The manner in which the creative days appear in the civ. Psalm has drawn the attention of
commentators ancient and modern. It is noticed hy Steir, Hengstenherg, and Ewald. It i«
dwelt upon by Geier and Kimchi. It is expressly admitted by Hupfeld, one of the moat rational
izing of German interpreters. The author of the Psalm seems to have had it in mind throughout
though he does not present the days in the formal methodical order, hut gives much more prom
inence to some parts thau to others. It colors his conceptions, and give much of its sublimity
to his pictorial language. Here are the creative days in all the greatness of their evolutions, but
BO mention of the brevity, no hint of any such impression on the mind of the writer, nothing to
suggest anything of the kind to the mind of the reader. There is the feeling of vastness,
power, immensity. "We recognize great works and great processes, but without any signs of
measurement or computation, such as could hardly have been kept out by one who carried with
him all along the limited time-conception of one ordinary week, or of six ordinary solar days.
There is no wonder expressed, no sense of the difficulties that we experience in the attempt to
reduce the first great movements to such a scale, — i. «., to think of measurement without a
measure, or of solar days without a sun. From the Psalm itself, certainly, if we carried nothing
else into the interpretation, no such impression of brevity would be obtained. AU is the other
way. There is the formless abyss, the liglit taking the place of darkness upon the face of the
waters, the building of the upper chambers, the separation of the air, the spreading out of the
sky, the establishment of the firmament* with the clouds therein, the calhng into ministerial
agency of the new forces of nature, the making the winds his messengers, his servant the flam-
ing fire. There is the going forth again of the mighty Word, "the thunder of his power," in
the dividing and gathering of the waters that before had stood above the mountains, or the places
where they afterwards appeared. The abyss had covered them as a garment, but now the hills
emerge, the valleys sink, the process goes on until they reach the "places formed for them."t
TheT comes the era of life, and it should be remembered that they are not Promethean plastic
formations here ce'ebrated, but life in its long-settled habits and locations; the beasts of the
fields are drinking of tiie waters that run in the valleys, the wild asses are roaming the desert,
the birds are dying in the air and singing between the branches. It is a most vivid picture of
the luxuriant growth of the early species, both animal and vegetable, with the rich provisions
for its support, ver. 13-18. Again, there is the appointment of the moon for seasons, the giving,
to the sun his law for rising and setting (ver. 19), and at last man going forth to the work and
labor of humanity. Throughout it all there is the one animating life, the Ruah Elohim, from
whose quickening power proceed all these lower orders of vitality, and at whose withdrawal
they gasp (-jwiji) and return again to their dust, ver. 29. The creative doxology too is not
omitted : " How great are thy works, O Lord I in Wisdom (or by Wisdom naonn, through the
eternal Logos) hast thou made them all." (_See John i. 2, Coloss. i. 17, ra iravTa ev aira awiiTTHKf,)
It is but the repetition of the ^.^t1^ aia nr^^ the "good, lo, very good," of Gen. i. 31: "The
glory of the Lord is forever, the Lord rejoices in his works." t

There is no mistaking here the outline of the creative picture, and of the creative times, yet

* A]l this, it is true, is espressed in optical langruage in respect to space, but there is no conceptual limit in regard to
imc. The reason of this may be inferred from the very position of the ancient mind. Their want of outward science
amited their space conceptions, but time belonging mainly to the inner sense, there was not only no conceptual hindrance,
but an actual freedom of thought leading on to those vast Olamic ideas which are a characteristic of the Hebrew language.
And thus it is that the space conceptions of the Bible fall greatly behind those of science, whilst its time ideas went so far
beyond them. This was the case, at least until quite lately, or since certain discoveries of the world's antiquities have
given us a new impression of the Olams and .^Eons, the ages and ages of ages, or the aioives rStv aitttviav, of the Scriptures.

t Kothing can more clearly denote a process extending far beyond a solar day than this kind of language : mO^ m
Onb the very places they now occupy, and which were of old appointed for them. There is the same significance in the
"settlingof the mountains," Prov. viii. 25, 132^3(1 C^in D"lU3, Ascendunt viontes, descejidunt campi. Ourveision,
which is the opposite of all the ancient, and directly opposed to the Hebrew (m3Jp2 lTl^ D'^^in iby^), could only
have come from an erroneous prejudgment that this language referred to the flood. Even in that case it would have been
£ilse to the optical conception.

t It might not do to rely upon it alone, but after such a clear reference to creation and the creative days in othei
parts of the Psalm, it does not seem forced if we regard ver. 33, 34 as suggested by the thought of the creation-sabbath, and
filled with the emotion it would naturally inspire : " I will sing unto the Lord ; I will rejoice in the Lord ; and my medit^
tion shall b6 sweet," — 'Z'^V ^, it shall be like the evening time, the hour of calm yet joyous feeling.

FAET III.— ALLUSIONS TO THE SIX DAFS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE BIBLE. 13>

the impression is not one of brevity. Tliere is order here, succession and evolution on a vasl
scale ; but no intimation of a crowding into times out of harmony with the conception of the
works, or the scale of duration which the conceptual truthfulness of the picture demands. If
we had nothing but this passage, no one would think of solar days in connection with its great
transitions. Now, what we want to get at is the thought of the writer, the subjective state out
of which arose such language and such a mode of conceiving. We study him as a very old
interpreter of Gen. i., who is the best witness to us of the ancient feeling. Rationalizing com-
mentators rec:)gnize here the creative days, but they somehow fail to see that the writer's con-
ception of the work, and his manner of setting forth the vastness and sublimity of its successions,
are not easily reconciled with the notion of common solar days, — a meaning these commentators
are determined to fasten on G-en. i., for the obvious reason that it discredits the account, and
seems to give them some ground for calling it a myth. It was a similar blindness that led Eosen-
miiller to derive the Bible cosmogony from the Persians, whilst at the same time contending
for the interpretation of short 24-hour days. According to his own showing the Persians (Zen-
davesta) held that the world was generated in six periods {sex temporibus), or times, left altogethei
indefinite. K the Mosaic account must be traced to a Persian paternity, let it at least have the
Persian width.

There is the same grandeur of power and causality in the creation-pictures we find in the
latter part of Job ; and if we had nothing ab extra to give us a different thought there would ba
the same impression of vastness in the times. How utterly different this early style from the
later Talmudio and Mohammedan trifling about the times and imagined incidents of creation!
The old impression had been lost, and there took its place the petty wonder which grows out of
the narrow conception ; just as in modern times every kind of fanciful hypothesis has been
resorted to to account for the first three days, and their morning and evening phenomena, so
puzzling, so inexplicable, it may be said, on the supposition of their being ordinary solar days.
There is nothing of this trifling in Job. In a style of highest poetry it gives us ideas and sug-
gestions that yet transcend any discoveries in science: "Where wast thou when I laid the
foundations of the earth? Who appointed its measures, and stretched the line upon it? Upon
what are its piUars settled, and who laid the corner-stone thereof? when the stars of the morn-
ing sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Or who shut up the sea with doors
in its gushing forth, when it issued from the womb ? when I made the darkness its robe, and
thick darkness its swaddling-band ; when I Irahe* upon it my law, and set bars and doors, and
■aid. Here shalt thou come, and no farther, and here shalt thou stop in the swelling of thy waves.
Hast thou given command to the morning? hast thou caused the dawn to know its place}
Knowest thou the way where light dwelleth ? Understandest thou the path to its house? Hast ,
thou entered into the treasures of the snow or the haU ? Hath the rain a father ? and who hath
begotten the drops of the dew? " Job xxxviii. Ancient as these challenges are, science has not
yet answered them, probably never will fully answer them. Congelation is not yet understood
in its essential mystery; there is a store of unrevealed science in the anow-drop, and as for light,
though it has been shining on ns for 6000 years, we do not yet " know the path to its house."

We stand in awe of such language ; we recognize it as superhuman speaking. There are no
narrow computations here, no petty fancies, or ingenious hypotheses. Neither is there any
filling up of what is left blank in the great outline given by Moses, except that we have occa-
sionally the intimation of a law or process when the other gives us only the bare fact expressed
in the plainest phenomenal language which was adapted to be the vehicle of its conception. Thus
also in another passage. Job xxviii. 25, 26, God is represented as determining the quantity and

• Some Tonia give "lattJK here the sense of appointment or dedsim merely, as that idea, in most langniages, ll
eoondary to that of cnttuig.'' But -l3a) is never so used in Hebrew, although such general idea suits the passage. The

Itlength of the word, and the vividness of the imagery, are lost in what is after all hu t a smooth tautology. There is in-

dioated a conflict of forces. There was a terrible disturbance in the old nature of the tehom before the sea became obedient,
tnd the watem quietly settled to their established bound. " There is something hard about it," says Umbreit, " if we giv<

it the usual Hebrew sense ; " but this is the very reason for preferring the literal image. The word is emphatic, and then

is an importance in its choice as showing the real conception in the mind of the writer.

140 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

force of the elemental powers, and appointing the method of their physical action. It is anothei
of the Scriptural allusions to the Creative Wisdom : " God knew the place thereof when he made
for the winds their weight, and fixed for the waters their measure, when he made a law for the
rain, and a way for the thunder flames: " Vulgate: ■viam proeellis sonantiius, a passage for the
sounding storms.

In this connection no portion of Scripture is more worthy of attention than Psalm xc. It is
especially important as being, on the best authority, ascribed to that same Moses who gives ns,
whether through direct authorship or tradition, the account of creation: "O Lord, thou hast
been our dwelling-place in all generations." The words -m mn here evidently refer to old his-
torical times upon the earth, but it is equally clear that what follows carries us hack to the
creative or ante-creative periods. He was "his people's dwelling-place," they were "chosen in
Him before the foundations of the world." "Before the mountains were born, before the earth
and the tebel were brought forth bx nnx obis nsi obisa, fi'om 01am to 01am, from world* to
world, thou art God," or " thou art, O God." bbinn here is wrongly rendered by the second per-
son. It is the third feminine, and has for its collective subject bani yrn, earth and the world,
or earth and the orbis terrarum. Both nb"' and bbinn denote a generative process, — both
words, as remarked in another place, presenting the same radical etymological conceptions of
birth, growth, parturition, with the Latin natus, natura, and the Greek (pva, (pvais, yewaa, ylvo-
fiai, yeveo-is.f For this parturitive sense of bbinn see such passages as Isaiah li. 2, Job xv. 7,
Prov. viii. 25, Ps. li. 7, Isaiah Ixvi. 8, where this word (in Hophal) and lb'' come together
nns CSS ilS ibT^ d» inx ova I'lS bn^n, numquid parturiet terra, the Vulgate renders it;
but it is passive, "shall earth be brought forth iu a day, shall a nation be born at one time?"
It is used of one of the common generative processes of nature, as Prov. xxv. 23, "the north-
wind generates (bbmn) rain" (verb in the active conjugation). It is applied to Deity, Deut.
xxxii. 18, and in connection again with nb^ : " Wilt thou forget, "ilbi lis, the Rock that begat
thee" {Deum qui te genuit. Vulg.) nbbinB bs, who bore thee, literally who travailed with thee
in birth. The expression may seem a harsh one, but it denotes the tender love and care mani-
fested in the formation and culture of the divine people. So when applied, in its more literal
sense to natural or creative movements, it denotes a travailing in nature, strong processes, indic-
ative of convulsions, violence, and opposition, in passing from one form of matter, or from one
stage of life, to another. We dwell upon this, because the power and significance of such words
have been so slighted in our translation, and are, therefore, so overlooked by the reader. It
amounts to nothing to say that they are figures, even if this were true. They are certainly not
fancy figures or rhetorical figures merely, hut used because no other language could so well
convey their vast and tremendous import. When the Scriptures use poetry it is not for the sake
of ornament, but from necessity; it is because all other language fiOs. But it may be said that
the poetry here is in the style and in the collocation of ideas. The words themselves meet us
in their most literal etymological conceptions; just as such words, and such primitive concep-
tions have formed the roots of all phUosophioal and scientific language, as it has been developed
in other tongues.

* The Bense world, given to this word abiS, it is said, belongs to the later Hebrew, but there are quite a number of
passages in the Old Testament, besides Eccles. iii. 11, where this sense is the most apposite (_see Ps. cxlv. 13, ovi. 48), and the
later usage (if it may be so called, for it is undoubtedly most ancient in the Syriao JV/^V "^ j grows directly out of the
primitive conception. The Babbinical usage differs in this, that it is employed for space-w&rlds (K6iTfi(K) and thus per-
verted from that original idea of a time-world which it has given to the New Testament dlutv.

t Hence, from ib"^ the noun nllblD , used in Gen. ii. 4, of "the ^enerai^ons (veveaety, ?iarurae) of the heavens and
the earth." The idea of the earth as a growth, birth, or generation, did not shock either the Jewish or Patristic feeling
as is shown by the reception of the LXX. word Genesis as a name for the first book of Moses. Gen. i. abounds in this
Idnd of generation language. The earth brings forth (SSIn), the waters breed ("ijnc) (swarm with life), the grass
germinates ^Xll^TP), and the trees and plants seininate (s"'nT73Y each after its ffenus or species (V's), which is the result
of the generative law or process. Nature is everywhere, but God over all, the Logos in all, conunencing a new nature,
ehanging, modifying, or elevating an old one. The Hebrew writers employ such terms without scruple, and without any
iread of naturalism. The natural and supernatural were not so sharply drawn as in modem times. Nature had its super-
natural, and the supernatural showed itself in nature. These are the literal meanings ; but they would have :<en th«
germs cf a philosophical and sdentiiic language had the Hebrew been ever so developed.

PART m.— allt:sio-"JS to the six days in other parts of the bible. Ui

" Before the mountains were born, and the earth brought forth," — before creation was fin-
ished, and brought to its full birth, — obis isi nbisa "from 01am to 01am, from world to world,
dn-A Tou aldms Km ecos tov aldvoe (a ececulo et usque in sceoulum), thou art, O Mighty El." njis
in the first verse is the name of administration; bit. is the older name of power and causality
"From everlastitig unto everlasting," says our translation, as though both expressions made merely
a general phrase for eternal duration, regarded as blank continuity, to the entire neglect of the
plurality and the transition. Some might fancy it the idea of a past and a future eternity, bnl
this past had its divisions. It was before the creation, or before the completion of the
creation, that El existed thus from 01am to Olam, from Kon to £eon, a amculo in smculum, from
world to world; just as our word world is used as a time- word in the oldest English. Se«
Wiokliffe's translation of 1 Tim. i. 17 " kynge of worldis, ^aaiXivs rav aimi'mi/." It is intendei?
here to mark most emphatically the contrast between God's times and our times, the brevity of
which is so affectingly set forth in verses 9 and 10 below : "The days of our years are three-
score years and ten." We live fr.)m year to year; God lives from Olam to Olam.* The times
of our history are reckoned as annual, centennial, millennial ; God's times are Olamic or eeonian,
— dlu>vLos being an adjective whose unit of measurement is aicbi' {i. e., time measured by seons),
just as annual is time measured by years. The divine life-time (not in itself, but as given to
our conceptions) is reckoned by worlds, and worlds of worlds, until, through their mighty
reduplications, rather than by any oonceptionless abstract or negative terms, we approach, as near
as the human imaging faculty can approach, to the thought of an absolute eternity. All this if
confirmed, as sober and rational exegesis, by that remarkable declaration in this Psalm (ver. 4),
which furnishes the key of interpretation for all passages that speak of the greater chronology,
whether it be the immense past as intimated in the pluralities of the Old Testament, or the
unknown periods of the Olamic esohatology as referred to in the New {see 2 Pet. iii. 8, 2 Thess.
ii. 2, Heb. x. 37): "For a thousand years in thine eyes are as a day (Q">"'3), as yesterday when it
is past, and as a watch in the night." t How slow to us, and yet how sublimely the faith of
this D"'nbs ii)"'S, or man of God, waits and watches for the day (ver. 14) : " O satisfy us (^pas)
in the morning with thy mercy." ip; here may very easily mean an ordinary morning, if one
s contented with it, or chooses to render it adverbially (as our translation does: "0 satisfy us
tarly,") but certainly there is much in this wonderful Psalm, and in the general scale of its
language, that points to the higher idea and to the higher day. The most careless reader can
hardly fail to see that it abounds in great contrasts : "We spend our years as a sigh," { but thou
art from Olam to Olam." " Our life is as a watch in the night compared with thy millennial day."
"We are as a sleep." "O satisfy us in the morning with thy mercy;" then "make us glad
according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, the years wherein we have seen evil." So
■.n another place, Ps. xxx. 6 : " Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy (ns'n a shout of jubilee)
Cometh in the morning." "I shall behold thy face in righteousness, I shall be satisfied when
1 awake, with thy likeness," Ps. xvii. 15. The rationalist may interpret all these on the lower
scale and give 'consistent reasons for his philology. Let him be content with it, but there is

» whether Buch language is used of mundane, ante-mundane, or post-mundane ages, or of all together, must he deter-
mined by the context ; the word nbiS being in itself wholly indefinite. It is disUnguished simply from ordinary astro-
Bomically computed time. Here, in Ps. xc. 2, it can have no other than a creative or ante-creative reference. In Ps. ciii.
17, however, the primary thought would be Olams of this present Olam, or what would be called mundane ages :
obis T3J1 db^VO mn^ *1DH "the mercy of Jehovah is from Olam to Olam upon them that fear him." Though
wen here it will be according to the reader's faith. This precious promise may take in the aiS,vai rHv aiu^oii-, the ages of
the ages, the eternities of the eternities, to come. There is the same contrast in Ps. ciii. 17, as in Ps. m. 2— our fleeting
days and the duration of Him who liveth from Olam to Olam. See the verses above.

t The idea i3 found in the Koran, and is applied to creation. See Surat xxxii. 4, " the day whose length is a thousano
years such as ye reckon." Compare also Surat Ixx. 3, 4, " the degrees by which the angels and the Spirit ascend to Him,
each a day in which there is 50,000 years. They are the intervals between the going forth of the word (the ruah or sjirit,
•a it is called) in creation." There is no reason for supposing that Mohammed got this notion from the Scriptures. Ii
belonged to the ancient oriental thinking, and seems to have come down, in its own way, from the earliest ages, when men
had little science or knowledge of worlds in space, but vast conceptions of times.

J PJ-, ,,^3 j^jjg a low murmuring sound,— like a long-drawn sigh, commencing with thl first inhalation and end.
ing with the last gasp of the departing breath. So the Syriac, l^oa^ >f*l ^ '* ^^"^^ ''e pointed aik gu-mo-go, lik-
1 groan, like a murmur-

142 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIEST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

nothing to prevent, there is much to favor, that higher and wider view which the ever-ascead
ing style of Scripture (even when it seems to speak of temporal things) and the ever-expanding
power of Hebrew words, offer to the spiritual mind. Again, there is " the morniTig (Ps. xlix.
15) in which the righteous shall have the dominion." How frigid is the comment of the rational
ist here! and how far it falls short of all the ideas suggested by the context 1 "ipab, mox »viito,"
Bays EosenmilUer ; and then he refers to Ps. xlvi. 6 (God shall help her, the Church, the ewitat
Dei. ipn masb at the turning of the morning), which he has in like manner to diminish from
the higher scale before it will answer his purpose. So Hupfeld : " Superstites sunt." Accord
Ing to him, all this striking imagery, and this rtrong word l-ini, mean no more than that good
men shall survive the wicked ; they shall visit their graves the morning after they have been
buried.

The morning, in Ps. xlix. 15, when " the righteous shall reign," is the great dies retributimis
Bo prominent in Scripture,, and acknowledged too (like the conception of great times) in the
earliest language and thinking of the race.* Such an interpretation may seem forced to one
who looks at it from the lowest stand-point, and feels the need of nothing higher. It was other-
wise with the early, musing, meditative mind. The more dim and indefinite their faith in another
world, the more vast their conception of its times and its parallelisms (in these respects) with
the present vicissitudes of our being. To such minds, even without revelation, the idea rose
naturally out of the most obviously suggested contrasts. The brevities of our present state gave
birth to the idea of the eternities. From this there grew a corresponding language which in mi;dern
times we have failed justly to interpret. The shortness of the human life was more thought of
In the earliest days than it is now, although men then lived longer. Hence that wailing language
respecting it, we find in Job and in the Psalms. Away back in the patriarchal times, when, as
some say, this world was all they knew, men confessed more readily and more feelingly than
they do now, that they were pUgrims and sojourners on earth. Nothing, therefore, was more
natural for such souls than the attempt to transfer these brevities and the language that
represented them, to the higher scale. Their very despondency in respect to their having any
share themselves in this higher chronology, would the more strongly suggest to the mind its
vast durations. Hence the o-^abs ni:nl, " the years of the eternities," Psalm Ixxvii. 6, the
•jl^is )^'0-' masj, "the years of the right hand of the most High," Psalm Ixxvii. 11. Hence
the thought of the aeon, or higher world-time, of a greater day, of a more glorious, morning.

* The use of the word morning for the great day of light and retribution is very marked in the early Arabian poets,
before the time of Mohammed and the Koran. It has no appearance of having been invented by them, but carries the
evidence of long-established usage, — a mode of speech which no one thought of esiplaining because of any obscurity or
novelty in it. There is no reason why we may not suppose it as ancient as any phrase in the language, and to have gone
back to the days of Job, as well as many other Arabic expressions, which the Geologists always find in abundance for that
time when it suits other purposes they may have in view. Thus Lokman, as quoted in the Kitab ul-agany : " 0 my son,
despise not small things; for they shall be great in the morniTig." So also the old poet and orator Koss, as given by
Sharastani 437 (Cureton's Ed.) tjLft »-jL«JI JoJt. i^JoL i>Ltt J>.=>'t> «Jt lsJJ\ "God is one; He
began (life) ; He causes it to come back (ii?om death) ; to Him is the returning in the morning." See also Sprenger*8
"Leben des Mohammed," vol. i. p. 97.

For examples in the Koran, see Surat lix. 18 : "0 believers, fear God, and let every soul see to it what it sends before
It for fke morning " (or the Tnorrow, in posterum diem). It is used as an ancient and settled phrase for " the dai/ of judg-
ment,'* according to that frequent Koranic idea that a man's sins are sent on before him, and that they will be all there to
meet him in the morning of retribution, or the dies irce. See also the commentary of Al-zamakhshari on the passage ; " It
is the day of the resurrection,'' he says, " called the morning, to impress us with a sense of its nearness."

Hariri uses the same ancient form of speech, not merely as a chance poetical phrase, but as having place among the
lettled idioms of the language. The vagrant Abu Zeid is represented as saying of the man who will give him a robe to
•over his nakedness, that in return for it he shall be well clad in the morning, — that is, both in this world and in the
lay of retribution that is to come.

••He shall be covered to-day (that is, ia this world) with my grateful praise, and in the morning' (or the morrow) suul hi
lie enrobed with the silk of paradise." Hariri Seance, xxv. p. 300, ed. of De Sacy.

The idiom, traced in this way from the earliest, irabianpoeta, shows the antiquity of the language and oftlraidea.

PAKT IV.— IDEAS OF NATUEE AND THE SUPERNATUEAL. 143

Messiah's throne is to be o^a'a ■'a^'D, " like i^eiaygofHeaven," Psalm Ixxxix. 30, " his kingdom,"
D^abs is Pnsba, "a kingdom of all Olams." Hence, too, the ancient cyclical ideas of great
times when all things should come round again, and that belief in a future renovation of tha
earth and heavens that Pareau has shown to have belonged to the early Arabians and Egyp •
tians,* and which, though in another form, is not obscurely alluded to and sanctioned in the
Scriptures themselves.

This latter idea is plainly enough presented by the Prophet : " Behold, I create new heavens,"
or rather " I create the heavens new, oifflnn D^'am Nma, and the earth anew ; " mnn denoting
rather the idea of renewal t tlian that of aa origination de novo. We find it elsewhere, all the
stronger because it comes in incidentally, as a thing firmly believed. Thus Ps. cii. 26, which
Paul, it should be noted, applies to the creative Logos, Heb. i. 10 • " Of old didst thou lay the
foundation of the earth, and the heavens (the atmosphere, the rakia, the sky,) are the work of
thy hands. They perish (it is not a prediction, but a description in the present)," they flow or
change ; there is no stability in nature, whatever science may say; it is necessarily finite in time
as well as in space. "But thou standest Missr, permanes, ahidest through); yea, all of them
wax old as doth a garment, and as a garment thou shal't renew them, and they shall be renewed,"
Ci'^inn • it is ever in such connection the change of renewal, of regerinination, of reviviscence.
Passing, or succession, is the radical idea of the root in all the Shemitio tongues; it is one thing,
or one state, taking the place of another, but it is ever a passing from death to life, from loss to
gain, from decay to vigor, from torpor to activity. See such passages as Psalm xc. 5 : "ipaa
Cibni -iiSiiD, " in the morning like grass it groweth up" Job xiv, "■'feni "nyi n^:-' ox, " if it be
cut down it shall sprout again," and Job xiv. 14, where the noun from the same verb, just before
applied to the regerminating plant, is used by Job to denote his own renewal: "O that thou
wonldst lay me up in Hades ; " " all the days of my set time would I wait until my halipah come."
Compare also Isaiah ix. 9, and the places where it is used of the renewal or change of raiment.
Gen. xli. 14, XXXV. 2, and others, — also of moral or spiritual renovation, as Isai. xl. 31--xli. 1.

There is no mistaking these Scriptural analogies of the past and the future. Earth shall be
rehabilitated; nature shall put on her new robe; there shall be anew creative day, a new light,
a new atmosphere, a new fii-mament, a new glory in the sun and stars, a new Adam, Prince of
a new life, a new human kind over whom death shall reign no more, a new Eden-world,
" wlierein dwelleth righteousness."

PART IV.

THE IDEAS OF NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL AS I RESENTED IN THE

SCRIPTURES.

Thb idea of law in nature is given in the Bible in its own peculiar language, but it is as
distinctly to be found there as in Newton's "Principia." The details were unknown, as they
are yet in their vast extent unknown to our best science, but both the idea and the fact were
none the less firmly held. " For ever, 0 Lord, thy Word is settled in the heavens " (Psalm csix.
89), that is, in the remotest or highest space; "from age to age is thy truth " (thy truthfulness),
i, e., throughout all time. That the language has reference to natural things may be seen by
comparing it with Psalm xxxiii. 6, " By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all
their host by the breath of his mouth " (113 nil), the utterance of his month, that is, the origin-
ating Word, and its going forth or prolonged sounding in the nature originated, the Xoyos npo-
(j)opiK6s of Coloss. i. IT, «V a TO. navra a-vvea-rriice, " in whom all things consist," or stand together
80 here. Psalms cxix. 89, nal is the word of God, -giving law, as it gave origin, to nature ; n5",-;s

* Johazmis Henrici Pareau, theol. Doct. et Ling. Orient, in Acad. Harderv. Cmmtunfatio de JmmorialiUitis at Vita
fulwa noiiiiis ab antiquissimo Jobi Scriptore, Daventrise MDCCGVIL A most rare yet valuable work.

t This is the piel sense almost exclusively (the word not occurring in Kal). Hence it famishes a name fcr the moon
und the month, the renewal. It is almost wholly in this sense that it is used by the Rabbinical writers. Creation is
tenewal, though, when the necessities of the reasoning require, it is used for absolute origination.

144 SPKCIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENE&iS.

is the divine faithfulness in tlie preservation of that law, and the constant execution of that
word. The numerical ratios of this hole olam, or cosmical ordinance, were undetermined oy the
early mind ; it was not known whether its energizings were according to the squares or the
cubes of the distances, but of such a harmony existing in the heavens there was no doubt.
'■Their line had gone out into all the world; '' the author of the 19th Psalm was as sure of this
Bs Kepler, who derived his scientific inspiration from it. A mighty law, a universal law, was
there. That was known to David as well as to Newton. The same idea appears in what fol-
lows : " Thou also hast founded the earth," n:3iD statuisti; thou hast given it an order, a genesis,
an establishment. Hence, from this same root, the Syriac )i -^ {Tce-yo-no) natura, conditio no-
turalis. Again, in the verse following (Psalm cxix. 91), "they stand (that is, things stand) accord-
ing to thine ordinances; for are they not all thy servants? "' This is not a mere figure to denote
a mere mechanical forcing; there is a real law, and a real natural obedience. "He constituteth
the wind his minister, the fiaming fire (the lightning) his servants," Ps. civ. 4. "Thou sendest
them forth ; they go and return to thee, saying. Behold us, here we are." Job xxxviii. 35. Poetical
as the language may be, there is something more than a fact represented, or a phenomenon. There
is an abiding nature, an obedience to law, a command and a response, — not a capricious move-
ment, but an invariable doing. " He appointeth the moon for seasons, the sun knoweth hia
going down.''

Our modern science has discovered much in respect to the manner, but has revealed nothing
new in respect to the essence of the idea. We have similar language. Job xxviii. 25 : " He made
a weight for the winds " {fecit ventis pondus), — he determined the gravity of the most seemingly
imponderable substances, — "he established ("pD, regulated) the waters in their measure," their
proportions, their relations, their quality, as well as their quantity. " When he made a law for
the rain, nanV pn (quando ponebat plumis legem) and a way ("["n a constant course, an immutable
rule) for the lightning and its voice." It is the same idea in that most sublime declaration. Job
XXV. 2, va-naa Dibit) nas, " He maketh peace in his high places," concordiam in sublimibus mis,
he hath established a harmony in the heavens. Compare Ps. six. 5 ; Hos. ii. 22, 23.

It was this style of thought and language that led to nature's being called a coT>enan% whether
such covenant or law was regarded as made with nature, or with man, and for man's sake. See
Jeremiiih xxxiii. 20. It is God's " covenant of the day and night ; " they are expressly called
ynsl B''aia mpn, the statutes, "the laws of the heaven and earth," in their relations to each
other, as compared with the higher covenant of the Messiah. One of the most invariable things
in the physical world is the rainbow, ever appearing when the sun shines forth after a storm;
and it is this beautiful phenomenon that is made the symbol of nature's constancy, — not as a new
thing, when pointed out to Noah, but chosen, from the very fact of its invariableness, as the best
representative of the great idea thus grounded on the eternal promise.

There is a twofold idea in creation which the mind cannot separate, and which the Bible
does not separate. It is the giving form by the immediate operation of the Word, and then the
infixing that form as a permanent principle working on until the whole is finished, and afterward
remaining as an unchanging law. The rudimentary expression for this we find in that repeated
formula of Gen. i. ■]D-in'''i, rendered, " and it was so." That would simply denote the fact; but
it is more than this. The particle p (or the adjective rather) never loses the primary idea of
fixedness, establishment, order, that is everywhere prominent in the verb -,13, from which, as
before remarked, comes the earliest Shemitic word for nature, unless we may regard it as rep-
resented by the Hebrew mbin. "And it was so," — rather, "and it became firm, fixed,
established."

Another germ of the same thought we find in the nbiuoa of Gen. i. 16, the rule or law of
the heavenly bodies in the regulation of the seasons, and their general influence upon the earth.
It appears still more clearly in Job xxxviii. 38: "Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven; canut
thou set the dominion thereof in the earth." Here we have again the w-yya mpn, the statotes
or laws of the heavens (Vulgate, ordinem coeli, LXX. rponas ovpavov, the turnings or tropics of the
heavens), ^attia is a still more significant word than rbiraa. It denotes a canon, a rule, a marked
series or ordo. Taken in connection with what is said above of the influence (or bands) of Plei

i-ART rv.— IDEAS OF XATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 14t

ades, it might seem to refer to the old belief in astrology ; but this had in it nothing of the
magical. "Whatever scientific errors it involved, it was precious as containing the idea of the
unity of the Kosmos, or of a whole, in which each part had an influence upon tiie whole an*"
upon every other part.

Tliia faith in nature which the old Sheraitio mind possessed, was all the stronger, it may be
said, in proportion to the want of exact knowledge. David, and Isaiah, and Moses, had a belief
in the constancy of nature, founded on better grounds than that of the sceptical naturalist. It
was, too, more truly a recognition of law tlian tliat generalization of mere inductive science
which can only regard nature as simply that which is, or appears, and law as nothing more than
a state of present facts, or relative sequences, that might have been any other state of facts, or
any other order of sequences, and which would still have been nature, still have been law, from
the mere fact of its being so. The natural law of the Bible, on the other hand, was a real
causative power, a real ruling or dominion in itself, though inseparable from the will and wis-
dom of a lawgiver.

The true notion of the natural cannot be held without the complementary idea of the super-
natural, since nature can have no beginning in itself (the thought involving a contradiction),
and, therefore, demands a power older than itself, beyond and above itself It is thus that the
Scripture not only gives, but necessitates, the idea of the supernatural, although there is no parade
of philosophical language in setting it forth. There are also to be found therein the specific
diversities of the idea. The supernatural, as origin, is described as the Word going forth. It is
thus all through creation acting pari passu with the natures it originates. When it is referred
to among post-creative acts it is characterized as " making something new upon the earth "
(nNil2) ; see Numb. xvi. 30 ; Jerem. xxxi. 22 ; though this, as before remarked, denotes a new
event, a new form of things, rather than new matter. As a change, interruption, or metamor-
phosis in nature, in distinction from a permanent new power introduced into it, it becomes
simply the idea of the miraculous. For this there is a peculiar expression. It is called " the
finger of God," intimating that the merest touch of Deity can cause a deflection in nature, though
nothing in nature is really broken or destroyed. See Exodus, viii. 16, the language of the baffled
magicians, who thereby confessed that their art, whatever it might be, was not the finger of
God, — that is, had nothing of the supernatural about it. See also Exod. xxxi. 18; Dent. ix. 10.
Sometimes the figure contained in the expression is applied to some great natural event of the
more sudden and stupendous kind, as to the volcano, Psalms, civ. 32: "He touches the monn
tains and they smoke," — the lightness of the effort implying the mightiness of tlie power.

The Single term, however, for the miraculous, or wonderful, is sbs, whose primary idea i*
that of a thing, or an act, separate and standing hy itself, out of the chain of causation, thougK
the term is sometimes applied rhetorically to a stupendous natural event.* And this leads us
to the main thing we wish here to remark, that though, in idea, the Scriptural distinction
between the natural and the supernatural is clear, there is not, in practical speech, that sharp
line drawn between them that distinguishes our modern thinking. In celebrating the praises
of God nbs iiias, "who doeth wonders" (Ex. xv. 11), the Bible writers are as apt to take one
class of acts as another, though one or the other may predominate in certain books in conse-
quence of the peculiar connections. In the Law, and in the Prophets, the supernatural is more
dwelt upon ; it is the passage of the Red Sea, the fire and voice from Sinai, the smiting of the
rock in the Wilderness, &c. ; in Job, it is the great natural as exhibited in the elements, the storm,
the thunder, and the marvellous productions of the animal world. So also often in the Psalms-
see especially Ps. xxix. One class of events is regarded as much the work of God as the other.
In both representations, moreover, is there a mingling of the two ideas. In the supernatural

* There is another Hebrew term, of a Tery peculiar kind, used to denote the bringing about an event, special and
remarkable, by a series of causes strictly natural or moral, or mainly such, yet continually deilected, or turned imind, t(i
the production of a certain result. There has been nothing startling, or sudden, but the finger of God has been upon tha
series all the way. It is called il3D (Sibbah), the etymology itself being its clearest definition. It is a hringin^ abtmt oi
iround (from D2D) a causality, yet with a constant deviation produced by other causes, physical and moral. Foj
examples, see the story of Eehoboam, 1 King, sii. 25, also 2 Chron. x. 15, and other passages. In Arabic the primary sens*
Bf n^o is lost, and the secondary idet. of causation, thus derived, becomes predominant.

10

140 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

displays, such as that of the flood, the crossing of the Red Sea, the Egyptian plagues, the pro
viding food in the Wilderness, there is more or less of natural intervention linked in and dl»
tinctly mentioned as forming a part, at least, of the process. And ihen again the great natural
is so described in Job and the Psalms, that the awe of the s'lpernatural is upon us, and w«
receive the impression of a divine presence as distinctly as though it had been all miracle.

But it is in the creative account that this blending becomes most remarkable. The young
nature, though strictly a nature, seems as near to God as the supernatural. Still are they clearly
distinguishable. Two false notions have warped our thinking here. It may be said, too, that
they are as anti-biblical as they are false. All in creation we have been accustomed to regard
as supernatural ; all since creation as the uninterrupted natural, with the exception, here and
there, of a few interspersed miraculous events. An excessive naturalism on the one hand ha*
been the counterpart to an excessive supernaturalism on tbe other. Now the more thoroughly
we study Gen. i. the more it wOl be found that the strictly supernatural is in the beginoings, or
rather in the mornings, of each day, whUst the carrying on, or the completion of each process,
is strictly nature, the mora, as St. Augustine calls it, the pause, quiescence, or evening in creation.
There is in each of these days, or these mornings, whether -we regard them as following or
preceding the repose, a word going forth, and then a process of obedience to a new law. Thus
each word is a new power dropped into the stream of a previous nature which had, in like man-
ner, a word for its beginning. Hence creation is a succession of growths, generations, nilbn.
This word is derived from lb'', to give birth, just as natura from nascor, (picris from (pia, or
genesis (yeveiris) from yiyvofiai. Had the old Hebrew become a philosophical language this
would have been the order of development. Lange intimates that toledoth, as applied to the
generations of the earth and heavens, was taken retroactively from the human genealogies after
mentioned. "We cannot think so. It would seem to be a starting or model name for all generative
successions. First the genesis of the heavens and earth, then of the human race, as involving
ever in their reproductions the same mingling of the natural and the supernatural.

We find a nature in the very beginnings of life. It is all prepared and waiting for the word,
but it is nature when it moves. "Let the earth bring forth" — "let the waters bring forth."
The first plants grow, whether slowly or suddenly. They are a production from the earth.
They are brought forth according to their species, with their order or law in them. As mbin
corresponds lo tpiitrn and natura, so does the Hebrew -pa to the Greek dSos, Idea, and the Latin
species. This is etymologically clear in the derivative ns'an. It is the outward form, as
representative of and produced by the inward form which is the real idea, or species. Thus it is
law from the start, producing organization, and not law as a mere name for, and life as a mere
result of, an outward mechanically formed organic structure. That would be sheer materialism.
The process presented in the Scriptures, however difficult to be understood conceptually, is the
opposite of the idea of mechanical formation. As Oudworth forcibly though quaititly expresses
it in his distinction between human and divine art, God does not stand on tlie outside like a
human artist, and moliminously, by means of shaping tools and processes, introduce his idea into
the work. It is the word and the idea working from within. The outward material organiza-
tion is its product instead of its cause.

It matters nnt that this is in another place spoken of as a making. That is merely a summary
ol the manner of making as here set forth in the more detailed account. God's making a thing
intends every step in its production. Thus the whole creation of the heavens and earth is set
forth as a making (Gen. ii. 4), and a making in one day ; yet the whole of the first chapter ia
occupied with the six great days, or successions, that intervene between the darkness and the
chaos on the one side, and man and paradise on the other.

Again, there are cases which might seem the reverse of this, where God is represented as mak-
ing, forming, <&o., in processes whicn are not only natural — so supposed to be — but ordinary.
Thus not only the genei-ic production of humanity, but the individual generation is ascribed to
lira, just as though it were a creative process; and in fact we do not see how the idea of theii
being the creative or the supernatural somewhere in each individual human generation can bs
denied by those who condemn traduoianism. " Before 1 formed thee in the womb," Jer. i. 5 •

PART v.— HOW WAS THE CREATIVE HISTOE'V KEVEALED? 14';

— I , .

it is that same word ^31 which has been regarded as peculiarly employed of direct outward 01
meohanioal formation, as the artist forms a statue or a picture. It is so only when applied ta
buman works, where the artist, as Oudworth says, stands on the outside, hut as used of God it
is ever the inward formation, the ctSor, or idea, of which the outward shape is but the image 01
f i8m\oi/, the mere representative of the nnseen. See also Isaiah xliv. 2, 24 ; Isaiah xliii. 1, where it
is used as synonymous with sna. See especially Ps. cxxxix. 16 : Tis^ D'^ai, " the days they were
formed when there was not one in them," which carries the same idea, whether it refers to the
generic or the individual formation. Had there been no other place in the Bible where the
human generation is spoken of than the one cited from Jerem. i. 6, it might have been thought
(if we follow the mode of interpretation which some will insist upon applying to Genesis) that
the prophet was directly and mechanically created. Hence the idea as well as the intej-pretation
is capable of reversal. If it means a process, as it undoubtedly does when thus used of the
individual gestation, it may denote, and probably does denote, an analogous process in the creative
account, where it is used of man, just as rras and N12, with no more of the outward or mechan
ical in the one case than in the other.

Only let us keep to the old Hebrew modes of thinking and speaking, and we need not be
afraid of naturalism. It is God's nature that we read of in Genesis. If life is said to come from
the waters, let us remember that it was upon these same waters the Spirit brooded in the first
mysterious night of creation. If it is naturalism, it is the naturalism of the Bible ; and the
wonder is that such plain declara,tions of birth, growth, succession, law, generation — one thing
coming out of another — should have been so much overlooked. It is because the Scripture
doctrine of the Word, or Logos, in nature, has so fallen out o4 our theology, that we dread so
much the appearance of naturalism. In proportion as we hsj^e lost that true Scriptural idea of
gupernaturalism, which sees no inconsistency in such Mendings, are we driven to the dogmatic
or arbitrary supernaturalism to defend our religious ideas from the equally dogmatic and arbitrary
naturalism of modern science. We have endeavored to be brief, but the reader is requested to
compare the hints here given, with the unmistakable language of the Scripture. Instantaneous
creations there might have been, for anything our reason could say to the contrary; but the
actual creation in the Bible is set forth as a succession. It is a series of mibn, or generations,
each one revealing those unseen things of God from which are made the things that do appear.
The other mode would have been to us the revelation of a fact or facts alone. As we have it
given unto us, it is a revelation of something more and higher,— of law, of process, — of artistic
beauty, — of architectural wisdom. It is not the power alone, but the very mind of God, that is
shown to us. The one would have been a creation simply in space ; God has seen fit to reveal
to us a creation in time, as well as in space, and this is inseparable from the ideas of succession,
series, causation — in a word, of nature, beginning in the supernatural, yet having its law given
to it, and capable of yielding obedience to that law.

HOW WAS THE OKEATIVE HI8T0ET REVEALED?

HoLiNBSS, sublimity, truthfulness, — these are the impressions left upon the mind of the
thoughtful reader of the First of Genesis. There is meant by this its subjective truthfulness
ft is no invention. The one who first wrote it down, or first spoke it to human ears, had a per-
feet conscious conviction of the presence to his mind of the scenes so vividly described, — whether
given to him in vision or otherwise, — and a firm belief in a great objective reality represented
by them. It is equally evident, too, that it is the offspring of one conceiving mind. It never
grew like a myth or legend. It is one total conception, perfect and consistent in all its parts
It bears no evidence of being a story artificially made to represent an idea, 01 a system of ideas.
There is, in truth, nothing ideal about it. It presents on its very face the serious impression of
''act believed, and given forth as thus believed, however the original representation may hav«

148 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

been made to the first human soul that received it. Myths and legends are the products ol
time ; they have a growth ; we can, in general, tell how and whence they came, and after what
manner they liave received their mythical form. Thus, other ancient cosmogonies, though hear-
ing evidence of derivation from the one in Genesis, have had their successive accretions and
deposits of physical, legendary, and mythological strata. This stands alone in the world, lik»
the primeval granite of the Himalaya among the later geological formations. It has nothing
national about it. It is no more Jewish than it is Assyrian, Ohaldsean, Indian, Persian, oi
Egyptian. It is found among the preserved Jewish writings, but there is nothing, except its
pure monotheistic aspect, which would assign it to that people rather than to any other. If the
Jews derived it from others, as is often affirmed, then is it something very wonderful, something
utterly the reverse of the usual process, that they should have so stripped it of all national or
sect features, and given it such a sublime aspect of universalism, so transcending, apparently,
ill local or partial history.

It is no imitation. Copies may have been made from it, more or less deformed, but this is an
original painting. The evidence is found in its simplicity, unity, and perfect consistency; whilst
in all others the marks of the traditional derivation are to be detected. Overloaded additions,
incongruous mixtures, inharmonious touches, all prove that the execution and the original
design, the outline and the deformed or crowded filling up, are from different and very dissimilar
sources. Take the Scriptural representation of the original formlessness, the primeval darkness,
the brooding spirit, the going forth of the light, or the first mcrning, the uprising of the
firmament, tlie emerging of the land from the waters, and compare it with the Greek fables
derived from the Egyptian, and wich Hesiod has given as the traditional cosmogony. How is
all this sublime imagery transferred and deformed in the mythical genealogy that tells us how
from Chaos (the yawning abyss) were born Night and Erebus, and how from them arose the
jEtlier and the Day, and how afterwards Earth was born, from whom, and " like to itself on
all sides surrounding," came " starry Ouranos 1 " There is enough to show that the Greek or
Egyptian cosmogony had its origin in this ante-historical, ante-mythical account, but no less
clear is it that the pure, the holy, the consistent, the sublimely monotheistic narrative was the
most ancient, and tliat these deformities grew out of the nature-worship, whether pantheistic
or polytheistic, which, in the course of human depravity, succeeded the earlier, mure grandly
simple, and less assumingly philosophic idea of the world and its one creator.

It is greatly in favor of the Bible account that it has no philosophy, and no appearance of
any philosophy, either in the abstract form, or in that earlier poetical form which the first
philosophy assumed. Its statements of grand facts have no appearance of bias in favor of any
class of ideas. Its great antiquity is beyond dispute; it is older, certainly, than history or
philosophy. It was before the dawning of anything called science, as is shown by the fact that
everything is denoted by its simplest phenomenal or optical name. There is no assigning of non-
apparent causations, except the continual going forth of the mighty Word. It is impossible to
discover any connection between it and any mythical poetry. The holy sublimity that per-
vades it is at war with the idea of direct and conscious forgery, designed to impose on others,
and the thooglit of it as a mere work of genius, having its interest in a display of inventive and
descriptive talent, is inconsistent with every notion we can form of the thinking and aims of that
early youth of the human race. It was not the age then, nor till long after, of literary forgeries
or fancy-tales. We are shut up to the conclusion of its subjective truthfulness, and its subjective
authenticity. At a very early day, to which no profane history or chronology reaches, some
man who was not a philosopher, not a poet, not a fable-maker, but one who " walked with God,"
and was possessed of a most devout and reverent spirit — some such man, having a power of
conception surpassing the ordinary human, or else inspired from above, had present to his soul
in some way, and first wrote down, or uttered in words, this most wonderful and sublime account
of the origin of the world and man. He believed, too, what he wrote or uttered. He wei
conscious of some source, whether by words or vision, whence he had received it, and he had
no doubt of its relation to an outward objective truth which it purported to set forth.

Even as a mere subjective reality, such a picture, in such a soul, and at such an ea:ly day

PART T.— HOW WAS THE CREATIVE HISTORY REVEALED? 146

presents a question of deepest interest. But whence came it? Not simply, who first wrote iti
but who or what first put into the human mind the wondrous ideas cuntained in that early writing
y\t<r\ nsi n-'SJirn ns o^nbx x-13 nims-a, "In the beginning God created the heavens and tha
earth?" To ascribe it to tradition amounts to nothing. It is only going back upon our steps, to
come at last to one who first gave it as a whole; for, as before remarked, there is no appearance
of growth about it. No knowledge of it could have come from tradition. Other parts of
Scripture either fall within historical times, or they narrate events whose story might have com
down from eye-witnesses. This could have had no witnesses, and could appeal to none. I
relates to things transcending all hnman experience, all possible human knowledge. The very
assuming to narrate is a claim to in^>piration, or of knowledge believed to have been obtained in
•some divine or prsetematural v/ay. As something thought out by the human soul alone, even
in the highest exercise of its highest genius, it could have commanded no respect. It would
immediately have been met by the challenge. Job xxxviii. 4 : " Where wast thou when Q-od laid
the foundations of the earth ? Knowest thou it because thou wast then born, or because the
number of thy days is great ? "

We are driven than to the same supposition that is indulged in respect to prophecy. If that
is vision in tlie future, this is vision in the past. It was an impression made upon the soul,
whether regarded as wholly subjective, or as connected with some outward vocal causality
Viewing it as c. revelation, there comes strongly to us the conviction that it must have been
something more than a message in bare words. Without the vision conceptions which they call
np, words are powerless, and, though necessary in the ordinary transmission to other minds,
would hsive been an inferior medium for the first conveyance of the ideas or images to the first
oonpeivi'jj' human soul. We are always to remember, too, that the image or conceptions itself
a Jangi7.Rgc representing the remoter fact, or the remoter idea, even as it is itself represented to
others by understood words. In ordinary historical revelation, words, articulated or suggested,
may be first, since the conceptions linked with them are familiar and easily follow ; though in
this case it would still be revelation, still entitled to the name inspiration, even if the higher
divine author employed merely the truthful memory of holy truthful men. In considering, how-
ever, the case of the original presentation of facts utterly unknown, and of which the human
mind had pwviously no types or conceptions, the question assumes a new aspect. It comes to us
in this forrr^: Will revealing words, merely, call up the most vivid picture (for in either method
it is only a ploture that the mind hns), or will revealing pictures, on the other hand, necessarily
suggest tho 'jest words as the only medium of transmission to other minds? AVill word-painting
give the most distinct conceptions of this terra incognita, or will vision-painting call out the best
language wherewith to describe it? If the latter view seems the most rational, as well as more
in analogy with the style of the prophetic Scriptures, then may we believe that creation was
thus presented to this prophet of the past, this sees of the unknown, or rather of the utterly
unknowable, ante-creative history. We may go farther than this. It may well be doubted
whetlier, without vision in the first place, or as dependent solely on naked words, it would not
have given the dimmest images to the first imaging mind, if it had not, rather, failed to impart
any conception.

Behind this picture, or this vision representation, lay the ineffable ideas; and, therefore, the
bare facts in their grand outline, or the bare succession, are thus vividly limned, as best repre-
senting what words, without such successive scenes, would have much less adequately conveyed.
Or we may suppose it presented subjectively to both senses. There were vision voices as well
as vision sights. Certain awfnl words were heard, and the callings and the namings, about
which there has been so much speculation, and which, when regarded as actual parts of creation,
have given rise to so much difiiculty, were as subjectively real (that is, real parts of the vision),
as the gatherings and the dividings. They were heard as John "heard a great voice out of
heaven," or as Daniel heard " the speaking between the banks of Ulai," or as Ezekiel heard
"the noise of the iherubic wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of speech, the voice
of ihe Almighty." So Balaam "heard the words of God and saw the visions of El Shaddai;"
he '■'■'beheld that which was not nigh, and saw that which was not now." Remote time anc

150 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

remote ?pace were brouglit together upon the canvas. May we not believe this of the greatei
and ho.ier prophet of creation, in his vision of the ineffable past?

If tl-» theory may be indulged, then may we also reverently endeavor to imagine something
Df the process in this creative representation, as we may gather it from the language in which
it has been described. The vision opens with what the seek can only paint in words as a thoha
Wabhohu, a void and formless earth. The terms themselves, though well translated, show the
imperfection of language, and yet they are, doubtless, the best that could have been employed.
They are inspired language, too, because most directly suggested by the inspired vision. The
8EEE was in that state of initial contemplation to which the prophet Jeremiah is carried back in
the reversed picture, where he sees the earth returning again to the primeval desolation: "I
beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void, inm inn ; and I looked to the heavens,*
and they had no light,'' Jerem. iv. 23. This is the beginning. It is a vision of darkness resting on
a formless abyss. There is something, whether sound or vision, or both combined, that givea
the impression of a Spirit hovering over the waters, or breathing upon their vast surface, or
commencing the pulsations of life in their deep interior. It is the beginning of nature. And
now he hears a mighty voice saying: "Let there be light." Obedient to the Word the light
comes forth (ek o-kot-ous-, says the Apostle in his intei-pretation of this pictorial language, 2 Cor
IV. 6) out of the darkness. The first elemental division is seen taking place. It is a dividing of
the light from the d.irkness.

Again, a voice fhat calls it good, and is heard giving the names mi, nb^b, yom, la-y-la, Bay,
Night, to this first creative contrast. A solemn pause succeeds. One creative period, one great
time succession, is past, and again goes forth the Word. And now a sky, a heaven, presents
itself, though all is fiuid still. It is a phenomenon as strange as it is beautiful and sublime.
There is an appearance of waters above and waters below, with an optical firmament, like the
Revelation sea of glass, seeming to divide them from each other. We may regard it as a phe
nomenal, or optical, representation of the atmosphere with the clouds sailing in it, and the rain
mysteriously suspended in the upper spaces, — a matter which even now science finds it diflBoult
to understand.* Or, with Lange and others, we may interpret it as denoting the separation
between the lower waters proper and the upper sethereal fluid. In either case, that which is
beheld is the actual appearance, or the optical word representing the fact, or state in nature
lying back of it, conceived according to the science, real or supposed, of the seek, and expressed
in articulate or written words according to such conception. Thus we may take " waters above
and waters below " as simply the expression of such conception, the grand fact revealed being the
production, on the second day, or period, of that natural state of things which is actually repre-
sented by the sky and atmosphere. Or we may take it without such explanation as denoting a
nature or state of things long gnne, and which has little or nothing corresponding to it in any
present aspect of the world. The " waters above and waters below " may have been an actual
condition, an actual stage in the creative process thus revealed in vision, as no science could ever
have revealed it — an " old heavens," in fact, that passed away at or before the introduction of
the "new heavens " and new firmament of the fourth day. For it seems clear that in the seek's
view, and according to the very consistency of the account itself, this vision of "waters above'
would not be in harmony with the firmamentnl phenomena of that later period. Should any
one, in the name of science, declare this to be impossible, or deny that there could ever have
been any reality in nature, or in the history of our planet, represented by such a conception, let
him take one of the largest telescopes and turn it to the rings of Saturn. Why might not such
a phenomenon have been exhibited by our "earth and heavens" in that early semi-chaotic state
to which Saturn, according to our best science, now bears so close a resemblance? How are
these rings supported, whether liquid or atrial? If liquid, the state of things would correspond

• ** UnderBtandest thou the baJancinga of tlie clouds ^ " Job xxxvii. 16, — the law of gravity in the clouds, 135 '^TI.'PBtt ,
libratimies nvhium, the weighings or suspensions of the clouds,— how they are supported in the air, and how their contontt
are condensed and poured upon the earth 1 See IJnibreit ; also ch. xxxvi. 27 : *' When he maketh small the drops of
water, and for vapor they distil rain.*' There is something yet to be learned before this ancient challenge iB ftJl]
luswered.

PART v.— now WAS THE CREATIVE HISTORY REVEALED? 15J

exactly to the language of the text, and, if so, the possibility of our earth having once presented
a similar appearance would not be unwoithy the attention either of the Biblical student or the
man of science.

But to return to the creative scene ; at this stage again there comes in the imago weit. —
"And Grod casZZficZ the firmament heaven" (d"'0\ij, lieights). There is anotljer naming, anolhei
voice of benediction, another solemn pause ; the second vision closes, and thus " there is an
evening and a morning, day second."

And now a third command is heard, like the voices that attest the opening of the Revelation
seals, and a new earth appears emerging from the waters. It should be remarked that there ia
no time here, — time, we mean, as estimated or measured duration ; for there is nothing whereby
to measure it outside of the events themselves. There is no fixed index of movement, whether
constant or changing, or of any constant or varying rate of change. It is time only as succession,
or rather th6 successions are themselves the times, — the great dividings, the solemn pauses, the
new appearings, making the evenings and tlie mornings of the numbered days. It is "from
01am to 01am " (Ps. xo. 2), from age to age. The unit of measurement is the change in nature
produced by the Word, and the number and order of these changes and successions is the great
matter of revelaticm. "Not how long,'" as Delitzsch well says, "but how many times God
created," is the essential idea intended to be set fortli. There is no absolute standard either of
time or space. An hour, regarded as blank duration, has no more reality than an unrelated
inch or foot. Since, then, an outside measured time is one of the things created, it cannot be the
measure of creation itself.

But again the vision changes, and lo, a new heavens and a new earth. The old raMa has
passed away, and a new firmament appears, with its sun, moon, and stars. They are lights in
the heavens (nmsB). So the seer calls them, — lights of greater and of lesser splendor. He
does not speak of tliem as globes, or solid iodies, according to the ideas derived from our modern
astronomy, of which he had no knowledge, no conception, and, if we may trust the simplicity
and silence of the account, no revelation. They were to him simply lights in the firmament,
and nothing more; even as to us, with all our science, they are stUl but images in our near
heavens, — optical appearances comparatively close by ns, though made by a far-off causality.
Such a statement may not seem easy or natural to some minds affected by certain scientific pre-
judgments ; but that does not prevent its being literal fact. The sun we see is simply an appear-
ance. These heavenly lights, as they are reflected and refracted in our near atmospherical sky,
or rakia, are just as much images as the spectrum that is artifioally cast in the astronomer's observ-
atory. Their ruling or dominion, as mentioned Gen. i. 16, is not, primarily, a physical or dy-
namical power (though this may be included in the language when science discovers it), but a
time-regulating, and, in this way, a life-regulating dominion. As lights to this earth, the only
point of view in which they are earliest regarded, the aeonic date of their appearance is all that
is given in this creative vision, whilst their antecedent materiality in time, as well as their remote
causality in space, are left to the inference of human reason, and the discoveries of human science.
The one of these ideas, namely, that the material origin of the sun and stars dates from the
earliest creative period, antecedent, remotely antecedent, perhaps, to their appearance in our
terrene firmament, is commonly received without difficulty, and seems to be demanded by the
literal consistency of the account itself. It has never been maintained that the matter of the
sun was created, or even organized, on the fourth day. This being so held in respect to the
remote time origin of this flrmamental light, there is really no more difficulty in regarding in a
similar manner that distant power, or entity, in apace with which the phenomenon is connected.
Both are extra visionem; both lay equally on the outside in this account of the fourth day hav-
ing relation only to the phenomenal changes which took plaoe.in our earth or its near surround •
Ing atmospherical heavens. The connection between this ligM in the celestial mirror, and a vast
Body 95,000,000 miles distant, was left to the progress in knowledge to be made by the human
faculties which God meant should be exercised in such discoveries. We see in this a reason, it
may be reverently said, why the time element, especially as order of succession, enters so much
more into the creative account than any revelation in space. The relative distances and magni-

152 SPECIAL INTKODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

tudes of the worlds lie more within the range of human knowledge ; the ages or periods of th«
kosraos, involving as they do the supernatural, are almost wholly beyond it. " By faith we nndei>
stand that the worlds (the almves or time worlds) were framed (put in order, KuTj^priVaat) by the
Word of God," Heb. xi. 3. Soieace can never get out of the natural as a fixed course of things
once established and low continuing, of which it may be said •js in^i, " and it was so," or became
firm. She can never attain to the supernatural, and therefore it is that she has ever had mora
ti3 do with the space than with the time process, with things as they are, than as they came to
be. The ten times repeated way-yomer (and God said), the mighty utterances of " Him whose
outgoings are of old, from the days of eternity" (Mic. v. 1), the six great evolutions in the
earth's genesis, no science could ever determine, or hope to determine; although, "from the
things that are yet seen," or from footprints that are left of tliose " outgoings," she might infer,
in general, that the earth had a vast antiquity, immeasurable by any computations drawn from
present astronomical arrangements.

And so we might proceed through all the subsequent pictorial stages in the supposed vision
process, but reverence would require us to stop with what is suflBcient to give an intimation of
the probable method of revealing. It closes witli the appearance of man, the divine presence
in the contemplation of the completed work, and the solemn benediction, as it is now heard ris-
ing to the superlative in the utterance: "ail good," nxa ana, "exceeding good." Thus "the
Heavens and the Earth are finished, with all their hosts," as these appeared in the optical firm-
ament that bounded the beer's view, as it does, in strictness, all human vision. Science claims
to have pierced beyond it, — to have thrown back the flammantia mania mundi, and to have
brought the far-off nigh. All that she has yet discovered, however, is relative distance,
magnitude, motions, dynamical laws, and mathematical ratios. She has constructed a splendid
orrery in the heavens ; but in all that relates to life, and rationality, and spiritual being, the
skies are as silent as of old. They still shut us in, — our earth and near surrounding optical
heavens. Of their real hosts we know no more than God has seen fit to reveal to us in other
ways. Of anything above man, or beyond man, we have, from science, no greater facilities of
conception than belonged to David, or Daniel, or Pythagoras. Number, motion, space relations,
optical changes, serving as diagrams for the exposition of mathematical ideas, — these are all we
see in the heavens, all we hnow. It is indeed much, scientifically, but it adds little or nothing
to our knowledge of substantial being. For this, in all beyond our earth, we are as much
dependent on revelation, or on the imagination, as the first recipients of the creative vision.

It is generally admitted that the language used in reference to the fourth day is phenomenal,
but a careful study, we think, will discover that this feature exists, more or less, throughout,
making it all the more easy to receive the vision theory of its inspiration. It is " by faith in the
tMngs unseen,^' as defined in a later Scripture (Heb. xi. 1, 3), or faith in the vooifi.fm, as distin-
guished irom the (pmvnfifva, "that we understand (i/ooifjiev, perceive intellectually) that the worlds
(the alaves) were put in order by the Word of God, so that the things that are seen (phenomena)
were made from things that do not appear" {ex invisiiilihtw vmMlia fierenf). But tlje earher
revelation in Genesis is made through the seiise, and to the sense, primarily, leaving to the later
faith, and to science as employed by it, to divine a priori, or to discover by induction, tlie more
interior causalities, or the more remotely distant powers which these primary universal phen-
omena represent.

With the science, however, of this old narrator we have little to do. For the purposes of
interpretation all that is necessary to be maintained is the subjective truthfulnoFS and consistency
of tfie picture. It was not a theory, not a fancy, or a guess, — much less a designed forgery.
Such sights were seen, such voices were heard, by some one in the early time, and he has most
faithfully and graphically narrated them to us. The style bears the strongest testimony to this.
It carries the internal evidence that it is a teliing from the eye, whether the outward or the
inward eye, rather than from the ear. Calling it a dream, or a vision, does not detract from its
significance or its glory. But we are not concerned with that here. The view taken of the
|)rol!able subjective process is simply in aid of interpretation, which is nothing more nor lest
than getting at the true conception of the writer fmrn the language employed, whether tha(

PART v.— HOW WAS THE CHEATIVE HISTOET REVEALED f 153

language was the effect or the CMUse of such conception. The absolute truthfulness of the
account, or of that which it represents, presents another question. This is connected with tlie
absolute verity of the Holy Scripture in general, as grounded upon its whole external and
internal evidence.

We have already alluded to the analogy of prophecy. If the vision theory is in harmony
frith the best view of prophetical inspiration, as sanctioned by so many passages of Scripture, it
is still more demanded in the present case ; since the future is not so sharply divided from th
present, as the present and the future both from the ante-creative past. In both the propheti
and the creative representation words may form a part of the vision, as res gestce, whilst the
general narrating language is that which is prompted by the vision. In such case, though called
the writer's own language, it is none the less the language of revelation, and none the less may
the Scripture that records it be said to be verbally inspired. The sights seen, the voices heard,
the emotions aroused, are just those adapted to bring out the very words the seee actually uses,
and. In both cases, the very best words that could have been used for such a purpose. Hence
we may truly say it is the language of the divine inspirer as well as that of the human narrator.
The description being given from the bare optical, rather than from any reflexive scientific stand-
point more or less advanced, becomes, on this very account, the more vivid as well as the more
universal. It is a language read and understood by all. What lies behind it will be conceived
according to the state of knowledge, true or false. We may confess the inadequacy of such
language, not because better could have been employed, or other words could have done as well,
but because the best words which the inspired mind can use, or the uninspired mind receive,
necessarily fall short even of the vividness of the vision reality, and still farther short of the
ineffable truth which that vision represents. Any use of scientific language, whether the Ptol-
emaic, or the E"ewtonian, or that of a thousand years hence, would be still remote from this
ineffable truth, whilst it would be a seeming endorsement of its absolute accuracy. Indeed, the
language may be rightly said to be inspired, thongh no words at all are used, or even when the
inspiration itself may be pure vision, or even pure emotion elevating the thoughts and concep-
tions. In either case, the words whicli are the result are God's words, the last best product of
the inspiring power, all the more vivid and emotional in the reader from the very fact of their
having come through such a process of spiritual chemistry (as we may call it) in the real human
life and human emotion of the inspired medium. In this way all the words of the Holy Scripture
are inspired words, — " pure words, as silver tried, purified seven times," Ps. xii. 7.

Whatever be the human faculty employed as the medium, whether it be the understanding
elevated and purified by a divine emotion, or a vivid imaging power supernaturally aroused in
a state of trance or ecstasis, or simply a holy and truthful human memory, the words resulting
have passed through a refining process in which they carry with them the divine truth, not as a
mere mechanical message, but in all the vividness and fulness of the human conception. Thus
they are divine words, although at the same time, most human. We may therefore study them
with confidence. They are not arbitrary, and open to disparaging criticism, except as to theii
textual accuracy. Human as the language of the Bible is, it is still God's medium, and we cats
never exhaust its meaning. ' The process of learning from it, therefore, must be the reverse of
that by which it is coinmunioated. It is a going back, up the stream, and towards the fountain-
he;id. Through the words of the inspired writer we get at his images, from these we ascend to
his thoughts and their inspiring emotions, and in these, again, the soul draws nigh to that higher
life and verity of which the inspired conception is the best human representative.

Words suggesting images, or images suggesting words: the first would be called the
objective method (whether such words were miraculously articulated to the ear, or whispered
to the mind), and yet it is not easy to see why it would not be, to a certain extent, as subjec-
tive as the other, — since in both cases, the imperfect human conception, whether of words or
things, or of words or images, must make a necessary part of the revealing process. In this
objective view there remains, in all its force, the great difficulty arising from those pass.iges in
which God is represented as speaking, calling, naming, &c. We are compelled to take it as au
internal articulate speaking, in the Hebrew, or in some other language, or else to hold that there

154 SPECIAL INTEODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESiS.

is in the account a mixture of the figurative and the literal style. In the subjective, or visioc
view, the difficulty vanishes ; and this is a great argument in its favor. In vision, one part is as
real, that is, as much seen and heard by the seee, as the other. A great power dividing, a great
voice speaking, a great presence surveying the effects produced and pronouncing it good, are al
represented to his ecstatic consciousness, and he relates it just as it was beheld and heard. Thnsi
too, there vanishes all that difliculty which so much perplexes Delitzsch (see p. 86) in respect to
the particular language employed. It was the seee's own language, whether the Hebrew, or
any older tongue.

If it be said that speech or "Word, as thus used, denotes something more than mere articulate
language, it may readily be admitted. This is, in fact, the substance of the distinction made by
Parens (Comment. Gen. p. 91) and many others, ancient and modern, between the verbum ensen-
Hale, and the sonus evanidiis ex ore Dei non proeedens. It is, however, something more real than
a comparison. Nature as a motion, a pulsation, a continued throbbing energy in time and space,
may well be called an utterance, and the primal power by which it is commenced and prolonged,
a Word, going forth. Without any figure, it is an articulating voice in the great cosmical medium,
even as our human voice sounds through the prolonged undulations of the terrestrial atmosphere.
It may be conceived as spoken, and at the same time as continually responding to the primal
Dtterer, thus constituting the mrhum essentiale of which the vision voice (imago iiocis, Heb.*
bp na), as uttered in human language,* may be regarded as the representative. It is like
the essential day, or cycle, of which the phenoinenal solar cycle is the type. If such a mode oi
interpretation is good for the one case, what right has any one to deny its fitness in the other ?
Whatever be the smaller scale of representation, there must be harmony and analogy in the
things represented. There must not be a transcending vastness in the one direction, and a
narrowness out of all proportion in the other. The ineffable 'Eoiee, the ineffable loorh, the ineffable
rest, demand as their fitting accompaniment the ineffable evening and morning, making the
ineffable day.

Thus regarded. Gen. i. is an apocalypse of the great past, even as the revelation to John in
Patmos is an apocalypse of the great future. Had the latter not used the first person in stating
what he saw and heard, we should none the less have regarded it as a vision. It has the vision

* Metaphors in other writings are for ornaments or for rhetorical impression. Such language in Scripture has a highei
use. It is to express ineffable truths (or vivid emotions in view of such truths), for which other modes of speech are inade-
quate. " TJmir line hath gone out to the ends of the world," Ps. six. 5. D^p — the T.yv. have rendered it their voice,
(^do-yvo?) their sound, whether reading D51p, or regarding 1p here as equivalent to it in the expression of jjroton^red utter-
ance. Symmachus, ^^os > Vulgate, sonus. It suggests the old idea set forth in the Orphic or Pythagorean myths of the
music of the spheres, and which appears in the Hieronomian or Vulgate Version of Job xsxviii. 37, concentum cceli (the
song or harmony of heaven), where i>25 is taken in its other and more usual sense of cithara or harp. Ip, in Ps. xix. 6,
may be also rendered a measuring line, or even a writing (_Linien ~ Schriftzvge), according to Calvin and Cocceius (see
Hupfeld). This would correspond to the opening language of the Psalm, C^SDH n'^nu; , " the heavens are telling," which
may also be rendered piciuri)!^, describing ("ISO, primary sense, scalpsit, s<:ripsit), "and the firmament declareth (I^J?:)
Ms handy work," literally the work of his fingers. What follows is in exquisite harmony with the same idea : "Day unio
Day (we think of the great days) utlereth speech Ipoureth it out), and night unto night showeth knowledge,"— illin^ , primary
sense, e^uii— whence the sense pronuntiavit, fortasse proprie, as Gesenius says, de rebus arcawts— that is, breathes forth
knowledge, whispers knowledge, (compare ^31 VT^Vl , Job xxvi 14), and hence the sense of the cognate Arabic -v.

to reveal mysteries. It is a transcending or ineffable voice : " No speech — no voice (that is, no audible voice)— OTid yet their
line has gone out to the ends of the world." It vibrates through all space.

Compare also Hosea ii. 22, where there are the same thoughts and images. Nature, through all her departments, if
represented as listening for the divine voice, and responding to it, whilst God is represented as listening to its petitions :
"I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens (the skies or clouds), and the heavens shall hear the earth, and the
earth shall hear the com, and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel." It describes the ordinary course of hil
providence as one continuous chain of utterances and responses. God listens to the heavens petitioning for the rain, thai
they may send it down upon the petitioning earth, that the earth may transmit its influence to the petitioning com and
oil, that they, in turn, may supply the wants of Jezreel. So the Chaldee Targum, with Uashi and the Jewish commentatonr
generally : "I will hear and command the heavens," &c. It is not a breach of nature, like the miracle used as a sign or
attestation, but the divine proceeding in the general providence made up of all particular providences. It is the constant
living Word, 'O Aoyo? ^atv /col evepyrj?, " the quick and powerful word,'* penetrating all the recesses of nature, yet breaking
no law, pissing over no link. It is all law, all nature stiU, through all the length of the mighty chain, and yet the Word
of God, aa distinct and sovereign as when it first went forth in creation. Science is atheistical imtil she acknowlodges thu
doctrine of the Logos In nature, not as a metaphor merely, but as the most vital and most important of ai: phrs^cai
kraths.

PART v.— HOW WAS THE CREATIVE HISTORY REVEALED? 155

style in its mystic numbers, its solemn repetitions, its regular successions of voices, seals, and
vials. There is not so much of this in Genesis, but there is a great deal that reminds us of it in
the regular dividings and namings, in the sublime enunciations, in the parallelism of day and
night successions so constantly given in the same language, in that rhythmical movement which
ever seems more or less an accompaniment of the ecstatic condition,* in the heraldic announce-
ment of an established order (i3-nnil), like a responsive amen succeeding each new going
forth of the Word, and in the solemn benediction at each close, until the great finale, where it
is all declared good, — " very good." Another resemblance is in the time aspect. In Genesis as
in Revelation there is the same impression of a strange chronology that cannot be measured by
any historical or scientific scale out of its own movement. It is like distance in a picture. It
is there, but we cannot bring it either into miles or inches. It has succession; height appears
beyond height, but there is no estimating the valleys, the immense valleys, it may be, that lie
between. In view of all this, it might be said, on the other hand, that had the author of Gen. i.
used, like John, the first person directly, it would have made little or no difference in the style
of the narrative, or in the pictorial effect produced by it.

This analogy between the opening and closing portions of Scripture may be carried through
out. As the scenic or vision view in the prophetic picture does not warrant us in regarding it
as scene merely, or do away with the idea of a great reality lying beliind, so neither does such
a vision theory of the creative account detract, in the least, from a like reality in the great past,
and of which such vision was the most fitting representative to our limited powers of conception
as well as to our ever imperfect science regarded as ever falling short of the ultimate facts of
origin, whether called creative or purely physical. We may suppose it, therefore, chosen on this
very account, as not merely the best, but the only way in which the ineffable facts might bei
made shadowly conceptual to the human soul. Still, the fact, whether we rightly conceive il.
or not, is in the representation, and he who takes the two as in all respects identical, or reduces
them to the same measurement, has the essential faith, only he should not condemn as heretical
)r unsoriptural the one who preserves the same ultimate facts but interprets the representation
of them on the vaster and remoter scale.

In most cases, however, it is not difBcult to separate between what we have called the mode
of representation and the ineffable truth (believed, though in a great degree unknown,) that lies
back of it. We read, for example, in Genesis, that God " formed man in his own image." Now,
none but the grossest gnosticizing heretics have regarded this as a plaatic formation of clay into
an outward molded likeness. So also when we are told that " God breathed into man's nostrils
the breath of life," the representation is most clear and perfect; we have a distinct image of a
divine mouth breathing into the as yet inanimate human nostril ; there is something very tender
in it, denoting, as Lange poetically says, the Father of Spirits awaking man to existence with a
kiss of love ; but, after all, the mind goes back of the representation in both these cases. The
mere language is transcended even by the mystery of the human physical life as expressed in the
one instance, much more so by that of the rational or spiritual life as set forth in the other.
Now there is nothing to forbid— in fact, there is everything to require — a similar mode of inter-
pretation when it is said " God formed man from the earth," or out of the dust of the earth.
The image is similar to that employed in the other cases, and we may suppose that the seer
beheld, even as the reader conceives, a plastic formation, a mold, shaped but inanimate, beginning
to move under a pneumatic inspiration; but the thoughtful mind, again, goes back to something
beyond it. It is helped by this picture, but it does not rest in it. It finds little or no difficulty
m taking this coming " from the earth," or this bemg " formed from the earth," as denoting a
divine process in nature, resembling the other processes similarly represented in this wonderful
account (see Remarks, p. 135 on Ps. cxxxix. 15). It is a mode of setting forth the contrast between
Boul and body, between the physical and the rational, the animal and the pneumatical, — one from
tlie divine life and the divine spirit, the other from nature, — "from the earth earthy" (ex y^t

* See this exemplified in the Visions of Balaam, Numb, xxiii., xxiv., and in the prophetical Scriptures generally. Ii
may not he easy to explain, but it is a fact of deep significanoe, that, in all high or ecstatic states of soul, there is this tend
ency to rhythmical motion and n+t-erance.

156 SPECUL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

Xo'Uos, 1 Oor. XV. 47), even as the plants and the animals came originally from the earth and
the waters. Time is not given us here, whether long or short. All that we have is the fact
that by some process (necessarily involving some idea of causality, succession, and duration,) the
human body was brought from the earth, — or that thus the human physical, coming from th«
lower physical (from the lowest parts of the earth, Ps. cxxxix. 15), and through the connecting
links, types, or molds, as carried upwards by the divine formations, was at last brought into the
state in which it was prepared to receive that divine inspiration which alone constitutes the
tpecies, and makes it man. Thus the true creation of man, as man, was an inspiration. The
primus homo was the first man thus inspired, and who became the progenitor of the species.
The first Adam was made by the divine life raising the physical or animal into the rational.
The second Adam represents a higher inspiration, elevating the rational human to a closer
union with the divine. Such Is the analogy of the Apostle. Christ elevates the human, even
as the first human, " by the inspiration of the Almighty," is the uplifting of the merely animal
or physical that lay below. The second mystery is the greatest, and our belief in it should take
away any wonder or difficulty that may attend the first.

Again, in that mysterious account. Gen. ii. 21, had it been said: "And I saw the man cast
into a deep sleep, and lo, the Lord God took from him a rib," &o., we would have recognized
the vision style, and separated immediately between the representation and the ineffable /act
involving the ineffable process through which the female nature was originally divided from the
one generic humanity. All this is intimated in that mysterious language of the first chapter
(ver. 27) of which this may be regarded as the scenic representation, or filling out of the picture:
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female
created he themy The him and the them, the ink and the cnst, are one generic being, one
creation. This is given to ns in the first language. There is, however, necessarily a derivation
in the process, not mentir^ned in the first, but represented to us in the second and more graphic
picture. Here, too, if any one is inclined, or feels himself compelled to take the fact and the
scenic representatinn of it as identical, he has the essential faith, and the essential dogma, woman
derived from man ; but why should we find dilBculty in adopting, in this case, a mode of inter-
pretation which we not only find easy but even regard as demanded in the two first-mentioned
cases of the image and the inbreathing?

Again — let us take Gen. ii. 19: "And out of the ground God formed every beast of the field,
&c., and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them, &c. ; and Adam gave names
to all cattle, and to every fowl, and to every beast of the field." This has nothing of the myth-
ical in its style. As literal narration it has a difficulty, but this consists chiefly in its strangeness,
which is wholly a matter of sense conception, whilst there is nothing in it, even as thus taken,
to offend the reason or a rational faith. That God should thus teach the first man by bringing
suggestive objects before him, even as a father teaches his child the letters of the alphabet, is in
perfect harmony with the best view we can form of the providential and the supernatural, if
these ideas are to be admitted at all. When the account, however, is regarded as a vision, or a
picture, all difficulties vanish, whether in regard to the style or the matter. As an objective
narration, it would seem to represent a second creation of animals for this special purpose ; as
something given in vision, it sets itself wholly free from the necessity of any such inference. It
becomes similar to the trance vision of the animals as seen by Peter, Acts, xi. 5, 6. Ii
is the method of revealing to us that there is an ineffable mystery in language, that man waa
led into it by the divine guidance, or that the superhuman is demanded to account for its origin
OS the significant naming of things and ideas in distinction from those mere animal cries of the
sense from which some would derive it. Language is required for the invention of language, if
regarded as merely human, and that involves a paradox. Some divine or supernatural power,
therefore, must have helped man in his first namings and classifyings. Such is the conclusion
of the profoundest philological science, and such is the teaching of the Scriptures.

How far this is to be carried must be determined by intrinsic evidence. We are not to resort
to it merely to escape difficulties. The sober question is, whether the scenic representation, or
the vision theory, is in harmony with the style of Scripture as employed in other cases wher«

PART v.— HOW WAS THE CREATIVE HISTORY REVEALED f 15-}

transcendent facts are set forth, and whether there is that in the very thought and aspect of the
passage which favors the idea. We know that the great future transition from the preseut
world, alav or 01am, to the aloiv or world to come, is thus set forth, and it may be deemed in
accordance with the analogy of Scripture, that the origines or great beginnings of the present
01am, as it proceeds from those that are past (otto tSiv alaivaiv^ Eph. iii. 9 ; Ool. i. 26 ; 1 Oor. i i 7)i
(bould be given to us in a similar apooalyntic torm

GENESIS,

OR THE

FIRST BOOK OF MOSES,

FIRST PERIOD.

The Genesis of the World and of the Primitive Time of the Human Race, as the
Genesis of the Primitive Religion until the Development of Heathendom, and
ol its Antithesis in the Germinating Patriarchalism. Ch. I. -XI.

FIRST PAET.

THE GEa^SIS of the WOELD, OP THE ANTITHESIS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, AND
OF THE PRIMITIVE MEN. Ch. L akd II.

FIRST SECTION.

The Heavsn, the Earth, and Man. The Creation and the World in an Upward Series of Fhpaical and

Generic Development, Universalistic.

Chapteb L-n. 3.
A. — ^The Antithesis of Heaven and Earth, the Symbol of all Reli^on.

1 In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.

B. — The Three First Creative Days. The Great Divisions (by means of Light, Heat, and Chemical Affinity),
or the Three Living Contrasts : Light and Darkness (or the Dark Spherical Material) ; the ^theria.
Waters (or the Vapor-Form) and the Earthly Waters (or the Fluid Precipitate) ; the Water Proper and
the Land. The nearest Limit of these Divisions : the Vegetable World as a Symbolic of Commencing
Life analogous to the Result of the Three Last Creative Days in the Appearing of Man.

2 And the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

3 And the Spirit of God moved [hovered, brooded] ' upon the face of the waters. And God

4 said Let there be Hght, and there was hght. And God saw the light [the heauty of the

light] that it was good [alO, good and fair j as the Greek /t<iA5>-, fair and good] ; and God divided

5 the hght from the darkness [made a division between the luminous and the dark element]. And God

called the light Day and the darkness he called Night [eomoeofday, source of night]. And

160 GENESIS, OR THE WEST BOOK OP MOSE?

the evening and the morning were the first day [i. o., by this division is measured one divine day

6 or day of God— rae day here is for ^j-s( day]. And God Said : Let there be a firmament [extension,

expansion] in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament

8 from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.° And God called
the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said: Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place,

10 and let the dry land appear; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and
the gathering together [combining] of the waters [as water proper] called he Seas;

11 and God saw that it was good [second pause of contemplation]. And God said: Let the
earth bring forth grass [grow grass], the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding

1 2 fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth ; and it was so. And the
earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding
fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind. And God saw that it was good [third

13 pause of contemplation]. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

C. — The Three Last Creatiye Days. The Three Great Combinings : 1. The Heavenly Luminaries and the
Earth generally; 2. the Heavenly Luminaries and Water and Air; 3. the Heavenly Luminaries and
the Earth-Soil as a Pre-Conditioning of Individual Formations. Or the Tliree Parallelisms of the
Three First Creative Days.

1st day, The Light; 4th day, The Luminaries ;

2d day. The Waters under and above the Firma- 5th day. The Fishes in the Seas and the Birds of the
ment ; Heavens ;

3d day. The Liberated Earth-Soil, and the Plants 6th day, The Land- Animals, and over them Man.
upon it ;

14 And God said : Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the
day from the night ; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for

15 years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon

16 the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule

17 the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set

18 them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth; And to rule over
the day, and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw

19 that it was good [fourth pause of contemplation]. And the evening and the morning were

20 the fourth day. And God said : Let the waters bring forth abundantly [Lange:
Let the waters swarm] the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly

[Lange and English marg. rendering: Let fowl fly] above the earth in the Open firmament of

21 heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which
the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his

22 kind. And God saw that it was good [fifth pause of contemplation]. And God blessed
them, saying : Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas ; and let fowl

23 multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said : Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and

25 creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so. And God made
the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that
creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that it was good [sixth pause of

contemplation! .

D.— The Limit, Aim, of all the Creative Days (especially of the three last), the Antitype of the Tegeliiblt
Creation at the End of the T'lird Day : which Antitype is Man, the Likeness of God, and the Sabbith,
in which God rests from His Work.

26 And God said: Let us make man in our image after" our likeness; and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the
cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the

27 earth. So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him;

28 male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said untff them,

OHAP. I.— n. 8.

16.

Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it ; and have dominion

over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that

?,9 moveth upon the earth. And God said : Behold, I have given you every herb bearing

seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruil

30 of a tree yielding seed ; to you shall it be for meat ; And to every beast of the earth,
and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein

31 there is hfe, I have given every green herb for meat. And it was so. And God saw
every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good [seventh pause of contemplation |
And the evening and the morning were th-; sixth day.

Ch. II. 1, 2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And
on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the
3 seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day,
and sanctified it ; because that in it he had rested [had begun to rest] from all his work
which [he as] God created and made [Lange: um es zu machenj English marg. : created to
make].*

[' Ver. 2.— Brooded (rEH^B). Lange has here in brackets lelebend, vivifying, though he aftenfards rejects the meta-
phor of incubation.— T. L.] '

[3 Ver. 7. — And it was so. Lange : TJnd es ward also, rather better than our translation, since also differs from our so
as denoting more of reason and consequence. Both, however, fail of the full foroa of the Hebrew "IS. This, to be sure, ia
most commonly a particle, ita, ovruv, etc., but it never loses the other or adjective sense of firmness, Tightness, soundness
(integer), as more allied to the primary sense of the verb ^ID which becomes the Arabic verb for being. And it was firm ;
the word was accomplished ; the firmament stood just as commanded. It was the beginning of a nature. Compare Ps.
xxxiii. 9 : " He commanded and it was, he spake and it stood." So Maimonides on the passage : *' And why does he add :
'ia-'^n^ 1 It is eqruvalent to saying that it was to be so continuaUy all the days of the world as cohering with that which
comes after it." It takes its fixed place in the system. So also the verb "pS itself, in the Pilel form, is used as a word
of creation. See Deut. xxxii. 6 : TDSb^l TVV^ 6t*Iil, He made tbee and established thee. — T. L.]

[^ Yer. 26. — Lange renders here, als'unser Gleichniss, as our likeness, and in a sentence in brackets denies the correct-
ness of the other rendering, after our likeness. The Hebrew 3 in !lDn!tT3^3 may give either shade of meaning. The di^
ference may seem slight ; and yet it may be a question of some theological importauce, whether man is the image of God,
primarily, or made after that image — the word image jier se being reserved for Him who is called, Heb. i. 3, the express
image, vapaKTijp t^9 vTroo-TotrecD?, the image of the substance ; Col. i. 15, the eikon, or image of the invisible God, eiKtoF rov
0eoC Tou aoparou (compare 1 Cor. xi. 7 ; 2 Cor. iv. 4), and who is styled, John i. 9, the light that lighteth every man. li we
regard Him as pre-eminently the image, or eikon, in this bi»jh and perfect sense, as carrying with it the very substance or
being of that which was imaged, then it would be more reverent as well as more in accordance with the text, we think, to
say (with our English versionj man was made after that image ; his light is a reflection from that eternal mirror, or the
diravyacTjua T^s 36f7)?, the " Brightness of Glory," ihe *' Outbeaming of Glory," as it is called, Heb. i. 3. — T. L.]

* Ch. ii. 3. — The farther words : these are the genealogies [Aug., generations] of the heavens and the earth, are not the
conclusion of the first piece (as held by Delitzsch, Bunsen, etc.), but the commencement of the one that follows, as is alsw
«ihown by the use of the name Jehovah Elohim.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.

1. See on the Introduction to Genesis, and under
the head of Literature, the catalogue of cosmological
works that belong here. Compare, especially, the
Literature Catalogue given by Knobel and Delitzsch.

2. The passages of Scripture that have a special
connection : Job ; Ps. viil., xix., and civ. ; Prov.
viil. ; Is. xl. ; John i. 1; Col. 1. 16; Heb. i. 2; xi.
3 ; Rev. xxi. 1.

8. This account of the world's creation evidently
forms an ascending Ime, a series of generations
whose highest point and utmost limit is reached in
man. The six days' works arrange themselves in
orderly contrast ; and in correspondence to this are
the sections as they have been distinguished by us ;
a. The creation of heaven and earth in general, and
which may also be regarded as the first constituting
of the symbolical opposition of the two ; b. the three
first creative days, or the three great divisions which
constitute the great elementary oppositions or polari-
ties of the world, and which are the conditioning of
all creature-Ufe : 1. The element of light and the
dark shadow-casting masses, or the concrete dark-
ness, and which we must not confound with the eve-
ning and the morning ; 2. the gaseous form of the
tether, esptoially of the atmosphere, and the fluid
form of the earth-sphere ; 3. the opposition between

11

the water and the firm land. In respect to this it
must be observed that the waters, of ver. 2, are a
diflferent thing from the waters of vers. 6 and 9,
since it still encloses the light and the matter of the
earth. Moreover, " the waters " of ver. 6 is not yet
properly water ; since it encloses still the earth ma-
terial. The first mention of elementary water in the
proper sense, is at ver. 9. c. The three last creative
days, wherein the above parallel is to be observed ;
d. the limit or aim of creation — man — the sabbath
of God.

4. Vers. 1 and 2, the ground-laying for the crea-
tion of the heaven and the earth. Considered cos-

mologically and geologically. — In the beginning

The construction maintained by Bunsen and others
(Easchi, Ewald, Aben Ezra) is as follows: In the
beginning when God created heaven ^nd earth, and
when the earth was waste and desolate, and darkness
was over the primeval flood, and the breath of God
moved upon the waters, then God said. Let there be
light, and there was light. This construction is, in
the first place, opposed throughout to the language
of Genesis, as in its brief yet grand declarations it
proceeds from one concluded sentence to another.
Secondly, it contradicts the context, in which the
creation of light is a significant, yet still an isolated,
moment. If we were to follow Bunsen, it would be
the introduction of the Persian hght religion rathei
than the religion of the Old Testamenii And, final

162

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

W, Id the third place, it obliterates that distinguish-
ing ground-idea of the theocratic monotheism with
which, in the very start, the word of revelation con-
fronts all pagan dualism, — in other words, the truth,
that in regard to the manner of creation, God is the
sole causality of heaven and earth in an absolute
sense. The view of Aben Ezra that n^ttSsfia is ever
in the construct state, and that it means here, "in
the beghiiiing of the creation of the heavens and the
earth," etc., is contradicted by the occurrence of the
word in the absolute state, Deut. xxxiii. 21. —
niCS<-l3 (from U)if1 = U3J<n). The substantive
without the article. It is true, this cannot be ren-
dered in llie beginning, taken absolutely, so that the
beginning should have a significance, or an existence
for itself. It would be, moreover, a tautology to say
in the beginning of things when God created them,
etc., that is, when there was the beginning of things ;
or else we must take bereshith mystically : in prin-
cipio, that is, in filio, as Basil, Ambrose, and others
(see Leop. Schmid, Explanation of the Holy Scrip-
tures, p. 4), which is not allowable, although it is
true that the New Testament doctrine advances at
once to the determination that God created all things
through the Son (John i. 3, 11; Heb. i. 2; comp.
Ps. xxxiii. 6). It is not easy to take the word ad-
verbially : originally, or in the first place (Knobel) ;
for the immediately following enumeration of the
creative days shows that the author would have time
begin with the creation of the world. According to
Delitzsch the author does not mean " to express the
doctrinal proposition that the world had its beginning
in time, and is not eternal, but only that the creation
of the heavens and the earth was the beginning of
all history." This interpretation seems arbitrary.
Bereshith relates especially to time, or to the old, the
first time (Is. xlvi. 10; Job xlii. 12). It may be
further said that 3 can mean with or through. It is,
therefore, the most obvious way to interpret it : in a
beginning, and that, too, the first, or the beginning
of time, God created the heavens and the earth (with
the time the space ; the latter denoted through the
antitheses of heaven and earth). From that first
beginning must be distinguished the six new begin-
nings of the six days' works ; for the creating goes
on through the six days. In a beginning of time,
therefore, that lies back of the six days' works, must
that first foundation-plan of the world have been
made, along with the creation of the heaven and the
earth in their opposition. The first verse is there-
fore not a superscription for the representation that
follows, but the complet'^d ouranology despatched in
pne general declaration, .Jthough the cosmical gene-
ration, which is describe ' ver. 3 and ver. 14, is again
denoted along with it. That the sun, moon, and
stars are perfected for the earth on the fourth day,
is an indication that God'i. creating still goes on in the
neavens, even as the creating of the periods of devel-
opment in the earth, alter its first condition as waste
and desolate, when it went forth from the hand of
God as a spherical foim without any distinct inward
configuration. — xna , in Piel to cut, hew, form; but
In Kal it is usually employed of divine productions
new, or not previously existing in the " sphere of
nature or history (Ex. xyxiv. 10; Num. xvi. 30, and
frequently in the Prophetp), or of spirit (Ps. li. 12, and
the freqnent KTi^av in thn N. T.) ; but never denoting
i.'iman productions, and never used with the accusa-
tive of the material." Delitzsch. And thus the
conception of creating !» kin to that of the miracu-

lous, in so far that the former would mean a creating
in respect to initial form, the latter in respect to nov-
elty of production, (On the kindred expressions ia
the Zendavesta, see Delitzsch.) It is to be noted how
xna differs from ntos and IS'; (ch. ii. 2 and ver, 1).
That in this creating there is not meant, at all, any
demiurgical forming out of pre-existing material,
appears from the fact that the kind of material, an
something then or just created, is strongly signified
in the first condition ot the earth, ver. 2, and in the
creation of fight. This shows itself, in Uke mainer,
in the general unconditioned declaration that God ii
the creative author, or original, of heaven and earth. —
Elohim, see the Divine Names in the Introduction. —
c"rl2;n . According to the Arabic it would denote
the antithesis of the High (or the height) to the
Lower — that is, the earth. The plural form is signjfi
cant, denoting the abundance and the variety of the
upper spaces.* This appears still more in the ex-

* [There must have been something more definite in the
early conception that gave rise to this form of the word. It
looks like a dual, and this would suggest that the thought
of the heavens, out of which it arose, may have been that of
a hemi-sphere, and of the whole mundub as having a spheri-
cal form. The phenomenal shape of the fiky would give the
idea of a counterpart. The roundness of the mundus, and,
as a necessary inlerence, the roundness, or two-sidedness of
the eai-tb, must have been a conception much more ancient
than we imagine. It must have occurred to a thoughtful
mind every time there was witnessed the phenomena of the
sun setting (the sun going under) and the sun rising (ita
coming up from the world or sky below the earth). Comp.
Ps. xix. 5 ; Eccles. i. 4 ; Job xxvi. 7, Such a notion, how-
ever, would be more for the reflexive thought than for
the sense ; but its early existence is perfectly consistent
with other language drawn from the more direct and near
appearance of the earth as an extended plane. A dual idea
may also have been suggested by that of the waters above
and waters below (Gen. i. 7), thus giving the notion of a
double heavens divided by the rakia.

The word, however, is more probably a plural. This
appears from some of its connections, and from a compaii-
son of its form in all the other Shemitic languages. The ^
is in the place of the H' as it appears in the root HCJ ,
to be high. Since there is nothing arbitrary in language,
especially in early language, this plural form must represent
the notion that would very early arise, of something above
the S^pT , or that the rahia itself was merely an optical
appearance in which were shown the forms of things that
were really at vast and vastly varying distances beyond it.
Such a thought was earlier in the Hebrew mind than in the
Greek, though the latter, as usual, when they came to enter-
tain it, made much more of the idea in the way of definite-
ness, number, and locality, — treating it with less reverence,
and giving it up more to the license of the imagination. So
was It with the idea of a spirit-world. It was older m the
Shemitic than in the Javanic mind ; but the Greeks gave ic
more of topography and scenery, whilst upon the Hebrew
thought there seems to have been ever thrown a holy re-
serve, or rather, a providential restraint upon the imagina-
tion, until the coming of Him who was the Resurrection and
the Life. In both cases the latter were content with the
general thought, namely, atioLher life, especially for the
people of God who '* is not the God of the dead hut of the
living " (Matt. xxii. 32 ; Exod. iii. 15), and other heaveM
beyond that which primarily presents itself to the sense.

"We may, therefore, ascribe this early plural form to that
vivida vis animi which first pierces through the seen into
the unseen. From the single appearing rakia, or expanse,
above, came the thought of a heaven over that, ana of a
" heaven of heavens " higher still, from which God looki
down to " 1 ehold the things that are :'n heaven (the near
heavens) and the earth." Ps. cxiii. 5 : "Who dwelleth bt
high (naub ^n^S.^a), who stoopetli 60 low (^t-'Bffltt),
even to look down into these lower ejirth heavftTij (ms'13
D^'^12,'3), as though immensely remote .is r4Cn from bo
superlative a height. The very csthropopati 'J-Hm adds to
the grandeur of the conception. He " stooi-et.''. down to
look," as though not only the earth and man, but the
heavens that surround them, were so far c.f, or so iajt
below, as to be hardly visible to the divine eye.

From such a germ the conception gi'cv'in the Ilebren

CHAP. I.— n. 3.

16a

preaaion, the heaven of heaven? CDeut. x. 14^ and Ps.
ixviii. 84).

5, Vers. 2-5. Preparation of the geologico-
cosmological description of the days' works. Firat

mind, imtil itiere came out of it a number of other words
lenoting different supposed departments of the great epaces
alaoye. Still later the Jewish. Rabbins got from these their
notion of the Gilgallim^ or seven heavens (regarded as
wheels, Ezek. i. 16, or spheres), and to which they give
distinct names having, most of them, some philological and
conceptual ground in the old scriptiures. They are thus
reckoned by them : ^ISTa, bl^T, CpntU, i-'"'p"l, "O^^'^j
ni313J, V'^'^) Vilon, Eakia, Shehakim, Zebul, Maon,
Makon, Arfiboth. The first of these is the only one not
found in the Bible. It is a Rabbinical word from the Latin
velum. It is used for the very lowest heavens, or the sup-
poe6d sphere below the rakia. It is the veil, or sky of clouds
which intercepts the light but permit-s the heat to pass
through, and m this sense Jarchi alludes to it in his inter-
pretation of Ps. xix. 7 : "there is nothing hid from the heat
thereof." So also Rabbi Jehoshuah says, Berach 58, 1 : " the
■j'^b^T is that space or sphere through which, when broken
and rolled away, there appears the light of the open expanse."
All the rest of these names belong to the old Hebrew, and
are found in the Old Testament Scriptures in such connec-
tions as to justify the Rabbins in regarding them as denoting
different regions, to say the least, in the upper spaces or
heavens. See Ps. Ivii. 11 ; xxxvi. 6 ; Job xxxvui. 37 ; xxxvii.
18; Ps, Ixxxix. 7; Hah. iii. 11 ; Ps. xxxiii. 13, 14; Isaiah
Iviii. 15 ; Ps. Ixviii. 6 ; Deut. xxvi. 15 ; 2 Chron. xxx. 27 ;
Ps. xc. 1 ; Isaiah Ixiii. 15. The word ni ^"13- , Ps. Ixviii. 5,
is rendered heavens in our version : To Him who ridcih upon
Arahotk in his name Jah, Jehovah; ride.h upon the highest
or outer heaven, according to the Jewish scale. Almost all
the modern commentators give it a different sense here, and
with apparently fair reasons. Our English translation,
however, is countenanced by the old versions, besides being
fully sustained by the traditional rendering of all the Jewish
commentators and translators, ancient and modem. Accord-
ing to them, it is the highest sphere corresponding to the
BeSejLL^teV^j of the Greeks, or the fixed sphere, where all is
immovable, whilst everything below is undergoing change.
It is where G-od specially dwells, IS '?^j inhabiting etev'
nily, sedens in perpetuum. Is. Ivii. 15. Hence they render
it, not riding, though that would give a most sublime image
if we regarded this great sphere as rolling, but sitting, like
one throned, and that corresponds well to the primary sense
of ^31 in all the Shemitic tongues, which is not motion, a
meaning which it never has, unless demanded by something
else in the context, but super-position, Comp. with Is. xl. 22,
y^l^ a^n-bS SUJ^n , "He that sitteth upon the orb of
the earth," though so high that "the inhabitants thereof
axe as grasshoppers." The other words are also used to
denote me divine throne or the divine dwelling. This Rab-
binical astronomy may be said to have its germ in the
Scriptures, though its expansion and arrangement are to be
ascribed to the later imagination. It was the natural out-
growth of that mode of thinking and conceiving that first
gave rise to the plural C'^'D'i; , Comp. also the word T'lPT^D ,
2 Kings xxiii, 5, as used for the heavenly spheres or houses
(from blZ with its Arabic sense of dwelling), and rTHTia ^
Mazzaroth (which is the same word etymologically), Job
sKxviii. 32. See also the Arabian ti-adition of the seven
heavens as given in the Koran, Surat xvii. 46 ; more fully,
Surat xli. 11; also xxiii. 17, with Alzamakshari's comment
on the upper stories or gradations of the heavens. These
Arabian traditions' have every appearance of being ancient,
and of having aided the Rabbinical scheme, rather than of
having been derived from it. The Shemitic languages are
certainly peculiar in these plural words for heaven. The
New Testament ouparol is a pure HebrEeism. The Shemitic
Word excels also in its radical significance. Ovpavos (opoi;
ofipos) has simply the idea of limit. It is the vertical hori-
eon, or the horizon above. The Latin cmlum is simply con-
cavity ith KotAoi<) ; so is the Saxon heaven (heave arch). In
the Hebrew, the natural image is height, and this reduplicated
and carried upward by the plural fonn. In this respect the
Hebrew words for the great spaces are like the great time
pluralities to which we have referred in the Introduction to
the First Chapter of Genesis, The heavens and heavens of
heavens, the D^^OlD and U'^'O'Q ^^312; , are like the ub^^
and the C^l^bs ^ the olam, and clam of olams, so frequent
In the Old Testament, yet so obscured in the translations.
There is another Shemitic plural equally suggestive, and

Creative Day. — inbj ^iriFi. The earth was. Thii
is spoken of its unarranged original or fundamental
state, or of heaven and earth in general. Thohu
Vabohu, alliteratives and at the same time rhymes,
or Uke sounding ; similar alliteratives occurring thus
in all the Pentateuch as signs of very old and poi>u
lar forms of expression (Gen. iv. 12 : Exud. xxiii. 1,
5; Numb. v. 18; Deut. ii. 15). We find them alsr.
in Isaiah and elsewhere as characteristic features of a
poetical, artistic, keen, and soaring spirit. They
are at the same time pictorial and significant of the
earth's condition. For, according to Hupfeld and
Delitzsch, ItiH passes over from the primitive sense
of roaring to that of desolateness and confusion
The last becomes the common sense, or that which
characterizes the natural waste (Deut. xxxii. 10) as
a positive desolation, as, for example, of a city (Is.
xxxiv. 11). It is through the conception of voidness,
nothingness, that Thohu and Bohu are connected.
Delitzsch regards the latter word as related to DJi::: ,
which means to be brutal. Both seem doubtful, but
the more usual reference to nn^ in the sense of void
or emptiness is to be preferred. We have aimed at
giving the rhyming or similarity of the sounds in oui
translation (German : oden-wiist and wiisten-6d).
The desert is waste, that is, a confused mass without
order ; the waste is desert, that is, void, without dis-
tinction of object. The first word denotes rather the
lack of form, the second the lack of content in the
earliest condition of the earth. It might, therefore,
be liflnslated form-less, matter-less. "Rudis indi-
gestaque moles, in a word, a chaos," says Dehtzsch.
It would be odd if in this the biblical view should so
cleanly coincide with the mythological. Chaos de-
notes the void space (as in a similar manner the old
Northern Ginnun-gagap, gaping of yawiiings, the
gaping abyss, which also implies present existing
material), and in the next place the rude unorganized
mass of the world-material. There is, however, al-
ready here the world-form, heaven and earth, and
along with this a universal heaven-and-earth-form ia
presupposed. It is not said that in the begiuning
the condition of the heavens was thohu and bohu, —
at least of the heavens of the earth-world, as De-
litzsch maintains ; at all events, the earth goes neither
out of chaos, nor out of "the Siime chaos" as the
heavens. It is clean against the text to say that the
chaos, as something that is primarily the earth, em-
braces, at the same time, the heaven that exists with
and for the earth. For it is very clear that the lan-
guage relates to the original condition of the earth,
although the genesis of the earth may serve, by way
of analogy, for the genesis of the universe. "jlUni
the first condition of the earth was cinn (from CiH ^
to roar, be in commotion), wave, storm-flood, ocean,
abyss. The first state of the earth was itself the
Thehom, and over this roaring flood lay the darknesg
spread abroad. It is wholly anticipatory when we
say that " this undulating mass of waters was not
the earth itself in the condition of thohu and bohu,
but that it enclosed it ; for on the t jird day the firm

which is not found in other families of languages. It is tl «
word for life (Di"in , lives), denoting a plurality in this ide«
as well as in the words for heaven and eternity. Instead
of being despatched as a mere usus loquendi, this, and other
peculiarities of the earliest tongues are well worthy om
deepest attention. The plurality of life, of the great spices,
and the great times, seem all to have come from a way oi
viewing the works of God which has no parallel 'u the rep
resentations of other human languages.— T. L.]

104

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK Of MOSES.

and (V")**) goes forth from the waters." Delitzsch.
Further on, Fs. civ. 6 is cited to show that, original-
ly, water propei surrounded the firm earth-kernel,
and Job xxxviii. 8, according to which the sea brealts
forth out of the mother's womb (the earth) — poetical
representations that are true enough, if one does not
take them according to the letter; in which case
they are in direct contradiction to each other. The
waters, of ver. 2, is quite another thing than the
water proper of the third creative day ; it is the fluid
(or gaseous) form of the earth itself in its first condi-
tion. 2 Pet. iii. 6 is not opposed to this ; for as the
water takes form, the earth breaks out of the water,
just as the water comes forth from the earth in con-
sequence of the creative division. The darkness is
just tlie absence of the phenomenal, or the absence
of light (for the vision view) in the condition of the
earth itself, — in other words, nighi. — r\^-<^ , But
the spirit of God hovered over (Aug., moved
upon). The breath of man, the wind of the earth,
and the spirit, especially the spirit of God, are sym-
bolical analogies. The breath is the life-unity and
life-motion of the physical creature, the wind is the
unity and life-motion of the earth, the spirit is the
unity and life-motion of the life proper (k) which it
belongs ; the spirit of Rod is the unity and life-mo-
tion of the creative divine activity. It is not a wind
of God to which the language here primarily relates
(Theodoret, Saadia, Herder, and others), but the
spirit of God truly (wherefore the word Dnl, De-
htzsch ; comp. Ps. xxxiii. 6). From this place on-
ward, and throughout the whole Scripture, the spirit
of God is the single formative principle evermore
presenting itself with personal attributes in all the
divine creative constitutions, whether of the earth,
of nature, of the theocracy, of the Tabernacle, of the
church, of the new Ufe, or of the new man. The
Grecian analogue is that of Eros (or Love) in its
reciprocal action with the Chaos, and to this purpose
have the later Targums explained it : the spirit of
love. It was rBnnn (hovering) over the waters.
The conception of brooding cannot be obtained out
of Deut. xxxii. 11 (Delitzsch), for the eagle does not
brood over the living young, but wakes them, draws
them out (educates), makes them lively.* The mytho-
logical world-egg of the Persians has no place here.
Should we adopt any view of this formative energy
of the spirit of God (which may have worked upon

* [Still the conception of brooding, cherish ing (fovens), is
fundamental in the word C)nl . Its primary sense is a vi-
brating:, throbbing motion, most emblematic of the begin-
ting of life— especially as traced in the CRg-fonn— the flrst
beginning of heat and pulsation. Its primary significance
is onomatopical— rahap, to flutter (regular pulsatile mo-
tion). Hence it becomes very early one of the verbs of lov-
ing, being closely allied, both in sound and sense, to the
Hebrew cn^ . In Syriac it is the common word for loving,
wanning, charishing. In the Arabic the middle guttural

has softened down to aleph, and we have \^|r, denoting

intense and cherishing love. No word could have been bet-
ter odapted to the idea, intended in this place, of an inward,
life-giving power, rather than a mere mechanical outward
motion, such as is given by tho translation "blew" or
"moved upon." Nowhere else in all the usage of the He-
ttt-ew or Syriac is "^"1 ever employed in the sense of hloW'
i'ng. The Piel form here mates the inward sense of throb-
bing the more intensive. We see no harm to the Scriptures
from the supposition that this idea of the cherishing spirit
W!is the origin of the fable of Eros, or of the mythological
world-egK, wh-'ther regarded as Persian or Greek, See
Aristophanes, Aves, 694. -T. L.]

the unorganized mass through the medium of a great
wind of God) it would consist in this, that by iti
inflowing it differentiated this mass, that is, con-
foT-mably to its being, called out points of um'ty, and
divisions which fashioned the mass to multiplicity io
the contiasts that follow. It separated the hetero-
genous, and bound together the homogenous, and se
prepared the way for the dividing the light from the
darkness. It caimot be said, however, that " all th«
co-energizing powers in the formation of the world
were the emanations or determinations of this spirit
of God." For we must distinguish the creative wordi
with N"1D from ^S^, or t\ie forming by the spirit of
God.* The ol^ject, however, of this forming is not

* [The word "1^^ is more formative than K^D , Int not
less creative. The latter is used more of the primary divi-
sions, if not of the primary matter itself. The former de-
notes generally the more artistic or architectural work, the
handy work, l^'l^ niH?'?, Ps. xix. 2, or noro
TJ^niyaSN , Ps. viii. 4, "the work of thy fingers." It is,
according to one view we may take of creation (see Introd. to
Gen. i. p. 128), the higher work, the greater work of the divine
artistic wisdom as diLstinguished from the mere divine jjomjct.
In its most outward primary applications, "IS^ denotes th*
elaborate shaping formations, such as that of a statue, oi
idol, Hab. ii, 18 ; Is. xliv. 9, 10. Hence it becomes the
appropriate word to express inward formation— /orm in the
more interior sense — law, structure, constituting state — in a
word, idea in distinction from idolon. As a word of physical
creative constitution, it is variedly and impressively used to
denote the appointed arrangements in the seasons, as Ps.
Ixxiv. 17, DPIIS^ Jinx Cj^n^ Y''P ' "summer and win-
ter thou hast formed them "—Is. xlv. 7, S<-n:!| nis isi"'
"Iirn, "who .formed the light and created darkness " (the
light the more ideal or artistic creation). " He made the
sea, nil^S', and his hands /ormeti, Jin!!'^ , the dry land,"—
gave it its greater variety and beauty of form. So Amos iv.
13, "who created the wind, or air (^"^3^), who formed the
mountains " (n^ji"^). It is used to denote the formation of
a people by law and providential guidance: Is. xliii. 21,
■^b Tl^^l'' tIfCS' , "this people that I have formed for
myself." Is. xlv. 18, X"l3 is used of the heavens, and TS"!
of the earth. This might seem opposed to the distinction
we have made, but the context that follows shows why tha
more ideal or formative word is thus used of the earth —
^iiri~Kb iHiSTD — "who formed the earth and made it,
whoestablishedit (gave it a nature, Syr. J43^D) that it might
not be a tohu (a formless waste), who made it to be inhab-
ited." It is used of the human body, or rather of the whole
human physical constitution. Gen. ii. 7 : " And the Lord
God formed man," (ver. 8) "and he put the man whom he
had formed." It is, in like manner, most impressively
applied to the most exquisite and divine processes in th(
human structure. Ps. xoiv. 9: B''3^ xiil ■]"'S ^Si"' ON ,
" He that formed the eye, shall he not see 1 " Hence, in ft
more interior sense still, it is used of the very constitution
of the soul : Zach. xii. 1, "who stretcheth out the heavens,
and foundeth the earth, and formeih the spirit of man
within him," ^2l■^p^3 , in interioribus ejus. Deeper still, it
is used of the heart, or the moral constitution : Ps. xxxiii. 15,
oab irn ^Si'll , "that forms their heart alike." It
carries the same idea as a noun, and this gives rise to its
use as denoting the forming or imaging faculty of the soul,
as in the striking passage, Gen. vi. 5 : niSttin'S "IX^bS^
IS.^, "and every imaging of the thoughts of his heart.'*
^S^ is the form of the thought, as the thought is the fom
of the emotion, or of the deep heart that liea below all.

One of the most noteworthy uses of the verb ^iC ia iti
application to the human generative process ; it is also to b«
observed how this is ascribed directly to QoA, as though, in
every case of the individual gestation in the womb, there
was something of a creative power and process • see Jer. i. 5,
^□aa Tj-iaK Ol.Ua, " before I formed thee in the womb."
Compare Eccleg. xi. 5, where this formative process is pro-
Bented as one of the deep mysterious things known rnly )A

CHAP. I.— n. 8.

161

the primitive matter, but the flowing earth-sphere.
Just as little can one say that the six days' works
have their beginning in ver. 3 ; for the result of the
first day is not the light merely, but also the dark-
ness (see Is. xlv. 1). Concerning the theosophic
interpretation of thohu vabohu as a world in ruins
which had come from God's judgment on the Fall of
the Angels (see ver. 3). — Ver. 3. Let there be
light. — Uere begin the geologioo-cosmical creative
periods. This new beginning, therefore, must be
distinguished from that first creation of the heavens
and the eiirth which is to be regarded as having no
creative beginning before it. Henceforth the treat-
ment is that of a sacred geology, yet regarded in its
biblical sense sis geologico-cosmological. Hence, in
ver. 3, the creation of the Ught-heaven ; ver. 8, the
creation of the air-heaven ; ver. 14, the creation of
the star-heaveu ; ver. 26, the creation of the heaven-
ly core of the earth itself.* — And God said. — " Ten
times is this word, ■iBSt''1 , repeated in the history
of the seven days." The omnipote-nce of the creative
word, Ps. xxxiii. 9 : He spake and it was done, he
commanded and it stood (Rom. iv. 17). The creative-
word in its deeper significance : Ps. xxxiii. 6 ; Is.
xl. 26; John i. 1-3; Heb. i. 2; xi. 3 ; Col. i. 16.
'JTie light, the first distinct creative formation, and,
therefore, the formation-principle, or the pre-condi-
tioning for all further formations. Of this formative
dividing power of light, physical science teaches us.
It is now tolerably well understood, that the Ught is
not conditioned by perfected luminous bodies, but,
on the contrary, that light bodies are conditioned by
a preceding luminous element. Thus there is set
aside the objection taken by Celsus, by the Mani-
cliaians, and by rationalism generally, namely, the
supposed inversion of order in having first the light
and afterwards the luminous body. And yet the
light without any substratum is just as little con-
ceivable as the darkness. The question arises, how
the author conceived the going forth of the light,
whether out of the dark bosom of the earth-flood, or
out of the dark bosom of the forming heaven ? As
the view of the heavenly lights (light bodies) ver. 14,
is geocentric, so may the same view prevail here of
the heaven-light itself. By this is meant that in the
fact of the first illumination of the earth the author
presents the fact of the birth of light generally in the
world, without declaring thereby that the date of the
genesis of the earth's light is also the date of the
genesis of light universally. But we may well take
ihe birth of light in the earth (or the earth becoming
light) as the analogue whereon is presented the birth
of light in the heaven, just as in the creation of man
there is symbolized the creation of the spirit-world
collectively. We let alone heie the question whether
ttie light is an emanation (an outflowing) of a lumi-

God, and especially Ps. csxsis. LI-IG, whether the language
thei-e denotes the mdividu.il or gcneiic formation, or both —
" when I was cwiousli/ wrought,*' etc. ; " and in thy book

all my members were written, ^"121^ D"'^^, the days they

were being formed " (see remarks in Introd. to Genesis, p.
135).

If the lEebrow bad developed itself into a philosophical
language, from this root would have comt their name for
formal cause, causa formalin, that which gives idea to any-
thing, or Tiiakes it what it is, in di.stinction from the causa
finalis, or cauna cMcicns. In fact, it is in this very way
that such a term nas been formed in Ariibic, and in the
Rabbinical Hebrew, only they have employed for this pur-
pose the kindred T12 , which connects the idea oi fonnation
with that of binding or inward unity. — T. L.]

* l^fan is thus called by Lange as the causa Jinalis of all
tU other earth formations.— T. L.l

nous element, or an undulation from a luminoui
body ; only it may be remarked that sound goes o»
all sides, and may, therefore, be supposed to undu
late in sonorous waves, whilst the ray of light, on th(
other hand, goes directly, for which reason the appli
cation to it of such an undulation of sonorous wavef
would seem unsuitable. The idea of an tetheria
vibration may make a medium between emanation
and undulation. Without doubt, however, the mean-
ing here is not merely a light-appearing which goes
forth out of the heaven-ground,* /ind breaks through
the dark vapor of the earth, or from heavenly clouds
of fight (such as the primary form of the creation
may have appeared to be), but an immediate lighting
up of the luminous element in the earth itself, some-
thing like what the Polar night gives rise to in the
northern aurora; enough that it is said of the
contrast presented between the illuminating and
the shade-producing element. The fight goes, how-
ever, in the first place, out of the dark world-forms
(not the mere world material) after that the spirit of
God, as formative principle, has energized in them.
The spirit of God is the spiritual Ught that goes out
from God ; therefore its working goes before the
creation of the outer light ; and therefore, too, it is
that this light is tne symbol, and its operation simi-
lar to the operation, of the spirit — that is, the forma-
tion and the revelation of beauty. — And there was
light. — The famed sublimity of this expression as
given by Longinus (in a somewhat doubtful text)
and others, is predicated on the pure simplicity and
confidence with which it sets forth the omnipotence
of the creative word. — And God saw the light
that it was good. — The first beauty is the liglit
itself For the Hebrew 310 denotes the beautiful
along with the good, even as the Greek Ka\hv de-
notes the good along with the beautiful. The sense :
thai it was good, does not seem easy ; and therefore
TertuUian (and more lately Neumann) have accepted
the quia of the Itala. On the other hand, Defitzscli
remarks : " The conclusion is that to God each sin-
gle work of creation appears good." The conclusion
lies, perhaps, in the pause of solemn contemplation,
out of which, at the end, goes forth the perfect salj-
bath. It is because the rehgious human soul recog-
nizes the fair and the good in the event of the ap-
pearing, that there is therein reflected to it the foun-
tain of this .spiritual ethical satisfaction, namely the
contemplation of God Himself Still the contempla-
tion of God does not regard the object as though
captivated by it because it is fair, but it rejoices
therein that it is fair ; or we may say that, in a cer-
tain manner, it is the very efiicacy of this contempla-
tion that it becomes fair. — And God divided
between the light and the darkness. — Although
it is farther said that God named the light day and
the darkness night, still it must not be supposed
that here there is meant only the interchange between
day and night as the ordaining of the points of divi-
sion between both, namely morning and evening.
Although fight and darkness, day and night, are
called after their appearing, yet are they still, all the
more, ver_^ day and night, in other words, the very
causaUties themselves. The light denotes all that is
simply illuminating in its efiicacy, all the luminous
element; the darkness denotes all that is untrans

* [Himmelsgrundn. "We fail in translating this to gel
any better word to represent the frequent Gei-man Grund
(in composition) than our word ground. Foundation pre«
sents an incongruity of figure which is less in the more gen
oral term ground. Flane wculd be too indefinite.— T. L.]

im

GENESIS, OE THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

parent, dark, shadow-casting; both together denote
the polarity of the created world, as it exists between
the Hght-formations and the night-formations — the
constitution of the day and night. " One sees," says
Delitzsch, " how false is the current and purely pri-
vative conception of darkness ; as when, for exam-
ple, a mediEeval interpreter (Maxima Bibl. Lugd. vi
p. 868) says : sicut siientium nihil est, ned v^ vox
lion est siientium dicitur, sic tenebrce nihil sunt^ sed
ubi lux 7ion est tenebrce dicuniur.'''' It is true, there
must be presupposed for the daylight an illuminating
source or fountain of Ught, and so for the darkness a
shadow-casting causality (Jas. i. 16) ; but it would
be quite wrong to say that light and darkness are
two principles (according to the course of the earUer
theosophists : Jacob Bohin, and a later school :
Baumgarten and others). If it is farther said that
the darkness has not the witness 31D (good), it may
be replied that it certainly has it mediately, ch. i. 31.
It is indeed said still earlier : " We do not read that
the tohu and bohu^ that the tehom with the darkness
lying over it originated in the divine call into being
(liat), therefore they had their origin in some other
way." This is a very unwarranted conclusion ; so
also, then, must the heavens have originated in some
other way. The heaven, however, has its origin in
the word of the Lord (Ps. xxxiii.), and so also the night
and the darkness (Is. xlv. Y) as well as the abyss
(Ps. civ. 8). It is, therefore, a hard inconsequence
when Delitzsch, following the mythological views,
regards the thohu wabhohu as the chaos enclosing
even the heaven in its birth (p. 93), and still farther
regards it theosophically as the ruined habitation of
condemned demons. In the historical derivation of
the last opinion (p. 105) Delitzsch appears to have
confounded two distinct views : the scholastic, that
God had formed the human world for the purpose of
tilling up the void that arose in heaven after the fall
of the angels, and the theosuphic, that the terrestrial
region of the world was, in the earlier time, the abode
of Lucifer and his compauions, which afterwards,
through their guilt, became a thohu vabliohu out of
which God laid the foundation of a new world. In
this view the thohu vabhohu is "the glowing mate-
rial mass into which the power of God's wratli had
melted the original world after it had become cor-
rupted by the fall of the spirits (pp. 105 and 114
below), — or it was the 7-udis indigesfaque moles into
wliich God had compressed and precipitated that
spiritual but now ungodly world condemned to the
flames in consequence of its materiaUzing, and this
for the purpose of making it the substratum of a new
creation which had its beginning in the fact that God
had placed the chaos of this old fire-invaded world
V holly under water." One might well ask : shall
.tie fire-brand itself (the old bumt-up earth) be the
chaos, or the divine reaction through the quenching
m water? Was the fire-brand the work of the
demons, or did it come through God's judgment and
counteraction? AH such resolutions of the dilficulty
ire in a state of mutual confusion. And this is no
wonder, for a certain theosophic hankering after
dualism with its two principles can only veil itself in
dark and fantastic phrases. In opposition to these
gnosticisiiig representations of matter, the demands
of a pure monotheism require of us an acquiescence
m the idea that matter too is good, because it is from
God, — in so far mdeed, as we can speak of pure
■natter in general terms. The more particular foun-
tain of this view — after certain older preludes and
popular representations (Delitzsch, p. 106) derived

from Gnostic traditions — is Jacob Bohm (My«t
Magn. p. 67) and the Gnostic teachers that aros«
after him, Friedrich von Meyer, Baumgarten (Gen&
sis), and others. With peculiar zeal hath Kurtz alsc
taken part in these theosophic phantasies, as also it
those other of the miscegenations er sexual confu-
sions between the angels of heaven and the daugh-
ters of earth (Gen. vi.). The grounds presented by
Delitzsch, in opposition to his earlier contrary view
(as given in the first two editions of his Commentary),
are the following : 1. In the interpretation aforesaid
one would, to be sure, expect "TIPII mstead of nn"'f11
but the conscious connection need not lie precisely
in the consciousness of the writer ; he relates simply
a matter of fact. And yet he must have been more
enliglitened in respect to the nature of things than
our scientific man. A blind narration of facts would
here be as inconsistent as a pure indication of a
theosophic sense in thohu vabhohu. 2. Thohu has,
indeed, a predominating privative character; it
arises, however (Is. xxxiv. 11 ; xxiv. 10; Jer. iv. 23),
from a positive destruction. But how natural was it
to apply the pictorial thohu vabhohu to such a condi-
tion. What more purely privative than the wore
nothing ? and yet we say it of positive states of de
structiou. According to Delitzsch, in the method?
of its construction (world-brand, quenching-water)
must Plutonism and Neptunism have reached their
deepest grounding. The grounds that follow are in
no respects better (p. 104). What have rendered
the hypothesis suspicious from its beginning hiiherto
are its apocryphal or popular origin (Delitzsch, p.
105), its Gnostic coloring, and its affinity to that
other scholastic phantasma that God had created
men to fill up the vacuum in the fallen angel-world.
It must, however, become very evident that the
representation of an " overcoming of the darkness,"
in the physical sense in which it here presents itself^
is utterly foreign to the holy text ; it is like the
mingling of conceptions, namely of a physical and
an etliical darkness. The representation, then, of
ver. 2 will be clearly a picturing of the primitive
condition of the earth, as it became in consequence
of the first general creation, ver. 1. Besides, this
hypothesis obliterates that hne which everywhere
else appears between the angelic and human regions
and natures. Finally, ver. 2, as a representation ot
the flowing, form-receptive condition of the earth-
mass gives the bases for all farther ascending forma-
tions. Add to this that, in such case, the region ol
Lucifer would have been visited by the fire-judgmen«
earher than Lucifer himself — a representation which
runs counter to the usual order of things — not to
say, that, on such a supposition, Lucifer himself
should have been rightly banished from the who'e
extent of the earth-region. Or, can it be that Gi.d
has built the new house of htmianity upon the foal
beams of a demoniac power ? But it is not worth
our while to dwell more fully upon a representatiun
which is so characterized by its own sharp contrad<c-
tions. — And there was evening and there wxa
morning. — Here, in the first place, we must <i<»l
suppose that the evening and the morning wi.re
merely the sequence of the preceding darkr.CFd and
of the light that followed it, notwithstanding tha'. the
first evening and morning so fittingly append Them-
selves to such a contrast. Still less are we to tlunk
of the usual evening and nioraing, since the earth
had not yet been astronomically arrangf-d. Evening
and morning denote rather the interval of a creativi
day, and this is evideu Jy after the Hebrew mode o)

CHAP. I.— n. s.

16'.

reckoning ; the day Is reckoned from sunset. The
morning that follows stands for the second half of
the day proper. In the same manner was the day
reckoned by the Arabians, the Athenians {nvx^'h-
u ^uy), the Germans, and the Gauls. It is against
ihe text for Delitzsch to put as the ground here the
Babylonish reckoning of the day, namely from the
dawning of the morning. The earlier theological
representation, that by the creative periods were to
be understood the usual astronomical days, is now
only held by individuals (Baumgarten, Calwer Hand-
buch, Keil's Genesis). It is opposed to this, in the
Erst place, that the creative days are already num-
bered before the determination of the astronomical
relation of the earth to the sun, although on other
grounds must we hold that the days from the fourth
onward were not astronomical ; there are in the way,
secondly, the idea of the first day whose evening had
its beginning in that dark thohu vabhohu which had
no evening before it, as well as the idea of the sev-
enth day, the day of God's rest, which is not defined
by an evening and a morning, but runs on through
the ordained course of the world ; there is, thirdly,
the idea of the day of God as it is given to us in the
90th Psalm, which is traditionally ascribed to Moses
(ver. 4). That this time-determination of a thousand
years does not denote an exactly measured chrono-
logical period, but stUl a period defined by essential
marks of time, appears from the converse of Ps. xc.
in 2 Pet. iii. 8 (a thousand years as one day, and one
day as a thousand years), and also from the thousand
years of the judgment-time as the transition period
from the present state of the world to that which lies
beyond (Rev. xx.). This comprehensive significance
has the divine day (God's day) or the judgment-day
pre-eminently in the Old Testament (Is. ii. 12 ; Joel
i. 15; Ezek. xiii. 5). Delitzsch, who also holds that
the creative days are periods, reckons, as another
argument, that in Gen. ii. 4 the six days are denoted
as one day. Add to this the very usual mode of
speech, according to which, day in the Old Testa-
ment often denotes a longer duration of time, for
example, in the formula even to this day. We are
not, however, to conceive of the evening and morn-
ing of the single creative days as merely symbolic
intervals of the day of God. According to the
analogy of the first day, the evening is the time of a
peculiar chaotic fermentation of things, whilst the
mormng is the time of that new, fair, solemn world-
building that corresponds to it. With each evening
there is also indicated a new birth-travail of things,
a new earth-revolution which elevates the old forma-
tion that went before it — a seeming darkening, a
Beeming sunset or going down of the world ; and so
later with this same appearance came on the flood ;
and so, too, in Zach. xiv. 1, the day of the com-
mencing judgment is, with the highest significance,
denoted an evening. No less significant is it in the
esohatological words of our Lord : and the sun shall
withdraw its light. Matt. xxiv. 29. With each morn-
ing, on the contrary, there is a new, a higher, a fairer,
and a richer state of the world. In this way do the
evening and morning in the creative periods have
the highest significance for an agreement of the
Bac» 3d geology with the results of the scientific geol-
ogy. The meaning would seem to be incorrectly
taken by Delitzsch when he says : " With each effort
of the divine ereatmg is it morning, with each remis-
sion it is evening" (p. 106). The most pecuHar
work of God, we may rather say, would appear to be
Mch of those stormy revolutions, in which the spirit

of God hovers like an eagle over the chaotic fermen
tations ; in the creative mornings, on the contrary
come in the holy rests when God surveys the new
work and sees how good it is. (Comp, Ton Eodoe
MONT, History of the Earth, p. 1 : "Evening: a darn
return of chaos." Doubtless the designation lacke
propriety in all respects, and yet it may lead to the
right.)

[Note on the Relation of the First Verss
OP Gen. I. TO the Rest or the Chapter. — Among
all the interpretations of Gen. i., the most difficult as
well as the most unsatisfactory is that which regards
the first verse as referring to a pei'iod indefinitely
remote, and all that follows as comprised in six solar
days. It is barely hinted at by some of the patris-
tic writers, but has become a favorite with certiic
modern commentators, as furnishing them with a
method of keeping the ordinary days, and yet avoid-
ing the geological difficulty, or seeming to avoid it,
by throwing all its signs of the earth's antiquity into
this chasm that intervenes between the first and sec-
ond verses. The objections to it may be thus
stated :

(1) Besides the peculiar difficulties that attend any
view of ordinary solar days, such as a morning and
evening without a sun, or the language of succession,
of growth, and of a seeming nature, without any con-
sistent corresponding reality, there is another and
greater incongruity in connecting this with a former
and very different state of things, or mode of pro-
ceeding, with which, after all, it has no real conneO'
tion either in the realm of nature or of divine provi-
dence.

(2) It is a building of this world on the ruing of a
former, without any natural or moral reasons there-
for. The states preceding, as understood by this
hypothesis, were in no sense preparatory. The
catastrophe which makes way for it seems entirely
arbitrary, and in no sense resembles the pauses
described in Genesis, each one of which is in the
upward order, and anticipatory of the work that
follows.

(3) It is evidently brought in as a possible escape
from the difficulties of geology, and would never
have been seriously maintained had it not been for
them.

(4) It has to make the heavens of the first verse a
different heavens from that of the eighth, without
any exegetical warrant therefor. This is a rational-
izing interpretation, carrying with it a conception of
our modern astronomy, and almost wholly unknown
to the Scriptures, which everywhere speaks of the
heavens and the earth therein mentioned as one sys-
tem. It is the heavens of our earth, built upon it aa
described in Gen. i. 6, 8 ; Ps. civ. ; 1 Sam. ii. 8, etc.,
and always taken in connection with it ; not a far-off
astronomical heavens, though the rudiments of such
an idea come afterwards into the Hebrew. Thus in
predictions, whether of destruction or of renovation^
the heavens and the earth go together. " I create
new heavens and u new earth," Is. Ixvi. 22 ; Ps. cii.
27, and other passages. The language is exactly
parallel to that of Gen. i. 1, and yet we cannot sup-
pose that there is included here the astronomica]
heaven of stars and planets, at least according to the
conceptions of our modem astronomy. It J! a re-
newal of the earth, in some way, together with tuose
celestial or sky phenomena that are in conuei^tioi:
with it, as parts, in fact, of the tellurian system. I)
is the same language, the same mode of conceiving;
as late down in Scripture as the 2d Epistle of Peter

.08

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

lii. 0-7 — the " earth and heavens " that were of old
before the flood are put in contrast with " the earth
and heavens that are now," and which are to be
changed for " a new earth and heavens " " according
to the promise (ver. 13) to which we look." It is
the same language that occurs repeatedly in the
Revelations (xxi. 1), and which, whatever we may
think of its prophetic meaning, shows the fixedness
of the conception down to the latest times of the
scriptural canon.

(5) It violates the principles of a rational and
grammatical exegesis, in making a separation between
the first and second verses, of which there is no trace
or reason in the language itself. If used in the same
way in narrating historical events, in any other part
of the Bible, no one would have thought of the verb
ST2, in the first, and iln^fl, in the second verse,
otherwise than as cotemporaneous or, in direct con-
tinuation at least, with no chasm of time between
them long or short. It would have been interpreted
like the precisely similar sentence. Job i. 1 : " There
was a man in the land of Uz, and the man was, etc.,

tc^sn n^m yw-v-ixn iij-'k r^^n. Who would

thiuk of separating the second iITi here from the
first, or sundering the evident continuity ? If it be
said that the context in Job controls, and the very
nature of the subject, so should it also in Genesis,
unless we make a new context after our own imagi-
nations, especially as there are clear ways in Hebrew
of expressing such a parting of the terms, had it been
designed to do so.

Besides this, it is opposed to the usual force of
the conjunction i . Taken even as a mere copulative,
it would not allow of such a sharp and remote sevei^
ance. But "' is much more than this in Hebrew.
It is seldom without a time sense, or an inferential
sense, showing a connection, not only of mere event,
but also of reason and causality. So here it shows
the reason for the use of Xna in the preceding verse.
" In the beginning God created,'" formed, fashioned,
the earth ; for it was formless and void, or when it
was formless and void, etc. Let one take Noldius'
Concordance of the Hebrew Particles, and see how
often (in the great majority of cases, we may say) the
conjunction wau has this close-joining inferential
sense. It is much more usual than its bare copula-
tive force, but even this is out of harmony with the
hypothesis of severance as commonly presented.
See also Introd. to Gen. i. pp. 129, 130.— T. L.]

6. Vers. 6 — 8. Second Creative Day. — Let
there be a firmament, — Eakia (from Spl , to
stretch, spread out, beat out) an extension or ex-
pansion, rendered in the LXX and by others, ajepi-
vncL, and in the \n\^aXeJirmamentum, — names which
are more material than 9^p"i . Knobel : " The
heaven was to the Hebrews a material substance
(Exod. xxiv. 10), a fixed vault established upon the
waters that surrounded the circle of the earth (Prov.
viii. •I'J), firm as a molten mirror (Job xxxvii. 18),
ind borne up by the highest hills, which are there-
Jbre called the pillars and foundations of the heaven
(2 Sam. xxii. 8; Job xxvi. 11); openings or doors
fire ascribed to it (ch. vii. 11 ; xxviii. 17 ; Ps. Ixxviii.
23). There are the same representations elsewhere."
But we must not forget that Hebrew modes of ex-
oresiiion for objects that have a religious bearing, do
ever contain a symbolical element which disdains the
iteral pressura Therefore the stars which in Gen.

i. 17 are fixed in the heaven, can nevertheless, accord
ing to Isaiah xl. 26, set themselves in motion as a
host of God ; and hence it is that the one heaven ex-
pands itself into a heaven of heavens. And thus thti
heavens bends down to the earth (Ps. xviii. 10), or w.
spread out like tapestry (Ps. civ. 2), or its beams are
waters (ver. 3), whilst the same heaven again is called
the footstool of God.- — In the midst of the waters,
— We must beware here of thinking of a mass of
elementary water ; quite as little could a fluid mass
which is yet identified with the light be elementary,
and just as Uttle can it be a flood, or collection oi
water, which consists of the three factors air, earth,
and water. At this point then is completed the
second division. The true standpoint of contempla-
tion would seem to be the view, that in the azure
welkin of the sky the clouds appear to give out their
evaporation, and to withdraw themselves behind the
blue expanse like a supercelestial gathering of water
(Ps. civ. 8, 18). It follows from this, however, that the
visible clouds and the rain may be assigned to the
lower collection of waters, and that there is meant
here the gaseous water as it forms a unity with the
air, and so makes an ethereal atmosphere (not " the
water-masses that hover over the air-strata of the
atmosphere "). Delitzsch here mistakes the symbol-
ical element. " It must be admitted," he says, " that
in this the Old Testament is chargeable with a defect,
for a physical connection between the descending
rain-waters and the heavenly waters, which is also
indicated hi the New Testament (Rev. iv. 6) cannot be
maintained." Indeed, it is with the actual physical
connection between the invisible collection of water
(the gas-formed) and the visible, that the contrast is
established ; it is the polaric tension which even the
phenomenoiogical extension brings to view. But
why should the Septuagint correct the text here with
the addition, ver. 8 ; And God saw, whilst the Hebrew
text has it not? Had the prophetic author some
anticipation that the blue vault of heaven was merely
an appearance, whilst the savans of the Septuagint
had no such anticipation, and, therefore, proceeded
to doctor the passage ? There may, indeed, be an
exaggeration of this conception of the upper waters,
since Philoponus and the other church fathers under-
stand by the same the ether that is beyond the earth's
atmosphere ; nevertheless, their view would seem to
be more correct than that which rei'ers the expression
to a proper cloud-formed atmospheric water. — And
God named the firmament heaven, D'<aiS . See
ver. 1. Delitzsch : Here is meant the heaven of the
earth-world; ver. 1, on the contrary, refers to the
heaven and the heaven of heavens. But if thefirmar
ment is " the immeasurable far-reaching height," there
is a failure, or falling short, in the limiting of the
conception. A main point appears to be, that the
rakia is presented to view as the symbolic dividing
of the super-earthly heaven, a phenomenal appear-
ance of that house of God to which all who pray to
God look up. For the later cosmological interpretar
tions of the upper waters, see Delitzsch, p. 108.

7. Vers. 9-13. Third Creative Day.— Y6T.9. Let
the waters be gathered together. — The bringing
the earth into form and the creation of the vegetalp
world. — That the physical dividing of the earth-mass
and of the water-mass is here presented, is clear.
There would appear, however, to be signified a pre-
ceding chemic.ll separation of both elements, which
had withdrawn themselves from the inner or undei
core of the earth. The expression D'^jan silg"

CHAP. L— n. 8.

169

ieOotes properly not merely an outward assembling,
but an intensive close combining (see Gesenius, mp).
2lpon the formation of the water proper, as it is now-
introduced, is conditioned the firm underlying of the
earth. The completing of this division, however, has
for its consequence that flowing together of the water
into its peculiar place, with which immediately the
self-forming earth-soil now comes into visibility.
It is thereby maplied that the elevations and depres-
sions of the earth's surface — the hills and vales, the
highlands and the ocean-depths — are here formed,
just as it is so precisely set forth, Ps. civ. 6-8 (with
which compare Prov. viii. 24). And so, too, the crea-
tion of the hills is here only indicated, or rather pre-
sented, as a consequence of the creation of the sea
(see Ps. xc. 2 ; Deut. xxxiii. 15 ; Habak. iii. 3).
Thus much is clear : as long as the water and the
earth-mass are not divided, there can be no mention
of any origination of the hills. With the sea-life,
however, must begin also the earth-life, that is, the
working of the inner earth-fire that causes the up-
heavings. It is a wrong apprehension of the waters
of ver. 2 and ver. 6, when one takes the story of cre-
tion as favoiing a one-sided Neptunism (Wagner).
The volcanic action of the earth in the formation of
the earth, is not expressed, indeed, but it is through-
out freely implied ; it would appear to be indicated,
Ps. civ. 8. There is truly no difficulty in supposing
that the formation of the hiUs kept on through the
succeeding creative days. In respect to this, De-
litzsch expresses himself better than Hoftnann:
" Generally," says he, " the works of the single crea-
tive days consist only in laying foundations; the
birth-process that is introduced in each, extends its
efficacy beyond it, and, in this sense we say with
Hofmann (i. p. 278 ) : ' Not how long, but how many
times, God created is the thing intended to be set
forth.' " Much more have we to distinguish between
the distinct creative acts and the creative evolutions.
Even after the creative division of the first day the
evolving of light may still go on, and the same
thought holds good of the efficacy of the succeeding
acts of each of the other days. The act itself means
the introduction of a new principle out of the word
of God, which, as such, has the form of an epoch-
creating event. — Ver. 10. And God named the
dry earth land, that is, earth-soil in the narrower
sense, and, therefore, it is that yiX has no article. —
And the water named he sea. — Properly seas,
" or rather ocean ; for it is more intensive than a
numerical plural, and is therefore (as in Ps. xlvi. 4)
construed ui the singular." Delitzsoh. On the other
nand, Knobel would make prominent the singleness
of the seas in the rendering Weltmeer, or world-sea,
main sea, or ocean. — And God saw. — Now has the
earth-formation come into visibility, though only in
its first outlines, or, according to the idea of the
naturalist, as an insular appearing of the land-region
as it unfolds itself to view. — Let the earth bring
forth (sprout, germinate). — It is agreeable to the
nature of the earth as well as of the plant that both
»re together as soon as possible. The earth has an
inclination to germinate, the plant to appear. In
truth, its origination is a new creative act. In the
proper place is this creation narrated ; for the plant
denotes the transformation of the elementary mate-
rials, earth, air, water, which are now present in
organic life through the inward working of the light.
It forms the preconditioning, as the sign or prognos-
tic, of the awaiting animal creation. And though it

has need of the light too in some measure, it doei
not yet want the sunsWne in its first subordinat«
kinds. The question now arises, whether we muat
distinguish three kinds of plants : XUi^ , tender green
aiUS, herbs and shrubs, vegetables and grain (o.
the smaller growths generally), and ^"13 yj; , fruit,
tree, according to the view of Knobel, embracing aL
trees inasmuch as tney all bear seed. Delitzsch, ag
well as Knobel, assumes this threefold division.
Farther on, however, we see that the more general
kinds precede (lights, water-swarmings), in order
that they may become more or less specific. And
here SltJ^ may present the universal conception of
all vegetable life in its first germination (although
including along with it the more particular kinds of
cryptogamic and the grasses), whilst in this way tha
contrast between the herbaceous plants and the trees
becomes more prominent (Umbreit, Ewald). Thence,
too, it appears that the sign of seed-formation, of
propagation, and of particular specification, is ascril)-
ed to all plants. Closer observations in respect to
single particulars may be found in Knobel. We
must protest against the exposition of Delitzsch:
"Its origination follows in that way which is im-
avoidable to a creative beginning, and which is to it
essentially what is called a generatio equivoca ; that
is, it does this in measure as the earth, through
the word of the divine power, receives strength to
generate the vegetable germ." The sentence con-
tains a contradiction in so far as the question still
relates to the divine word of power ; but this divine
word of power creates not merely a strength, or
force, in general;* each new and distract creative

* [The argument from exegeslB here would depend very
much upon the view taken, of the words 35^1 35^m?3 . They
are rendered by the LXX. ffn-elpov (nre'p/ia. The Vulgate,
facienSjseTtien, and our translation, yizldifig seed, are better,
since the Iliphil form seems to demand a caiisative or pro-
ducing sense. The rendering of the LXX. would do for the
other form S^T 3^"llT , which occurs ver. 29, representing
the plant, after it was made, as casting its seed upon the
earth. If we take it in the causative or seminative sense,
there is still the question, whether it is merely descriptive
of the plant in general as distinguished from other created
things, or whether it sets forth something in the very crea-
tive or first generative process. If it were the former, it
would seem to demand the article, ^"^nTSari , the plant that
bears or seminates seed. As it stands,' however, the whole
force of the word (as emphatic) and of the context, would
ikvor the latter idea : " Let the earth bring forth the plant
as seminating," or in its semination, that is, as growi'ng
from a seminal power in the very beginning. It may not be
easy to understand, conceptually, bow this can be without
a previous material seed (seed-vessel) or a previous plant
from which the seed came, but still, as a fact, it may be
clear, and clearly stated. The opposite notion is, that the
plant was outwardly and mechanically formed with its stem,
leaves, limbs, seed-vessel, etc., all perfect, and then, in some
way, connected with the ground, which, after all, has noth-
ing to do with its first production. Or it might be thought
that merely the seed (seed-vessel) was thus mechanically
made (that is, by a force acting on the outside of it), ana
then this seed placed in the ground to grow. Either of
these latter views is attended with great difiicnlties, increas-
ing ever the more they are contemplated, though as a mert
conceptual view it might seem at iirst the easiest. It may
be said, too, that they are not favored by the language
which assigns to the earth an irapoi-tant part in the process,
and seems to make the very semination an original aot.
"We gain nothing by regarding it as the mechanical creation
of the seed-vessel, since that is not, in itself, the seminating
power, any more than the entire plant, but only the seat of
its nearer residence, or its more interior wi-apper as it may
be called. Every plant that now grows springs from aa
immaterial power (and that not a blank force, but condition-
ed by an idea) brought in certain relations to the earth.
This power is not the seed as seed-vessel, for that dies ( dis-
solves) in the process (see John xii. 24), and by such dissa

170

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

word introduces a new and distinct principle into
the already existing sphere of nature — a principle
which hitherto had not been present in it. Along

iTifcion sets free the imniaterial life to work again, as at first,
in gathering from the flowing outward conditions ihe mate-
rial for its new manifestation, and arranging such flowing
material in the fixed order commanded and demanded by its
unchanging 'j^53 , species, eI5og, law, or idea. In the begin-
ning the command of the Logos places it in immediate con-
nection with such outward conditions. There is no need of
any protoplast whether in the foi-m of plant or seed. The
tree, regarded materially, or as ^aii'Oju.ei/oi', is as much a
flowing thing as a river, although it flows much more slow-
ly. It is, therefore, alike irrational to think of God's mak-
ing either of them outwardly, or immediately, instead of the
causation from which they respectively proceed. In the
case of things that are intended to reproduce themselves, this
primitive seminal power is afterwards deposited in a seed-
vessel from whence to come forth for all future manifesta-
tions ; but it is the same power — the same that was firsi;
created — the tsame species {unum in muUis) in the myriad
manifestations outwardly existing at the same time, and in
all succeeding times as long as the power lasts, or is able to
find the conditions under which it appears. It may be re-
garded too, with all reverence, as the same process, except
that at each intermediate beginning it starts with its libera-
tion from the holding seed-vessel to work anew in building
itself a new house, but in the same manner, after such lib-
eration, as when it first issued from the divine fiat. For a
moment, too, may this immateiial power be said to become
disembodied, as in the instant of passing from the old per-
ishing organization into the commencing new — each being
successively its work, deriving from it structure, foim, and
outward species. It is not made by the organization — for
then chemistry might find it. It is before the organization,
thus making the latter a real organism produced, as at first,
by a force and a Inw working from within, and building
around itself, instead of an artificial semblance having its
idea outwardly or mechanically introduced into the matter
after the way of human art We may say, therefore, that it
is the same original life, the going forth of the same unspent
energj', the prolonged utterance of the same "Word sounding
on in nature, and obeyed now, each time, with the same
alacrity as when it first felt the pulsations of the voice that
said: V"iXi~i NCID , "Let the earth germinate," let the
earth bringlbrth. It is mother-earth that gives the plant
its body, Its outward manifestation, so far as that alone may
be called the plant, but not its idea, its law, or even its im-
material power. And it is this which makes it something
quite diff'erent from the generalio equivoca of some natural-
ists, and to which Delitzsch unfortunately compares it.
The very term implies a blank, blind, and doubtful force
that might produce one thing as well as another. .But here
there is a conditioning power bringing out the plant ?in3'^T2P
according to its species. It is God's word appearing (speak-
ing) through the earth ; it is *' the Lord hearing the heavens,
and the heavens hearing the earth, and the earth hearing
the com, the wine, and the oil," Hosea ii. 22, 23. Hence
the exceeding significance as well as beauty of one of the
Hebrew names for plants. They called them ni~iij< , lights,
manifesiations, see Is. xxvi. 19, P'i~iTX 313, the "dew of
herbs," to which is compared the resurrection-power (or
*' resurrection-rain " as the Jewish Kabbins call it), which
■ nail revive the bodies " sown " in the earth.

"WTiatever difficulty there may be in such views of the
original growth, it is far less than that which attends the
nechanical notion, if we push it to all its consequences. It
irould follow that the earth did not really bring forth the
first plants (as Scripture expressly says it did), unless we
take it in some more magical sense, or think of some sudden
Btarting out of the earth independent of any nexus of physi-
cal causation. We must also, in that case, give up the idea
of the species determining the construction instead of the
construction the species. But the strongest argument for
the commentator is that the exegesis will not bear it. In
Buch an outward mechanical view the words ISttiln, 3'''"1TT0
lose all their causative force, and thus become merely re-
dundant cyphers in the account. The language of causation
where there is in reality no causative process is simply
magical and unmeaning. Had 5^ "it 13 here meant nothing
more than casting or sowing seed, as" the LXX. interpret it,
there would only have been need of the present Kal parti-
ciple 2J")iT , as in ver. 29, where the plant is spoken of after
tscryiition, and as carrying on its processes of reproduction.
Had "yielding seed" been the sense intended, there are
©thei words that would have better expressed it. This

with the various species and seeds, along with th?
determinate propagation of plants, each aftei its
kind, there clearly and distinctly comes in that con-
ception of nature which is already announced in
the great contrasts. The words: upo7i the earthy
V-nNPrbr (ver. 11), are interpreted by Knobel oi
the high growth of the trees (over the earth) in con-
trast with the plants which cleave closer to the
ground, and which are regarded by Delitzsch as a
present clothing of the earth. With respect to ver.
20, we may assume that Knobel is right. In the
contemplation of the young world, this majestic rising
above the earth in the case of the tall trees, as m that
of the birds, has a peculiar excitement for the imagi-
nation. With the plants there appears the lirst
thing that is distinctly symbolic of life as well as of
their individual beauty.

8. Vers. 14-19. Fourth Creative Day. Begin-
ning of the second triad. — The preconditions of the
now expectant animal and human life, are the lighta
of heaven, the stars, or heavenly bodies, partly as
physical quickening powers, and partly as signs of
the division of time for the human culture-worid. It
is theirs, in the first place, to make the distinction
between day and night, between light and darkness,
and to rule over the day and night — to make that
great contrast upon which the human developments,
as well as the animal nature-hfe, are essentially con-
ditioned, such as sleep, waking, generation, diversi-
ties in the animal world — animals of the day and
animals of the night, etc. It agrees well with the
text, that again, whilst it makes a more special men-
tion of the ordinance of the heavenly bodies, it gives
the chief prominence to their spiritual or humane
appointment : let them be for signs and for festivals,
and for days, and for years. The question arises
here, whether these appointments are to be taken as
four (Luther, Calvin, Delitzsch, Knobel); or that
three are meant: namely, for signs of times, for
days, and for years (Rosenmiiller, Eichhom, De
Wette, Baumgarten) ; or only two : for signs, for
times^ including in the latter both days and years
(Schumann, Maurer). For the first view, indeed,
there speaks the simple series of the appointments,
but there is, too, the consideration that the spiritual
(or ecclesiastical) appointments of the heavenly
bodies are not exhausted in the chronological. The
sign nix has oftentimes in the Old Testament a rehg-
ious significance. Thus the rainbow is established
for the sign (nix) of the covenant between Jehovah
and Noah, together with his sons (Gen, ix. 12).
Later, Abraham receives in the starry heaven a sign
of the divine promise. But when it is said (Jer. x,
2) : Ye must not be afraid of the signs of heaven,
there is not reprobated therein the meaning of the
signs of heaven in their right significance, but only
the heathenish misconception of them. The primi-
tive religion was throughout symbolic ; it was a con-
templation of the mvisible deity through symbohc
signs, and the most universal of them were sun,
moon, and stars. It was thus thai thf*. primitive
symbolic religion became heathenish; e religious
symbolic degenerated into an irreligif oS mythical;
the glory of God was suffered to pass away in the

Hiphil form occirrs only in one othe- place in the Hebrew
Scriptui-es, namely Lev. xii. 2, wh i it evidently bears
exclusively the conceptive or seminaang sense. Its choice
hero, therefore, shows that the writer had something else in
view than an outward construction, either of the p>ant fn
a whole, or of the seed-vessel whether regarded aa eeparatl
&om, or as contained in, the plant.— T. L.]

CHAP. I.— n. 8.

171

form of transitory signs ; it became identified with
them, whilst men utterly lost the consciousness of the
difference. The true representatives of the primitive
religion on its light-side held fast this consciousness,
as in the example of Melchizedek; but they reve-
renced o-od as such under the name El Elion (God
Moat High). It is an improper inference when
Knobel here would refer this to the unusual phenom-
ena of the heaven, such as the darkening or eclipse
of the sun and moon, the red aspect of the latter (in
kn eclipse), the comets, the fiery appearances, etc.
Moreover, we cannot find indicated here, as Delitzsch
does, an astrological importance of the heavenly
bodies, on which he remarks ; " This ancient univer-
sally accepted influence is undeniable, a thing not to
be called in question in itself considered, but only in
its extent." The question refers to the signs of the
theocratic belief, such as are celebrated Ps. viiL and
Pb. xix., from which the culture-signs of agriculture,
navigation, and travel, must not be excluded.
Thence, by right consequence, must be added the
festival signs, O'l'lSia . Moed, it is true, denotes, ui
general, an appointed time, but it comes in close
connection with the word Jehovah before the festival
seasons. The significant time-sections of the Israel-
ites were, moreover, reUgious sabbaths, new moons
(Ps. civ. 19), and yearly festivals which were likewise
regulated by the moon. Upon the two religious
appointments of the heavenly bodies (signs of belief,
•signs of worship) follow the two ethical and humane :
the determination of the days and therewith of the
days-works — the determination of the years and
therewith the regulation of life and its duration.
Hereupon follows the more common determination
of the heavenly Ughts for the animal life in general.
— To give light upon the earth. — With the light
"f the sun there is also determined its vital warmth.
Thus the text speaks first of the appointment of the
heavenly bodies for the earth-world (vers. 14, 1.5),
»ud then of the creation of the luminaries in their
variety and distinct appointments, in which the stars
form a special class, ver. 16. After this there is
mention of their location and their efiicacy ; their
place is the firmament ; their primary operation is to
give light; next follows their government, that is,
that peculiar determination of the day and night that
is necessary for the preservation of life. The third
thing is the division between light and darkness, the
instituting of the vicissitude of day and night. For
here must the dividing of light from darkness denote
something quite different from that of ver. 4 ; it is
not the division of the luminous and the shadowy,
but of the day-light and the night-shadow them-
selves. But now arises the question : How comes it
that the first mention of the creation of the heavenly
bodies is on the fourth day? It follows from the
fundamental cosmical laws that the earth, before the
sun, was not prepared for bringing forth the plants,
it is saying too Uttle to affirm that this place must
only be understood phenomenally, or that the earlier
created heavenly bodies make their first appearance
on the fourtl; day along with the clearingup of the
atmosphere. But, on the other hand, surely, it is
saying too much, when we assume that the formation
of the starry world, or even of our own solar and
. planetary system, had its beginnuig in the fourth
creative period. This representation is inorganic,
abnormal. It is just as little supported by any sound
eosmogony as demanded by the scriptural text. As
Utile as the text requires that in general the first

light of the universe should have its originatioE
cotemporaneous with the light out of the thoku
vabliohu of the earth, just as little does the placi
before us demand that we should date the absolutelj
first formation of the heavenly bodies from the fourth
creative day. This, however, agrees well with oui
text, that both the appearing of the starry world,
and the development and operation of the solar sys-
tem, were first made ready for the earth on that
same day in which the earth became ready for the
sun. On the fourth creative day, therefore, there is
completed the cosmical regulation of the world for
the earth, and of the earth for the world. See more
under the Theological and Ethical.

9. Vers. 20-23. Fifth Creative Bay. — Corre-
sponding then to the second day (of the first triad)
we have here (on the second day of the second triad)
the animation of the water and the air in the marine
and winged creatures. The creation of the marine
animals begins first. It is not only because they are
the most imperfect creatures, but because the water
is a more quickening and a more primitive condition-
ing of life than the earth. The like holds true of the
air. It is clear, moreover, that the land-animals in
their organization stand nearer to men than the birds;
nevertheless they are not, in all respects, more per-
fect than the birds ; and of these latter, as of the
trees, it is emphatically said that they hover high
over the earth. Indeed, as birds of the heaven, they
are assigned to the heaven, as the fish to the water,
as the land-animals to the earth, and so far correctly,
since they not merely soar above the earth, and have
their proper life in the air, but also because they are
in part water-fowl and not merely land-birds. This
graphic nature-limning is, moreover, to be noticed
here in the formation of the fishes and the birds, as
at an earlier stage in the formation of the plants.
The first animals are now more carefully denoted as
living souls, n'n ITS?, (soul of life). On this De-
litzsch retnarks : " The animal does not merely have
soul, it is soul; since the soul is its proper being,
and the body is only its appearing." That might
hold in respect to men, but it could hardly be said
of the animal (see Ps. civ. 29, 30). It is true, the
beast is animated ; it has an animal principle of sen-
sation and of motion which i? the ground of its
appearing, but as soul it is inseparably connected
with all animal soul-life,* that is, the hfe of nature.
Knobel translates : Let the waters swarm a swarm.
This conception is stUl more Uvely aud pictorial than
that of our translation (es solleii wimmeln die Wasser
vom Gewimmel, let the water swarm with or from a
swarm) ; nevertheless we hold the latter to be more
correct, since the causaUty of the swarm cannot he
in the water itself,f but in the creative word. — And

* [ThierseelenUhen. Lange evidently forms this Ger-
man word with reference to the peculiar Hebrew phrase
n^n 123S3 , nephesh hayya, or soul of life, rendered in oul
English Version living S(ml. We use the word animal, in
translating, from an aversion to the English word beast,
which has fallen much below the German Thier.—T. L.]

t [This reasoning seems doubtful. There is no more
need of such an argument to avoid naturalism here than in
interpreting the similar language yi^**^ ^'^'?^ » -^^^ ^^^
earth bring, ver. 11. The causality liere, as ttere, is dou-
ble, but there is certainly a secondary causality in the
earth which justifies us in giving its obvious active transitive
meaning to the denominative verb yillJ : Let the viaierl
swam a swarm. The verb is evidently made from the noun
V^lUil , repiilia, the lowest and mo&t prolific kind c f animals.
So the Jewish- Arabic translator renders it by a similaj

172

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

let biids fly and fly (fly about). — The strong sense
of the Hebrew conjugation Pilel ("Eiy;) cannot be
expressed by the simple words let fly. The element
of the formation, the air, is not here given ; for it is
clear that they are not referred to the water in their
origin.* One might think here in some way of the
upper waters; but the birds are under the firma-
ment. Their element is the very firmament of hea-
ven, just where the two waters are divided. On its
underside, or that which is turned towards the earth
(":Q"bs), must the birds fly. They belong just as
much to the earth as to the water and the air ; there-
foie are they assigned to no special district, ver. 21.
The great water-animals ("i"'3n , long-extended), a
word which is elsewhere used of the serpent, the
crocodile, the marine monsters, but not specially of
fishes. " These, with the insects that live in the
water, worms, etc., are all here to be understood
under H^n Bis: (soul of hfe)." Knobel. That the
animal creation had its beginning mainly with the
water-animals we learn from natural science ; but
whether with the vertebrated animals ? (Delitzsch.)
All birds of wing, translates Knobel. We would
rather take CJJS as a more general designation:
win/^ed, which would also include the insects. De-
litzsch correctly rejects the old view, which is re-
stored by Knobel, namely that the author meant to
represent God as having always created each species
of animals in one pair ; for one pair cannot swarm,
arid with a swarm the animal creation begins. With
good ground, however, does Delitzsch maintain that
for the animals there were determined central points
of creation, p. 117. None the more, however, can
we approve what he says of the generatio cequivoca
of the water and air-animals out of water and earth ;

denominative verb made from S^j^jO , a lizard,
^.^fcAX^O i^L^Jf , Let the water bring forth liisards, or
Bwann with lizards. — T. 1..]

* [This is not so clear as Dr. Lange may thini, although
he has on his side most of the modern commentators. The
Hebrew words C]Si2''^ rjiS'l , as they stand connected, can-
not, we tbiak, be properly rendei'ed in any other way tlian
as we find it in our English Version ; and birds Ihatfly, and
in all the ancient Versions ; LXX. : TrcTeica wcTii^e^'a ; Vul-
gate ; productint aquie reptile el volatile; the Syriac is exact-
ly like the Hebrew in its construction, and can have but
one possible sense, birds tJiat Jiy. So Luther : es errege sick
das yVasser mil Thieren und mil Qevogel das fiiege. The

valuable translation, Arabs Erpenianus, has it (yjL^»

1-^-^ ^ , which can only be rendered, in the connection,

birds that Jiy. The idiom of the Hebrew seems fixed, requir-
ing us in such a case to regard the future as descriptive, like
participle or an adjective. In the Arabic the correspond-
.ng usage is so estaljlishcd as to put any other translation
out of the question. It occurs frequently in the Koran with
the same subject, and in just sucli a connection as we have
it here. The other rendering, and let birds Jiy, would re-
quire a different order of the words, rjiyn OBIS'^I, as just
before D^ 53 n ^^^^"^ let tJie waters twarm. The more mod-
ern renderinf^ has come from the fear of what would seem
gi-oss naturalism, namely the eduction of the birds from the
water ; but we know nothing here except as we are taught.
There is nothinfj more incredible in such an eduction than
there would be m affirming it of any other foi-m of that
unknown and wonderful thing we call life. It may be very
fjar back, this coming of the bird-nature out of the waters,
but the naturalist tinds the fish-type in the birds, all of
which may have been originally water-fowl, and this would
leem to be in harmony with the declaration of the text,
Btrange as it may sound to us. Dr. Conant, we find, trans-
lates as Lange does ; but with all our respect for that excel-

ent Hebrew scholar, we are compelled to think him wrong.

0 Bush, Jacobtu, and others. — T, L.]

since we must throughout acquiesce in the opinioi
that the creative word establishes something new-
new life-principles, and here also the respective ani
mal-principles, in water and air. — Ver. 22. And
God blessed them, and said. — We must hold aa
scholastic the question started and debated by Cha-
teaubriand and others, whether God blessed also the
animals that were buried in the hills. The special
con.secration to fertility, in the case of the fishes and
birds, carries back a fact of the nature-life to the
divine causality ; we refer to their infinitely abundant
multiphcation. Besides, it suits well the fifth day,
or the number five, that the symbols of mightiest
life-motion, the fishes and the birds, are created on
this day. The animals of lesser physical motion, but
of more intensive individual sensation, come after
them.

10. Vers. 24, 25. Sixth Creative Day. First
half. — The creation of the land-animals stands in
parallelism with the creation of the firm land on the
third day. On the third day, remarks Delitzsch,
"iD6t'»l (and he said) is repeated only twice, but on
the sixth day four times. " Truly is this daj there-
by denoted as the crown of the others (the crown of
all is the sabbath). The sixth day's work has its eye
on man. In advancing nearness to him are the ani-
mals created." The general creation of n'h I1JB3
(soul of life, or Uving soul) divides itself here, 1. into
cattle (nsria from cri3), the tame land-animals (not
utterly dull or stupid ; for the horse is less dull than
the sloth) to whom in their intercourse with men
speech appears wanting; 2. into the reptile that
crawls upon the soil (whether it be the footless or
the thousand-footed) and the other animals that
move about upon the earth as the birds fly about in
the heaven ; 3. beasts of the earth, or the wild beasts
that roam everywhere through the earth. — Let the
earth bring forth : That is, in the formative mate-
rial of the earth, in the awakened life of the earth,
the creative word of God brings forth the land-ani-
mals. According to the older opinions (see Knobel)
it was the greater power of the sun that woke up
this new animal hfe ; according to Ebrard it was the
volcanic revolutions of the earth. Delitzsch disputes
this, p. 119. We must distinguish, however, be-
tween a volcanic commotion of the earth's crust and
its partial eruptions. At aU events, the land-animals
presuppose a warm birth-place. And yet the Vulcan-
ism, or volcanic power, must have been already
active at a far earlier period, on the third day at
least, and as long as the water was not water (proper)
must the creative power of fire have been in the '
water itself.

11. Vers. 26-31. Sixth Creative Bay. Second
half. The Creation of Man.. — Wherefore does the
creation of man and of the land-animals fall on one
and the same creative day ? It is because man, as
to his bodily appearance, has his being from the
earth in common with the animals, and because the
formations of the sixth day correspond to that forma-
tion of the earth which took place on the third day
From this it follows that on the third day the forma
tion of the earth was the main thing rather than tha
of the sea. At all events, there comes here between
the two creative acts a solemn pause resembling a
creative evening. God, as it were, stays his hand,
and holds a special counsel before he goes on with
the work ; whereas he had always, until now, imme-
diately uttered the creative word. The idea of man
becomes the clear decree for L^s creation.— W«

CHAP. I.— n. 3.

172

would (or, We will) make man. — It must not be
read as though it were a rousing of Himself: Let us
make man. But why the plural ? There are various
explanations : 1. The plural is without meaning
^Rosenmiiller, and others); 2. it is a self-challenging
(Tuch) ; 3. the three persons of the Trinity (church-
fathers, Paschasius, and others in the middle ages ;
Calvin, Gerhard, etc.). That the Old Testament
knows nothing of a divine tri-unity, as Knobel will
have it, is not true ; yet the trinitarian idea only un-
folds itself germinally in the Old Testament, and here
it had not yet come to its development. 4. God's
taking counsel with the angels (Targuni of Jonathan,
the Jewish interpreters ; * Delitzsch, with reference to
the Babylonian and Persian myths ; yet the passage
must not be so understood that the angels take part
in the creation except by way of communication;
God communicates to them his resolution). Of an-
gels, however, the text has no trace, and the places
cited by DeUtzsch, Ps. viii. ; Heb. ii. ^ ; Luke xx. 36,
prove nothing. Although the angels are called
spirits and sons of God, yet the Scriptures accurately
distinguish between the angeUc and the human
nature, and there seems to be an impropriety in the
mingling of the divine and the angeHc image. More-
over, from this human creation it is that we have the
first disclosure of the existence of any spirit-world in
general. 6. Pluralis majestaiicus^ or pluralis inten-
sivus (Grotius, Gesenius, Neumann, Knobel). It
must be noted that the plural is carried into the word

• [Among the Jewish interpreters the view of Maimoni-
fles is pecuhar and noteworthy, though it may at fii-at strike
Ufl as strange and irreverent. It is God, he thinks, speaking
to the earth, or rather, to the nature already brought into
being by the previous utterances of the word, and which, in
the commands preceding, had been addressed in the impp.ra-
iive third person : " Let the earth bring forth," etc. Now,
when man is to be made, there is a change to the ^first person
fmperative, that is, nature is addressed more as an associate
than as a servant : " Let us make man," the higher work in
which both co-operate— God directly and sovereignly, nature
mediately and obediently through the divine word. Erom
the one comes h^ body, his physical, from the other his
iiviner life and image. "In regard to the lower animal
\iid vegetable life," says this great critic, philosopher, and
theologian, "the language ("l^X^On , the word) was NSIP
yiJ^n , let the earth bring forth ; but in respect to man it
is changed to H'lIJy D , *let us make man,' that is to say, ' I
and the earth,' — let the latter bring forth his body from the
earthly elements, even as it did in the case of the lower
things that preceded him. For this is the meaning of that
which is written (ch. ii. 7) : * Jehovah Elohim formed man
t^lS^T , see note, p. 164) from the dust of the earth, but he
gave him a spirit from the mouth of the Most High ; * a s it is
written, 'He breathed into man,' etc., and said, moreover,
* in owr image, according to our likeness,' meaning that he
should be like to both, that is, in the composition of his
body a likeness of earth (or nature) from which hn wa«
taken, and in his spirit like to the higher order of being in
that it is incorporeal and immortal. And so i/i what follows,
he says, in the image of God (alone or unassociated) created
lie him, to set forth the wonderful distinction (N^D, the
miracle) by which man is distinguished from the rest of the
creatures; and this is also the interpretation that I have
found given by B-abbi Joseph Kimchi." Maimon. Comm.
ir, locum.

Of all these views the pluralis majeslaticvs has the lenst
support. It is foreign to the usus loquendi of the earliest
language ; it is degrading instead of honoring to Deity, and
A.ben Ezra shows that the few seeming examples brought
from the Hebrew Scriptures, such as Num. xxii. 6 ; Dan. ii.
36, do not bear it out — the latter, moreover, being an Ara-
maic mode of speech. If we depart at all from the patristic
view of an allusion to a plurality of idea in the Deity, the
next best is that of Maimonides. In fact, if we regard
nature as the expression of the divine Word from which it
derives its power and life, the opinion of the Jewish Doctor
approaches the patristic, or the Christian, as near as it could
oome from the Jewish stand-point.— T. L.]

laiab^n (in our image), etc. This appears to go hi\
yond the pluralis majestaticiis^ and to point to th<
germinal view of a distinction in the divine personal!
ty, directly in favor of which is the distinction of
Elohim and Ruah Elohim, or that xj^ God and h*.
Wisdom, as this distinction is made, Prov. viii., with
reference to the creation. Although uhl and niTS'i ,
as well as the particles 2 and 3 , are used promiscu
ously (Knobel, Delitzsch), yet still the double designa-
tion does not serve merely to give a stronger emphasis
to the thought (Knobel), In that case the strongei
expression cba ought to come last, obs is thf
shadow of the figure, the shadow-outlinr, the cop}
and therefore also the idol. miaT is the resem
blance, the comparison, the example, the appearance.
And whilst 3 denotes the near presence of an object,
as in, or witkinj close to or in it, info, whether in a
friendly or a hostile sense, near by, etc., 3 expresses
the relation of similarity or likeness, as as, in sonu
degree, like as, instead of, etc. The former preposi-
tion denotes the norm, the form, mass, number, and
kind of a thing; the latter its relation, similarity,
equality, proportion, in reference to some other thing
According to this, in our image means, after the
principle, or the norm of our image ; but as our like-
ness means, so that it be our likeness. The imag(
denotes the ideal, and therefore also the disposition
the being, the definition ; the Hkeness denotes the
actuality, the appearing. As the likeness of God,
man is set (placed, appointed) ; but the image of God
he is made to become {Jit, f actus est) through his most
interior assimilation, his ideal formative impulse (or
thiit tendem-y that forms him to the idea).'*^ Foi

* ["We have found it difficult to express the thought of
Lange here, and especially to give the force intended in the
German werden. " The image," he says, " is the ideal, di«
Anlage, das Wesen." So Maimonides here calls cbs the
specific form, n"i2i?an n";l2i , the species determining
form, or that which makes a thing inwardly what it is, in
distinction from n^3^*isn H^il^jn, the architectural
form. The manner in which the two words are used would
warrant the interpretation that D?^ (image) is to man what
l^'O is to the vegetable and animal species, or rather, that
in man, as created after this higher idea, the cb^ (image;
IS the ^"^53 (species). This is most important in respect to
the question : in what consists the unity of the human
race? Oneness of physical origin and physical life CT^'2) un-
doubtedly belongs to the idea of species, but in a much
higher sense is this unity conserved by the 05^ i the highoi
species, the one spiritual humanity in all men. It is on
proofs of this, and not on facial angles or length of hoels
that the argument should be built. Of the animals it ia
said, Sins^ub , each one accordiug io his kind. This ia
never said of man, hut instead of it, it is ^DcbS2 , in oui
image. In the next verse it is said God created man
i^absS , "in his image" — that is, God's image, though
some of the Jewish interpreters, as referred to by Abcn
Ezra, would make the pronoun in ilsbS relate to man (hia
image, maw's image), but still that which God had Bpecili-
cally given as his divinely distinguishing idea. So also
in the JlSTDba , owr image, they interpi-et it, the image that
toe have given, as in Gen. vi. S, "Tlill , myapiHt, is the
spirit or life that I have given. So in Ps. civ. 29, 3n:
" Thou gatherest in, cn!)! , their apnif'' — again: " Thoo
sendest forth, TiPlfl'l, thy spirit," the life that thou hast
given. It is the same spirit in both verses.

There is in "j^TD , also, the radical sense of image, as w«
see in the derivative nasiTSn' Ps. xvii. 15, joined, too, with
a pronoun referring to God, TlPS^'On, "thy image." **/

]74

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

the dogmatic treatment of thia, see farther below.
Knobel and Delitzsch, following the Syriac Version,
«re of opinion that P^n (beast) has fallen out before
^■isn (the earth) ; but wherefore should the domin-
ion of man be limited merely to the animal-world ?
Through his lordship can man domesticate the wild
beast; he may also rule over the plant-world, and
over the earth absolutely. This, in its widest accep-
tation, is set forth, vcr. 28. In this divine viceroy-
ship must his possession of the image first reveal
itself; it must be the likeness of his higher and more
intense conformity. — Ver. 27. Very expUcitly is
this divine-imaged nature of man presented in a two-
fold manner along with his creation. — As man and
woman. — Propeily, as male and female created he
them. Rightly does Umbreit remarli : " The lan-
guage here soars to a most concise song of tri-
umph, and we meet, for the first time, with the
parallehsm of members." In three parallel mem-
bers, and therefore in the highest poetical form, does
the narrative celebrate the creation of man. Con-
cerning the derivation of men from one pair, see be-

Bhall be satisfied when I awake, thy likeness." So in a
fearful passage directly the reverse of this, C?2£ seems to he
used lor the had image, or the stamp of the Evil One in
wicked men, as in Ps. Isxiii. 20 : " As a di-eam when one
awaketh, so, O Lord, in the awaking (not "thy awaking,"
for which there is no pronoun and no warrant whatever), in
the great awaking C^^J2), in the arousing (the dies retri-
buiionis), thou ^ult reject their image," n.izn DX3P^ .

In what this image consists, and whether lost, or to what
extent lost, by the fall, are mainly questions of theology
instead of interpretation, but that there is still in man what
in a most important and specific, or constituting, sense, is
called " the image of God," most clearly appears from Gen.
Lx. 6, where it is made the ground in the divine denounce-
ment of the atrocity of mui-der.

The reasons arc strong for interpreting *'raan from the
earth," as we interpret, the fish and the reptile from the
waters. If the formative word ■12J'' is used in the one case,
BO is X"13 , which some regard as the more directly creative,
employed in the other : " And God created the great whales,
and the moving thing which the waters swarmed," that is,
all the marine animals from the greatest to the least. The
one language is no more inconsistent with the idea of a pro-
cess than the other. There is nottjing then to shock us as
anti-scriptural in the thought that man, too, as to his phys-
ical and material, is a product of nature. As such physical
being he has his ■j''^ (physical species), and may he said to
be ^ns^iab , as well as the other animals. But he is also a
metaphysical, a supernatural, a spiritual being, and here it
nay be questioned whether he can be said to be Sni'^Tob .
To describe him in this respect there is used the higher word
DbS , the image, the image of God, in distinction from his
male and female confoi-mations which belong wholly to the
physical. \\g are expressly taught that this latter does not
belong to angels, or any purely spiritual beings. They
have no sex, and it may be doubted whether thoy can
properly he said to have ppecies, unless it may be affirmed
of bad spirits who are greatlv mingled with the physical,
and whose deformed image God despises or rejects, Ps.
Ixxiii. 20. That there is specific variety, or species, among
such may be infeited firora our Saviour's language, Matt.
x\'ii. 21 : " This kind (t6 yeVos) goeth not out but by prayer
and fasting."

The image of Gnd the distinguishing type of man : Hold
fast to this in all its spirituality as the mirror of the eternal
ideas, and we need not fear naturalism. Many in the church
are shivering with alarm at the theories, which are con-
stantly coming from the scientific world, about the origin
of species, and the production of man, or rather the physical
ttit may have become man, through the lower types. The
ciuieting remedy is a higher psychology, such as the fair
interpretation of the Bible warrants, when it tells us that
the primus hrnno became such through the inspiration (the
nbreathing) and the image of God lifting him out of nature,
and making him and all his descendants a peculiar y^'Q
species, by the possession cf the Db;£ or image of the
Eupematural.— T. L.]

low.— Ver. 28. And God blessed them (Drix
tliem, not inis , him, according to the Septuagint
and said to them. — "God blesses, too, the nefl
created man but with two blessings. For beside!
the power of propagation which they have in com-
mon with the beasts (ver. 22), they hold moreover
the dominion over them. The same is enlarged after
the flood." Knobel. " The striving after the rhyth
mical-poetical parallelism presents itself in thes
words ;

and Elohim blessed them,

and Elohim said unto them." Delitzscli.

Yet the blessing sounds hardly " like a summons to the
subjection of hostile powers." The relation of the soul
to the outer world, especially " the feature of self-hood
in all creature-life," was not originally adverse, as is
held by Bellarmin, or even by Zwingli. And thus
is man first pictured to us, and then his calling, to
which it belongs that he must rule his own proper
sensual nature, as he rules all living, or all that is
animal in the earth — the word being taken here in its
most universal sense. The laborer is worthy of his
reward. The ruler of the earth is himself condition-
ed. He needs nourishment, and, therefore (ver. 29),
there is pointed out to him his sustenance. — Behold,
I have given you (Lange's translation: I have
appointed for you). — Together with the nourishment
of man (ver. 29) there is appointed the nourishment
of the beasts (ver. 30). What is common to both
is the appohitment of the use of vegetable food ; the
distinction is that man shall have the use of the herb
with its seed, that is in itself, and of the fruit-tree,
whilst the beast, on the other hand, has the green
of the herb. The meaning of this is, that for man
there is the com (or core) of nature, for the beast
the shell or husk. " According to the Hebrew view,
therefore, men, at first, lived only upon vegetables,
and at a later time there first came in the use of
flesh (ch. ix. 3). The rest of antiquity agreed with
this." Knobel. For the citations from Plato, Plu-
tarch, etc., that belong here, see p. 20. According
to Delitzsch, thia is not a mere view of antiquity,
but farther, he says, " God did not originally will the
violent breaking up of the life of one living thing by
another for the purpose of enjoying its flesh, since
that would be utterly against his clearly expressed
will in their creation." Oerstedt (in his " Spirit in
Nature ") avers " that we have clear proofs that cor-
poreal evil, ruin, sickness, and death, were older than
the fall." Delitzsch characterizes this " as a shout
of triumph which ever becomes clearer in favoring
the grossest materializing atheism." And so also he
says, with A. Wagner (in his " Primitive World "),
that as the body (3' man after his fall underwent an
essential alteration in its material ground, so Uke-
wise there must have gone before an analogous
change and transformation in the animal-world.
We see not how a naturalist can think of s«ch a
transformation of organic nature ; still less how we
can call in question the fact of a death that had
come upon all species of animals before the fall of
Adam, without taking along with it the theosophic
interpretation of the thohu vabhohu as a Golgotha of
the Devil's kingdom. On this supposition, too, it is
not easy to explain the diiTerence of the ca*tle and
the wild creature in our chapter — just as little, too,
the fact that immediately after the fall the skins of
animals are at hand for the clothing of man ; or that
it is the pious Abel who brings the animal sacrifice
to the altar, and not Cain. Again, it will help u*
very little to call in aid, as Delitzsch does, the Brut

CHAP. I— n. 8.

17*

manic and the Buddistic laws, and the Pythagorean
doctrines (p. 125). In truth, there is still a great
ehaam between the tenable supposition that the para-
disaical man put to death no animal, or could do so,
and the arbitrary inference that even within the ani-
mal-world itself everything was so disposed that no
beast even ate another. Moreover, in this view, the
representatioa of death itself is not wholly freed
from the fear of death. The consequence of this
name theory would be, that even an insect that had
once lived could never die. But shall a natural
death, so called, as when an old hind expires from
want of air, or from hunger, be regarded as any
more natural than the death which takes place under
the jaws of the lion ? In this all too gentle repre-
sentation there lacks the heroic power— the spirit
of sacrifice. May one suppose that the first speci-
mens of the beasts had not been disorganized like
the later animal, and that they did not experience
any important transformations, still a literal change
of a grass-eating into a flesh-eating lion must be re-
garded as a radioal transformation. As for the rest,
our text denotes oidy the basis of the law of nourish-
ment for the animal existence, and this basis is for
man the fruit, the herb, the grain, for the cattle the
pasturage and the fodder. In indulging our idealiz-
mg view of the primitive world, that it was wholly
without death, we should not overlook the fact that
it was an ill habit of the old heathenism, in its view
of the world, to confound sin with death, or even
with the natural unfolding of life. Thus the poems
that Kuobel too makes mention of, and according to
which even the ravenous beasts originally lived upon
vegetable food.— Ver. 31. And, behold, it was
very good. — At the seventh time it is said not
merely good, but very good, because in man the key-
stone of creation is reached. The possibilities of the
ruin of man and of the world are for the pure para-
disaical state cur(B posteriores, just as the destinies
of manhood are for the thinking of the child. For
the theosophic view, the undivine lay only bound
under the new order of things. That in general the
demoniac evil was already in the world is not denied,
but the six days' work, taken as the world in gen-
eral, or as God had made it, was very good, that is,
perfect ; Kilff/ios, KaWiaroy (Thales).*

• [IXia tn'13 : **Good exceedingly." It would seem to
be not merely a benediction, but an expression of admira-
tion, as we may say without any fear of the anthropopa-
thiBm— eugrejftewe, prieclarel It suggests a declaration m the
Timceus of Plato so remarkable that it is no wonder that
some should have regarded it as a traditional echo of this
old account. At the completion of the great cosmical ^Moy,
the animated universe, with its body and soul (its nature),
both of which Plato represents as the work of God, He (God)
beholds it moving on in its beautiful constancy, an image
of the eternal powers, or ideas. At the sight of this the
everlasting Father (6 ai'Sio? Trarrjp) is filled with joy and
admiration, ev^pafdei^ riyaadri — the strongest term to express
such an emotion tliat could be found in the Greek language,
aya^ai, ayaofiai. There seems, too, to be implied in both
expressions, the Hebrew and the Greek, the emotion of love,
and this, as it were, reciprocal — the kosmos responding and
moving on through a principle of attraction rather than of
projection, or outward mechanical force. Ktrei ciis eoMfievov,
fte moves it (or, it moves it) as being loved ; such are the words
of Aristotle (Metaph. xi. (xii.) c. 7), describing the first
principle of motion in the heavens as it proceeds from the
First Mover. This language is truly wonderful in itself^
and all the more so when we consider its author, the dry
tmd rigid Aristotle, the lumen siccum, or pure abstract intel-
lect, as he has been called. Nature, the kosmos, moving on
through love of the First Fair and the First liooi— drawn,
rather than impelled— it has a Platonic richness of concep-
hon which seems strange in the more pnrely logical writer.
Of both, however, it may be said that they produce less im-
oroRsion upon us than the pure grandeiur and simplicity of

12. Ch. ii. 1-S. The Divine Sabbath. Ver. 1.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished

— A solemn retrospect introducing the sabbath of
God. — And all their host. — A concrete denoting
of the universe from the predominant terrestrial
stand-point. The host has reference to the heaven,
so far, at all events, as the stars are meant. As tht
host of the earth, however, denotes its inhabitant!
(Ii. xxxiv. 2), so the thought, moreover, gives an
intimation of the inhabitants of the heaven. " The
passage in the book of Nehemiah (ch. ix. 6) that
treats of the creation supposes correctly that in the
host of heaven (Xr^) the angels are included."
Delitzsch. When he says farther : " The stars, ac-
cording to the more ancient representation (Babylo-
nian, Assyrian, Persian) are set forth as a host for
battle, or that together with the angels they are as-
signed a portion in the conflict of light with darkness
whose theatre is the earth created within the sur-
rounding sphere of the luminous heavenly bodies," —
all such remarks may be taken as Parsic rather than
purely Biblical.* — Ver. 2. And on the seventh
day God ended His work. — The difficulty that
arises from the mention here of a completion of
God's work on the seventh day, as before it seemed
to have been on the sixth, has given occasion to the
Septuagint, the Syriao, and many exegetes to put
the sixth day in place of the seventh. Others (Cal-
vin, Drusius, etc.) have read t3";i as pluperfect (had
finished) contrary to the grammar. Knobel explains
the word with Tuch and others : God let it come to
an end ou that day. Delitzsch in a similar manner.
Richers wrongly places a completion of the creation
on the seventh day. Kurtz speaks of a heptsemeron.

the Bible language ; " And God beheld everything that He
had made, and, lo, it was good, exceeding good." With all
the splendor of Plato's language in the Timeeus, there ia
still lurking about it his besetting inconsistency — the
thought of something evil, eternal in itself, and inseparable
from matter and from nature.

It may be said, too, that this great problem of evil seems
to haunt some of our best commentators in their exegesis of
this passage. They find here an implied reference to future
evil. All is yet good, they would have it to mean, and so
they regard it as a Verviahrung, or defence of God against
the authorship of evil. See Delitzsch, p. 126. But this
mars the glory of the passage. It is simply a burst of ad-
miration and benediction called out by the Creator's sur-
veying His works. The anthropopathism is for us its power
and its beauty, which are lessened by any such supposed
hint or protestation. — T. L.]

* ["We get the best order of senses in the root N3S and
its cognate ri3S , by regarding, as the primaiy, the idea
of splendor, or glory, as it remains in the noun i!lS . See
its use. Is. iv. 2, where it seems synonymous with 1133 ,
Is. xiii. 19, and a number of other places. The secondary
sense of host, orderly military array <comp. Canticles vl.
10), comes very easily and naturally from it. Or we may
say that along with the idea of hosts, as in the frequent
niX3iC ni(T^ , Jehovah of hosts, it never loses the primary
conception. " Thus the earth and the heavens were finish-
ed and all their glory," or their glorious array. Compare

the Syriac "Lh^ , , decMS, ornamentum, where the servile

tau has become radical. The LXX. and Vulgate transla-
tors seem to have had something of this idea : was 6 k6(t[j.o%
ainiav — omnis ornatus eorum. There is a grand significance
in the Greek koo-/ios and Latin mundus as thus used for the
world or the array (artistic unity) of the worlds. N3S
is the Hebrew for koctjiao;, and thus there is a most sublime
parallelism presented by its two expressions : DlXS^f mn^
and 0^'Qb'V 7ifi^^_ — Lord of the worlds in space, King of th€
worlds in time : patriAev? rwr aiu}voiv, Fs. cxlv. 13 ; Is. xxvi
4 ; 1 Tim. i. 17. The Hebrew far transcends the Greek.-
T. L.]

176

GENESIS. OB THE FIRST BOOK OK MOSES.

It seems to us, however, that the rest of God does
not denote a remaining inactive merely, or a doing
nothing. The pei-fecting of the worls; on the seventh
is likewise sometliing positive: namely, that God
celebrated His work (kept a holy day of solemn tri-
umph over it) and blessed the sabbath. To cele-
brate^ to hless^ to consecrate, is the finishing sabbath-
work — a hving, active, priestly doing, and not merely
a laying aside of action. "The Father worketh
hitherto," says Christ in relation to His healings on
the sabbath (John v. 17). The doing of God in
respect to the completed creation is of a festive kind
(solemn, stately, holy), a directing of motion and of
an unfolding of things now governed by law, in con-
trast with that work of God which was reflected in
the pressure of a stormy development, and in the
great revolutions and epochs of the earth's formation.
"His nsN^B (His work) was the completion of a
task which He had proposed." Delitzsch. God
rests * now and triumphs in that last finish of His

* ["Tlie Scriptures," says Belitasch in his comment on
nSU^I , p. 129, "do not hesitate to speak anthropopathi-
cally of God's entrance into rest." As far as the word n31^
is concerned, there is no anthropathism here except as all
human lang^uage, and all humiin conception, in respect to
I>eity, is necessarily such — tliat is, necessarily representing
him in space and time. The primary sense of the word
nnm is simply to cease, cease doing — as the LXX. render it,
KaTeVavcre — not dj-eVaucre which carries the idea of recrea-
tion or refreshment after fatigue, like a»'ai/;v;(i»>, or the He-
brew Niphal 053"^ • When joined with this latter verb, as
in Exod. xxxi. 17, the whole language may be called anthro-
popathic, but the added word shows that the idea expressed
by it is not m the first. If ceasiug from creation, wholly or
parliaUy, implies mutability, it is no less implied in the
emanation-theory, unless we suxjpose an emanation, or
necessary creation, of every possible thing, everijwhere,
always, and of the highest degree — in other words, an
unceasing and unvaried filling of infinite space and infi-
nite time with infinite perfeclion of manifestation. But
waiving all such inconceivable subtleties, it may be truly
said that res/, of itself, is a higher and more perfect state
than outward action — if we may speak of anything ae
higher and lower in respect to God. Rest Is not inertia.
Hest in physics is the equilibrium of power, and so the
maximum of power (re-sto, re-sisto). Motion is the yielding,
or letting out, of power, necessary, indeed, for its manifesta-
tion or patent effect, yet still a dispersing or spending of
that static energy which was in the quiescence. Absolute
rest in the kosmos (the bringing it into, or keeping it in,
that state) would be the highest exercise of the divine
might ; but as it would preclude all sensation, and all sen-
tiency, both of which are inseparable from change or motion
of some kind, it would be an absence of all outward mani-
festation; that is, it would be non-phenomenal or non-
appear ng. So also rest is the highest power (activity) of
mind or spuit, and thus its highest state. This is Aristotle's
dictum, Ethic. Nichomach. x. 8, 7 : ij reAeia euSatjuLorta
SetopriTLKji Ti? iarlv ece'pyeia, '* the perfect blessedness is a
contemp ative energy ; " "so that (sec. 8) that energy of God
which excels all in blessedness must be contemplative (or
theoretical), and, of human things, that which is most akin
to this must be most blessed " ievSaifiofiKuiraTr]). In this
way, too, may we strive to obtain a conception of the sab-
bath or "resi of the saints." The Scripture thought of this
would seem to be as much opposed to torpor or inertia, on
the one hand, as it is, on the other, to that busy doing
which enters so much into some modern conceptions of the
future life. They that believe have entered into rest.
There can be no doubt, too, that the idea of holy contem-
plation, or sabbath-keeping in the festal sense of the word,
on which Lange so much insists, enters into the idea of nnilJ
herein Genesis, although derived, perhaps, from its subsc-
quent use. In this sense, there is somelhing of a sabbath
whenever there come the words: ttnd God saai (surveyed,
contemplated), "saw that it was good." It is a solemn
pausing to behold the divine ideas m their outward appear-
ing—not as a change in Beity, as though with him this took
place at intervals, but as a presentation, for the time, of that
constant, immutable aspect of the divine character as it
oomes forth at intervals for us. This eternal rest of God is
the sun ever shining calmly above the clouds, yet now and
then revealing itself through them as they bre^ away over

work, the paradisaical man ; God's great festival ii
reflected in Adam's holy-day. In accordance with
his supposition that the creative days were not num-
bered from evening to morning, out in the contrary
order (which is opposed to the text), Delitzsch holds
that not the evening of the sixth day, but the morn-
ing of the seventh, was the real beginning of the
sabbath (p. 127). But the evening of the sixth day
lies back before the sixth dty, whilst of an evening
and a morning of the seventh day there is no men-
tion at all. Had we taken the creative days as peri
ods generally, or the evenings as merely remissioM
of the creative activity, the question about the even
ing and the morning of the seventh day would have
had no right sense. If we truly take the evenings
as denoting creative crises, then may it be asked:
did not a crisis foUow upon the creation of Adam ?
and this may we find intimated (ch. il 21) in the
deep sleep of Adam. Still must we suppose that the
completion of Adam's creation took place towards
the evening or decline of the sixth day. — Ver. 3.
And God blessed the seventli day. — The bless-
ing of the seventh day may of itself denote primarily
that it was appointed for rest and re-creation, "which
is a blessing for the laboring man and beast (Exod.
XX. 10; Dent. v. 14)." But the earlier blessings
say ; Be ye I'ruitful and multiply, and to bless means
to wish for, and to promise one infinite multiplica-
tions in the course of hfe, as to curse means to wish
for one an infinite multiphcation of evil — that is, to
imprecate, or pray against him. The blessing of the
sabbath must consist in this, that it gives birth to all
the festivals (or rests) of God, and all the festivals
of men — that it endlessly propagates itself as a
heavenly nature above the self-propagating earthly
nature, until it has become an everlasting sabbath
Its most distinct birth is the New Testament Sunday
But this Sunday must mediate the heavenly Sunday.
" It makes it to be an inexhaustible fountain of
re-creation " (or new Mfe). Delitzsch. — And hal-
lo-wed it. — To hallow is to take an object out of its
worldly relation, and to devote it to God. There is,
indeed, nothing before us here of a worldly relation
in a profane sense, and so far can the negative force
here have no place in the hallowing. Without
doubt, however, the contrast is this ; he withdraws
it from labor for the sake of the world, and estab-
lishes it as the festival for God. In six days' work
had God condescended and given Himself up to live
for the world ; on the sabbath. He ordains that the
world must live for God. He blessed and hallowed
ii, because He rested therein — that is. He appointed
His own rest, as a ground and rule for the rest of
man, and of the creatures, on the seventh day (see
Exod. XX. 11 ; xxxi. 17). "According to the author
God made this appointment at the creation, but He
leaves its execution to a time after Moses, when, m
the desert of Sin, He practically leads Israel to the
festival of the seventh day, and thereupon makes
publication of the law of the sabbath on Sinai (Exod.
xxxi. 12 ; XXXV. 1). Tliere is nothing known of any
observation of the sabbath before the time of Moses."

our changing world of nature and of time. It is snch a time-
less sabbath that is intended by Rabbi Simeon, as quoted by
Easchi in his oomment. on the words seventh day. Gen. il.
2 : " Plesh and blood has need to add the common to th€
holy time (to reckon them by passing intervals) hut to the
Holy One, blessed be He, it is as the thread that hinds the
hair, and all days appear as ore." Compare it with th<
Di«nn 11-1* , "the bundle of life," or lives, 1 Sam. ixT
29, and which is so often referred to by the Bahbimcal wri
tcrs.— T. I/.]

OHAP. I.— n. 3.

IT

Enobel. This holds good only of the legal establish-
ment of the sabbath, for the custom of keeping a
day of rest was not confined to the Jews only. Con-
cerning the name naB , which the creative account
does not contain, see Delitzsch, p. 130. Deriva-
tions: 1. From ^nsp, an old name of Saturn; 2.
from ns2\I! (piSSUJ), the seventh day (Lactantius) ;
8. contracted from nnSttS , the time of holy rest,
which is the most likely. — ^Which He had created
and made (marginal reading in English Bible:
created to make). Grammatically the infinitive
eonstruct niffiSb is rendered by the Latin faciendo.
Still the explanation : which God being active (that is,
by doing, or by an effort) had created, would be quite
idle, were it not that one would find in the language
the recognition of an antithesis to the doctrines of
emanation, or generally, to the supposed henthenish
pathological and fatalistic modes of creation. De-
litzsch thus modifies the /acJentZo (or n'iiusb); the
creating is fundamental, whilst the making, or the
forming, is consequential. Then there would be de-
noted thereby the continuing of the divine activity
beyond the time of the creative wo."k.* In respect
to the four verses that foUow, which Delitzsch, too,
as well as Ewnld and others, would make the sub-
scription of the previous section, not the superscrip-
tion of the one that follows (as Tuch, De Wette, and
others), compare Delitzsch, p. 133. Knobel says
(p. 7): "The Elohist has a superscription before
every principal section in Genesis, and so mucli the
more must he have had such a superscription placed
befoi'e his iirst narration." Ilgen, Pott, and Schu-
mann have rightly found the same (ch. ii. 4) in the
words : " these are the origines of the heaven and
the earth," etc. The word tholedoth, then, must
have suffered a misplacement. According to De-
litzsch it is a closing formula. We hold it to be the
superscription to what follows, because the word
tholedoth must otherwise have regularly preceded,
and because our text regards the tholedoth, or gen-
erations of the heavens and the earth, as conditioned
in its principles through the creation of the earth
and the heavens — that is, the earth, and especially
Adam as the principial ■!■ point of view for the
whole.

DOCTEINAL AND ETHICAIi.t

1. The contrast which is at once drawn between
heaven and earth, and whose symbolical significance
cannot be ignored, proves, in the first place, that the
whole period before us, from ch. i.-xii., is to be con-

* [The simplest rendering of the Hetrew here would
give the easiest and the plainest sense. It is that presented
in our marginal reading, taking miUTp , not as a gerund
ifaciendo), but literally, as an infinitive of purpose : vihich
God had created to make. It suggests nearly the distinction
given by Delitzseh between the fundamental and that which
follows — the ground-laying and the finishing, the material-
gathering and the architectural arrangement of the struc-
ture. So the Vulgate : Quod Deus creavit ut faceret, and
Onkelos: ISi'sb •'"' N13 1T .— T. L.]

t [This word is not to be found in any English dictiona-
ry, but we are compelled to Latinize here, and form a word,
from principium principia, to correspond to Lange'sword
prinzipielle. Our " principal " is too vague, and used in too
many senses, to answer the purpose. — T. L.]

i With respect to dogmatical literature on the account
of the Creation, examine Bbetschneidek : "Systematical
Developmeiik of Dogmatic Ideas," p. 450.

12

sidered under the point of view of the history of pri
metal religion. Secondly, the constitution of man is
the image of God, the history of Adam, of Abel, of
the Sethites, etc. ; and, further, the contrast openly
appearing at the close of this section between tha
uniting and separating of the peoples on the one hind
and the budding theocracy on the other. Thiidly,
all periods lying in the middle between these two
extreme points. Within this section, which presents
the contrast between the primeval religion and the
patriarchal religion of Abraham, now appear individ-
ual contrasts : 1. The contrast between the para-
dise-world and the sin-world ; 2. the contrast between
the anomism of the human race before the flood, and
the heathenism of man after the flood. And to these
add the more special contrasts which are to be
brought out by the separate sections.

The primitive religion is to be distinguished from
the religion of Abraham by the following points :
1. In the primitive religion, the symboUcal sign ia
first, and the word second ; in the patriarchal religion,
the word of God is first, and the symbolical sign ia
second. (See Gen. xii. 1, 7.) 2. In the primitive
religion the continuance of the living faith in God is
sporadic. This, it is true, is in connection with
genealogical relations (Seth, Noah, Shem), as the
appearance of Melohisedek especially proves (comp.
Heb. vii. 3) ; and, as a gradually fading twilight, it
goes on through the times until the days of Abra-
ham, forming continually, as natural religion, the
background of all the heathenism of humanity. The
faith of Abraham, on the contrary, forms with the
patriarchal religion a genealogical and historical se-
quence. The aurora of the morning in Abraham
contrasts with the twilight of the evening in Melohis-
edek. Melchisedek looks, with the faithful of the
heathen world, back to the lost Paradise ; Abraham
looks forward to the future city of God — his rehgion
is the rehgion of the future. 3. The symbolical prim-
itive religion is yet, in its exterior, overgrown with
mythological heathendom. While it forms the bright
side of the primal religious world, its dark side
arises from the mythologizing of the symbols (Rom.
i. 19-23). With the patriarchal religion, however,
the contrast between the theocratic faith and hea-
thendom has become fixed. 4. With the historic
form of this contrast, it is at the same time conclu-
sive that heathendom maintains its relative light side
in the history of humanism, and the theocratic popu-
lar liLstory its relative dark side, which increases to
the rejection of the Messiah and the death on the
cross. The material development of salvation among
the Jews, and the formal development of the human
form of salvation among the heathen (Greeks and
Romans), are for each other, just as the evil tendencies
of heathendom and Judaism unite with each other in
the crucifying of Christ.

2. Within our division appears the beautiful con-
trast that the creation of the world is once represent-
ed in the genetic order as an ascending development
of life, so that man seems the aim (reAos) of all
things; then, from chs. ii., iii., onward, mprmcipia4
order, according to which man, as a divine idea, ia
the principle with which, and for which, the world,
and especially Paradise, was created. The first vie'*
is universalistic, and hence Mohisiic ; the latter is tlie-
ocratic, and hence Jeliovistic.

3. Tlie form of the account of the creation: re-
ligious symbolical chronicle ; its source : a reveaiea
word or image effected- by tlie vision of a prophecT
looking backwards (see Introduction). The objectioua

178

GENESIS, OE THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

»f Delitzsch against the mediation of the knowledge
of creation to men through divine revelation in hu-
man vision (see 79 sqq.), rest on a want of apprecia-
tion of the scriptural idea of vision, as already indi-
"^ated. Delitzsch, with the more ancient catholic
lupernaturalism, explains our account from a divine
teaching, which is defined as the interposing voice of
the Spirit of God, and the guidance, through it, of
man's own spirit. To this ultra-supernaturalistic
view of Delitzsch and Keil is opposed the rationalistic
one of Hofmaim, namelj^ that the account of the cre-
ation is the transposed ir;pression in history whTch the
world made on the first-created man reflecting on its
origin. To the purely historical conception of a
wonderfully preserved or regenerated (Delitzsch) tra-
dition of revelation or legend, is contrasted the myth-
ical conception in various forms, effected through
the allegorical interpretation of Philo ; which is fol-
lowed by many church Fathers, and by Herder in his
adoption of a parabolic hieroglyphic, o. Moral myth
as a ground for the commandment of the sabbath
(Paulus). 6. Philosophical myth, especially the nat-
ural philosophical (Eichhorn and others). We have
already shown In the Introduction why we cannot
join in either the purely historical or the mythical
view, but must insist on the specific of a religious
symbolical history. The vision might be designated
as intuition, in so far as we carry back the respective
knowledge to the unfallen man.

4. In our section the world is represented accord-
ing to its four different relations : 1. As creation ; 2.
as nature ; 3. as cosmos ; 4. as seon (see Lange's
"Dogmatics," p. 222 sqq.). The idea o/creaiion is ex-
pressed by the word X13, as well as by the going
forth ten times of the Omnific Word of God. God
said, " Let there be, and there was." The ac-
count of nature, 1. through the great contrasts,
separations, and combinations : heaven and earth,
darkness and light, atmospheric waters and terres-
trial waters, firmament and terra firma, land and
water, sky and earth. 2. Through the designation
of plants, that they should bear seed, each according
to its kind. 3. Through the blessing on animals :
be fruitful and multiply, and the distinction of vari-
ous kinds of animals, as also finally the blessing on
men. 4. Through the relation of the various crea-
tures to the sphere of birth or life corresponding to
them (especially water and earth), through their
coming forth from these spheres at the creating
word. Especially belong here the picturesque ex-
pressions: Thohu, Vabhohu. — N^TT j'l.xn KB^n

— '"^l ?■'■??? ^i^?? — ""'B. ^^!^ ■'■?B ys, — ■fitii

ttia-in. 5. The six days' work itself.— The idea of
the cosmos. It appears distinctly m all the solemn
pauses of the creative work, as they are marked with
the sevenfold repetition of the words : and God saw
that it was good. The celebration of the sabbath
also belongs here, as it points back to the beautiful
completion of the universe. — But the idea of the aeon
appears with the fact that man is made the end and
aim of all days of creation, by which it is clearly pro-
nounced that he is the real principle in which the
world and its origin is comprehended. The history
of the earth is thus made the lifetime of humanity.
Its profoundest principle of development and meas-
ure of tiiue is the support of man.

6. The Creation. — On the dogmaiic doctrine of
the Croat on, see Hase,. Hutter, Habn: "Doctrine

of Faith," and Lanoe's " Positive Dogmatics." Here
comes especially into consideration 1 . the relation of th«
doctrine of the creation to the Logos, John i. 1-3.
The first verse of Genesis clearly forms the ground
presupposed in that passage, God spake ; through Hi'
word He created the world, says Genesis ; His woro
is a personal divine life, says John, and the New
Testament in general, especially Col. i. 15-19 ; ch.
ii. 3-9. According to Genesis everything is created
through the idea of man in the image of God
with a view to this man; according to the New
Testament it is through the idea of Christ, who i>
the principal of humanity, with a view to Christ. An
Adam was the principle of the creation, so is Chiifi
the principle of humanity. Therefore it reads :
" God hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world " (Eph. i. 4 ; comp. John xvii. 5). The
creation is, in its most essential point, the production
of the eternal God-Man in the eternal to-day. In
man nature has passed beyond itself, from the relative,
symbolical independence, to the perfected and real, to
freedom ; it has in him the mediator of its redemp-
tion, of its glorification. The beautiful cosmos, this
unity of all varieties, which combines in it an endless
complex of unities, to the production of external
harmony and beauty, has, in Christ, the most beau-
tiful of the children of men, its middle point, the
centre of its ideal beauty. Finally, the first seen,
which is fixed by the life of Adam, has for its con
its root, and its aim, the second ason fixed by Christ.

2. The relation to the Holy Ghost. The spirit
is the living, self-impelling unity of spiritual life, the
breath of tlie soul, as the wind forms the spirit of the
earth, the vital, ever-active unity of its varieties. The
Spirit of God hovering over the waters, is the divine,
creative, living unity, which rules over the ferment-
ing process of the Thohu Vabhohu ; hence, as the
peripheral principle of formation (at one with the
central principle of formation, the Logos), it effectu-
ates the separations and the combinations by which
the formation of the earth is determmed. In the
New Testament, however, it appears in its personal
strength, as the unity of all works of revelation of
the Father and the Son, and as the absolute, spiritual
principle of formation which effects the glorification
of the world through the separation of the ungodly
and the godly, and through the combination of every-
thing godly in the church and the kingdom of God.

3. The relation of the creation to the Divine Be-
ing. In the creation, God appears as the creator,
who calls forth things as out of nothing. But from
the genesis out of the pure nothing, are distinguished
the creative things as proceeding from the life or
breath of the creator's word, with which they come
forth into existence (Ps. civ. 3n) ; and finally man
stands complete with the features of divine affinity,
proceeding from the thought of His heart, from His
cotmsel, as created in His image, and intended to be
His visible administrator on earth. In the New
Testament, however, the paternal feature of the
Divine Being has unvailed itself as a paternity, from
which all paternity in heaven and on earth proceeds,
but which, in the most special sense, refers to Christ,
the image of the Divine Being. By the relation of
the work of creation to the coming Christ, tlie whole
creation becomes an advance representation, a sym-
bol of Christ in a series of symbojcal degrees, of
which each represents in advance the next following
one. Through the relation of Christ to the Father,
the whole creation receives the mark of the human,
especially of revelation, or of the wonderful (as de

CHAP. I.- a. 8.

178

noted by the lion), of resignation, or of sacrifice
(as denoted by the ox), and of the reflection of light,
that is, the idea (as denoted by the eagle).* But the
spirit, as the unitary life of the revelation of the
Father and of the Son, is reflected as creative wis-
dom in all creative movements of the world, and,
indeed, in the fundamental forms of separation
and combination, of centrifugal and centripetal
force, of repelling and attracting operations. — The
account of the creation. Gen. ch. L, is not a dogma
of the trinity of God ; the completed creation, how-
ever, as a work of God and Revelation, is a mirror
of the trinity, and a prophecy of the revelation of
its future (see Lange's " Positive Dogmatics," p. 206
ff. 4. The relation of the creation to revelation.
The most general sphere of the revelation of God,
that which forms the basis of all future revelations,
is the creation of heaven and earth as the objec-
tive revelation of God, which corresponds with the
subjective revelation of God in his image, man.
6. The relation of the doctrine of the creation to
the heathen and post>heathen view of the world.
It denies polytheism, for the creator of all things
appears as the only one, and if his name stands in the
plural (Elohim), the element of truth in polytheism
(in contrast to Judaism) is therewith recognized,
namely, the variety of the revelation of the one God
in the variety of his strength, works, and signs, and
the variety of the impressions which he thereby pro-
duces.

It denies pantheism, for God distinguishes himself
by his creation of the world ; he creates the world
through his conscious word, consequently freely, and
stands in personal completion before his work and
over it, so that the world is neither to be regarded
as an emanation of his divine being, nor especially
as a metamorphosis of the divine being, (the second
form of it,) or, vice versa, God as the emanation of
the world. But it emphasizes also the true in pan-
theism (in contrast to deism) : the animating omni-
presence and revelation of God in the world, with his
creating word, with his spirit hovering over the form-
ation of the world, with his image in the dispositions
and destination of man. It denies dualism, for God
appears as the creator of all things directly. He is also
the originator of the Thohu Vabhohu of fermenting ele-
ments; he finds in the creation no blame, and, at
the end of the sixth day, everything is very good.
The true in dualism is, however, also retained (against
fatalism), namely, the contrast between the materials
and the formative power, between the natural degrees

* [For this thought of Lange, which Eome might regard
as pure fancy, there is an etymological ground in the He-
brew language. The words for light, and for the motions
of light, have a close aflfinity to those for Jlying, compare
C]ir , volare, r|S'13', vihrare, ,1B'^3? rendered lenehrx, but
which strictly means the earliest twilight or twinkling of the
morning, and that beautiful word, inUJ "^ByES , j>alpebrm
aurorse. Job iii 9 ; xli. 10 — ^^epa? p\e<papov. Soph. Antig.
103, " the eye-lids," the opening wing " of the morning."
Compare also XSJ , volavit, Jer. xlviii. 9, and ViC3 , splen-
duit, micavit, shone, glistened, glimmered, y^ , a flower, etc.
It is something more than a mere poetical image when we
tpoak of light as having wings, especially as the conception
IB applied to the faint gleaming, gUimnenng, Jiuttering, we
may say, just waving up out of the darkness. How natural
the order of the images : to fly, flutter, palpitate, vibrate,
fluiver, twinkle, glimmer, gleam, shine. Comp. Engl. : fly,
hare, flash ; Latin : volo Cvolito), Jio, JUire, flamha. So
Ipiritually, id&i and rejUction support the same analogy.
It may be the piorcing eye of the eagle that represents tho
idea, but the other view has the best philological grounds.
-T. L.1

and the natural principles, between nature and spirit
But the doctrine of creation denies much more th(
antichristian polytheism, that is, atomism, even tf
its most modem form of materialism, as such mate
rialism rejects not only the truth of the spirit, of
personal life, of the Godhead, of the immortality of
the soul, and of liberty, consequently all ethical prin
ciples, but also the physical principia of crystal form-
ation, of the formation of plants and animals. Ic
does this by making matter regarded as devoid of al
visibility, and in so far thoroughly hypothetical and
abstract, or rather the infinity of feigned abstract
substances (with which the Thohu Vabhohu, as a
living fermentation of appearing elements, is not to
be confounded), the sole God-resembling factor of all
phenomena of life, such phenomena consisting of two
classes, of which the physical and abstract spiritual
is to be in accordance with the play of matter, the
ethical, on the contrary, a bare appearance, having
no conceivable or comprehensible reality. The living
God here stands in contrast with the multitude of
these dark idols of a feigned deity, and he places
opposite the subordinate elements of life the super-
ordinate vital principles, which give the elements
their cosmical form, whilst over all he places the
ruler man, with his godlike, spiritual nature.

The only thing that endures as an element of
truth in materialism is the infinite and subtle con-
formity to law that is found in material things, a fact
which spiritualism nowadays far too much disre-
gards. The doctrine of creation also denies with
increased emphasis the intensified pantheism, i. e.,
the most modern pantheism as opposed to personal-
ity— the pantheism which makes everything proceed
from an impersonal thought, in order to let every-
thing again disappear through continual metamor-
phoses (morphologism) in impersonal thoughts ; for
the scriptural doctrine makes all thoughts of crear
tion proceed from an unconditioned personality, pass
through fixed forms, and culminate in a conditioned
personality. The truth that lies in such self-deifica-
tion is recognized in this, that all works of the abso-
lute thinking are themselves thoughts. He Kas
spoken thoughts which have become works of crea-
tion. Finally, it denies the dynamical dualism (or
the dualism of power), i. e., that hierarchical abso-
lutism which holds as evil not only the material
world, but still more the entire realm of spirit and
spiritual life regarded as something to be controlled
with infinite care, and with the infinite art and power
of an abstract authority ; for it testifies for the word
of God as immanent in the world, and thereby holds
fast the element of truth in that hierarchism, accord-
ing to which the spirit of God hovers over the waters,
and man as the admini.strator of God is commanded,
with reference to all animal life in the world : Rulo
over them, and make them subject to you.

At the very first verse and word of Genesis, i.
clearly steps over that impure sink of dualism beyond
which the entire heathen and philosophical view of
the world could never go. It does this, by contrast-
ing God in his eternal self-perfection to the creation
which arose with time. The doctrine of the creaticn
is the first act of revelation and of faith in the history
of the kingdom of God. It would lead too far, should
we attempt to show how the three heathen errors of
religion are ever present with each other, although al
one time polytheism, at one tune pantheism, and a'
another time dualism, prevails. We make this observ
ation, however, to indicate thereby that we do not
ignore the pantheistic basis of Gnosticism, even wher

180

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

It plays with polytheism, since we present it accord-
ing to its prevailing characteristic as dualism. But
not only are the coarse ground-forms of the ancient
4nd modem darkening of the doctrine of the creation
to be judged by the tirst chapter of Genesis, but also
the more subtle, Christianly modified forms, as, on
the one hand, they present themselves in Gnosticism,
(with which we also reckon Manichaeism and its later
ahoots, extending to our time : Priscillianism, Paul-
fcianism, Bogomiles, Albigenses, duahstic theosopha
of Jacob Bohm), and, on the other hand, in Ebion-
itism, as it has found its continuation in the later
Monarchianism, and still more modern deism. The
Gnostics ground their opposition to the Old Testament
on a paganistic misinterpretation of the New, and
thus they may be ranged according to their more or
less hostile attitude to the Old Testament, and as
representing various heathenish views of the world
which, after the manner of old Palimpsests, placed one
upon the other, appear through the overlying Chris-
tianity. Among sueh Palimpsests, on which a form
of Christianity has been overwritten, may be reckoned
the Samaritan (Simon Magus), Syrian (Saturninus,
etc.), Alexandrian (Basilides), old-Egyptian (Ophiten),
Hellenic (Karpocrates), Pontq-Asiatic (Marcion), and
Persian Gnostics (Manes). Finally, in Mohammed,
the Arabian Gnosticism and Ebionitism ran together,
as the again broken forms of Subordinatianism and
Monarchianism ran together in Arianism. Through
the manifold modifications which Christian dualism
experienced immediately, and especially in the course
of time, one must not be led astray in respect to the
unity of the genus. Just so, pure Ebionitism, whose
naked image is Jewish Talmudism (as it is to be rec-
ognized throughout by its oblique position to the New
Testament and the New Testament elements in the
Old), has passed through various mutations whose
ground-thought remains the same : namely, a fatal-
istic, eternalized, ontological divorcement between
God and the world, through the law of religion or
nature, whether the form of the change be called
deism, naturahsm, or rationalism. And, finally, the
mixed form of gnostic Ebionitism, which was prepared
through the Alexandrian system of Philo, and whose
naked image is the Jewish Kabbala, has remained
unchanged, through all mutations, in its ground-
thoughts, whether they appear as Montanism, Douat-
ism, or pseudo-Oionysian, mediaeval and modern ultra-
'upernaturaUsm, as inflexible baptismism, or yielding
opiritualism. Together with the true difference be-
tween God and the world, the doctrine of creation
expresses also the true combination between both,
and finds the hving mediation of this contrast in the
man created in the image of God ; whereas, dualism
makes the difference a separation, while pantheism
makes the combination a mixture, and the still ob-
servable, polytheistic reminiscence in Christendom
vacillates, in its love of fables, between creature
deification and creature demonizing.

6. The relation of the temporal creation to the
eternity of God. It is quite as wrong to transfer
gnostically the origin of the real world to the eternity
of God, to fix the existence of God according to
theogony by speaking of a becoming of God, or of an
obscure basis in God (Bohm), or of an origin of the
material contemporary with the self-affirmation of
God (Rothe), as it is to declare, with scholastic super-
oaturahsm, that God indeed might have left the
world uncreated. Against the first view, there is the
declaration that the world had a beginning, which,
a little farther on, is fixed as the beginning of time.

Against the latter, there is the declaration that God
chose believing humanity from eternity in Chrisi, a?
it is also indicated in our text, by the decree of God
at the creation of man, and by the image of God
TDie w<yrld rests therefore, as an actual and tempora,
world, on an eternal ideal ground.* Its ideal prepa-
ration is eternal, but its genesis is temporal, for it ii
conditioned by the gradual growing, and the beauti
ful rhythm of growth is time.

1. In the significant number ten, the number of
actual historical completion, the account is repeated .
God said. Let there be, and there was. The speak-
ing of God now certainly indicates the thinking of
God, and it thence follows that all works of creation
are thoughts of God (ideahsm). But it indicates also
a will, making himself externally known, an active
operation of God, and thence it follows that all ths
works of creation are deeds of God (realism). Both,
however, thinking and operating, are one in the di-
vine speaking, the primal source of all language, hia
personally making himself known, although we can.
not bring up the thought of this speaking to the con-
ception (personalism). Through creating, speaking,
making, forming, the world is ever again and again
denoted as the free deed of God.

8. Theological definitions of the creation. The
creatio is distinguished as a single act and as a per-
manent fact. A third period is, however, at the
same time pointed out, namely, the continuance of
the doing in the deed, so that the world would not
only fall to pieces, but would pass away, if God with-
drew himself from it. The thought that he cannot
withdraw from ii in his love, should not be confound-
ed with the untenable thought that he might not be
able to withdraw from it in his omnipotence. The
absolute dependence of the world on God is at all
times the same (see Ps. civ. 30 ; Col. i. 17 ; Heb.
i. 3). On the relation of the creation to the trinity,
compare Hase, Hutter, p. 149, and Lange's "Pos-
itive Dogmatics," p. 206 ff. — The expression, crea-
tion from nothing, is borrowed from the apocryphical
word, 2 Mace, vii, 28 : e| ouk ivruv ; comp. Heb. xi.
3. It denies that an eternal material, or indeed that
anything, was present as a (material) substratum of
the creation. One can, however, misinterpret the
expression by making the act of creation one of ab-
stract will, absolved from any divine breath of Ufa
(Giintherianism). On determining the creatio ex ni-
hilo we distinguish the nihil negativum, by denying
the eternity of matter as substratum of the creation,
and the nihil pHvaiivum, by assuming that God at
first created matter as nihil privativum, then the
forms in the hexaenieron. This the modus creationis :
first, matter; then, the form. This idea of a matter
as something before form, does not correspond, how-
ever, to the idea of a quickening or life-giving ac-
tivity in creation. With the beginning of crea-
tion there is immediately established the contrast of
heaven and earth, i. e., different spheres, which as
such are not mere matter ; and with the Thohu Va-
bhohu of the first earth-form there is immediately
established the constructive activity of the spirit of

* rWe have placed this sentence in italics as contain'Jig
a truth of vast importance, transcending all science on thfl
one hand, and all theology that places Itself in antagonisnl
to science on the other. If it contains truth in respect to
the world, then, aforticrri, is it true in respect to man, who
is the final cause, or '* the spiritual core of the world," as
Lange elsewhere styles him. There is an eternal ground
for the world ; much more is there an eternal ground fol
humanity (Adam-ity) ; beyond all, is there an eternal giounii
for the new humanity (Christ-ionity). " Chosen in Hifl
before the foundation of the world." — T. "L-l

CHAP. 1.-II. 5.

18.

God. The demiurgic conception presupposes an eter-
nal world-matter, wnether regarded accordiiig to the
Persian idea as evil, or according to the Greelc as
blind, heterogeneous, and antagonistic, or according to
the Indian idea as magically mutable, which eternal
world-matter must, in all cases, make the demiurgic
formation a thing of mere arbitrary sport. The true
idea of the work of creation lies between this and the
theurgo-magical, according to which God had made
the universe, in abstract positiveness, a pure mate-
rial contrast of His divine being. This is a concep-
tion in which the creating word, the spirit of God
hovering over the waters, the image of God, or even
the omnipresence of God in the world, do not receive
their just due. As the aim of the creation finally
[finis creationiK), there have been distinguished the
highest or last aim, God's glorification, and the inter-
mediate aim, the welfare of his creatures and the
happiness of man. But it must be observed that
God glorifies himself in the happiness of men, and
that the latter should find their happiness in contem-
plating the glory of God.

9. The Relation of the Mosaic; Account of the
Creation to the Mythological Legends of the Creation.
— The cosmogonies of the heathen are confounded
with their theogonies, as their gods with primeval
man. See jLiJOKEN : " The Traditions of the Human
Race, or the Primitive Revelation of God among the
Heathen," Miinster, 1866. " These cosmogonies are
all very similar to each other. At first cliaos is
placed at the head as a disordered mass (chaos
alone?). This chaos develops or forms itself into
thf world-egg. This egg, which plays a certain part
m the cosmogonies, is only a conception called forth
by the apparent form of the earth,* so that the sky
presents itself as the shell and the earth as the yolk
of this great egg. With this shaping of chaos into a
world-egg, or earth-sphere, arises then, according to
the representation of these cosmogonies, the first
being, the ' first-born,' or the first man. This first
man originating with (out of) the world-egg, the
father and founder of all life, is now, according to
the popular conception, a giant-like being. As the

* [This conception seems to be sanctioned by Lange, but
there is no proof of it. Instead of being suggested by the
figure of the mundus (which is not like an egg, or the earth
like its yolk, unless we make very ancient the knowledge,
or notion, of the earth's sphericity), this so common feature
of the old cosmogonies came most probably from the idea
of a brooding, cherishing, life-producing power, rex resented
in G^iesis by the nSn/nlD Hm , the throbbing, pulsating,
moving spirit — from r]nn , primary sense in Piel, palpitare,
secondary sense, yet very ancient in the Syriac, to love
warmly, or with the strongest affection. Hence in the
Greek cosmogony the first thing born of this egg was ipu^,
the T)rimitive love, which shows that the egg had nothing to
do with the figure of the earth, either real or supposed. See
the Birds of Aristophanes, 697, where the poet calls it uirTjj/e-
^/.LoVf the egg produced without natural impregnation :

'Ef oC ireptreXAo/LieVats wpaty e^Xaarev 'Epcds 6 iroOsivos,
From which sprang Love the all desired, —

only the Greeks, as usual, inverted the jjrimitive idea, and
made the generating cause itself the effect. Eros ihen pro-
duced the human race, etc. In other respects the heathen
cosmogonies are very fairly given here byLucken ; but what
B. contrast do these monstrosities present to the pure, har-
monious, monotheistic grandeur of the Bible account ! If
the Mosaic cOf^mogony was derived from the heathen, as is
contended, how very strange it is, and counter to what takes
place in all similar derivations, that the Hebrew mind (a
very gross mind, they say) should have taken it in this im-
pure and monstrously confused state, and refined it back to
ihat chaste and sublime consistency which the Bible narra-
tive, whatever may be thought of its absolute truth, may so
lastly claim.— T. £.]

present man, according to primitive conception, is «
microcosm, so is that first being, in heathen concep-
tion, the macrocosm itself, originating all life in
nature by developing from himself the various parti
of the world-organism, heaven and earth, sun and
moon, mountains and rivers. Kow by dividing oi
killing this macrocosmic being, or by mingling its
generating parts with earthly things (especially fer-
tilizing water, as in the story of Chronos), the lower
life of nature begins, and things can multiply in sex-
ual division and separation. This is the whole
nucleus of all cosmogonies. And we would here
observe, how frequent it is in heathen conceptions
that aU primitive generating beine is imagined under
the form of a great world-animal (as an immense ox
or goat, for example), and as such worshipped.
Thus the first being of the Persians is the ox Abu-
dad, and the Egyptians worshipped it as a goat
under the name of Mendes." Here, however, the
following is to be observed; 1. Behind, beside, or
over the chaos, or the disordered matter, usually
stands a mysterious form of the highest divinity:
Brahma among the Indians, Fimbultyr among the
Teutons, Ormuzd among the Persians. 2. With the
Hesiodic Gala, which proceeds from chaos (i. e.,
from boundless empty space), there is also Eros ; so in
the Chinese legend the first macrocosmic man or
giant (Panku) is formed with the earth. In like
manner Brahma with the Indians, and Ymer with
the Teutons, become, by the division of their limbs,
the foundation of the world. 3. Matter is always
fixed with the divinity, or the divinity with matter.
But matter is coherent with God in the predominant-
ly pantheistic systems of emanation. According to
the Indo-Brahmic, Platonic, and Alexandrian system
of emanation, matter emanates with the world from
divinity ; according to the Egyptian and mythologi-
co-Grecian system, divinity emanates from the world,
from chaos, or the ocean. According to the pre-
dominantly dualistic systems, the world arises from a
mixture in the conflict between the emanations of
the predominantly spiritual, light, good God, and the
emanations of the predominantly material, dark,
wicked God— sometimes in a decidedly hostile posi-
tion of the two powers, as in the Persian mythology,
sometimes in a more peaceful parallelism, as in the
Slavonian. For the various cosmologies, compare
the quoted work of Liicken, p. 33 ; Delitzsch, pp.
81, 83, and 609 ; Hahn ; Compendium, p. S14, with
reference to Wuttke : " The Cosmogonies of the
Heathen Nations before the Time of Jesus and the
Apostles," Hague, 1850. The Chaldean myth of the
creation, as given by Berosus, is found in Eusebids :
"Chronicles," i. p. 22; Syncellus, i. p. 25; the
Phenician myth as given by Sanchoniaton in Eusb-
Bius: Preeparatio Evajigdica, i. p. 10; the Egyptian
myth in Diodoeus Siculus, i. 7 and 10 ; a Grecian
myth in Hesiod's Theogony, ver. 116 sqq. ; the In-
dian myths in P. von Bohlen : " Ancient India," i.
p. 158; Lassen; "Indian Antiquities," iii. p. 387
(at the beginning of the code of Manu) ; the Zend
myth in Avesta, the Etrurian myth in Soidas under
Tyrrhenia (see the " Commentary " of Keil and
Delitzsch, p. 8); the Scandinavian myth in tba
Edda, etc.

According to the older conceptions of the days
of creation as combined with biblical chronology,
one could speak of a date of the creation. Starke is
satisfied with the correctness of the date: 23d of
October, 4004 before Christ. Schroder makes th«
date the 1st or 17th of September, 4201, but adds

183

GENESIS, OR TEE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

" The Son of Man knew not the day nor the hour when
heaven and earth should pass away, but the child of
man would know the year and the day when heaven
and earth arose." The autumn seems to have been
chosen on account of the ripe fruits, without reflecting
that on the entire earth it must ever be autumn
somewhere.

ro. The World as Naiiire. a. The ATwient View
of the World, that of the Bible and of Modern Times.
— The world-view of the ancients was based on
appearance, according to which the earth formed a
centre reposing under the moving, rolling starry
world ; this geocentric view received a scientific
expression in the well-known Ptolemaic system.
This system was abandoned in the time of the Refor-
mation for the helio-centric system of Copernicus.
But because the Bible, with "wspect to astronomical
matters, speaks the language oi common life, which
is yet authorized in accordance with appearances (the
sun rises, sets, etc.), it was supposed that the Coper-
nican system contradicted the teaching of Holy Writ,
and not only the papal council imagined that in its
treatment of Galileo, but even Melancthon was of
the same opinion, and to the present day such pro-
tests, even on the Protestant side, have not entirely
died away (see the attacks on Dr. Franz in Sanger-
hausen in Diesterweg's " Astronomy," p. 104 ; also
p. 20, especially p. 325). These prove how often a
contracted Bible beUef can injure more than profit
the faith. The Coperniean theory was especially
supposed to be in contradiction with the passage in
Jos. X. 12, 13. While men were torturing them-
selves with this difSculty springing from a blind
adherence to the literal rendering, a much greater
one was gradually stepping forth out of the back-
ground. The consequences of the Coperniean system
were developed, according to the discoveries of Her-
scliel, in this wise : the sun among its planets is only
a single star of heaven, and the earth is one of its
smallest planets. Since now the fixed stars of hea-
ven are nothing but suns, and these suns are all,
according to the analogy of ours, surrounded by
planetary groups, there appear to be countless num-
bers of planets, of which very many are larger than
our earth. How shall we now retain the thought,
t'aat the earth is the sole scene of the revelation of
God, as Holy Writ declares : the scene of the incar-
nation of God, and the centre of a reconciliation,
dissolution, and glorification of the world, embracing
heaven and earth.

The Hegelian philosophy sought at first to meet
this difficulty in its own interest. In order to make
the earth the sole arena of the evolutions of mind,
which was to reach the full glory of its self-con-
Bciousness in the Hegelian system, the whole starry
world was declared to be destitute of spirits and in
he main spiritless — mere films of fight, etc. (see
Lange's " Positive Dogmatics," p. 279). The effort
was made to render this barren view agreeable to
theology with the pretence that it was in accordance
with the Bible, and favored the faith ("Land of
Glory," p. 12 ff.). Against this insinuation the
author wrote the articles which are collected in the
work: "The Land of Glory" (Meurs), Bielefeld,
1838, with reference to the work of Pfaff: "Man
»ud the Stars." The results of modem astronomy
(according to Struve, Madler, Schubert, etc.), viz.,
that the other planets of our solar system have not,
in the first place, the same plastic consistency nor
the same planetary relations as our earth, and sec-
Dndly, that the stellar world is divided into a solar

planetary region like our solar system, and a sola)
astral region (the world of double stars, of eternal
sunshine), were applied to the bibhcal Christian view
of the world as recognizing (in its conception of
various places of discipline and punishment) a placa
beneath the world on the one hand, and a place
above it on the other ; consequently the contrast of
a region of growing and a region of perfected life,
of the church militant and the church triumphant,
of the earthly and the heavenly, of the earthly-human
and the angelic life. Above all, it was observed that
with the doctrine of the ascension of Christ the exist-
ence of a land of glory, in contradistinction to the
earthly sphere of day and night, birth and death, or
the sphere of the creative, was settled. This work
was followed by the work of Kurtz: "Bible and
Astronomy," 1st ed. 1842. In the meanwhile there
sprung up a third representation of cosmology,
which was again to fix the geocentric stand-point in
a spiritual respect. This was mainly induced by A.
von Schaden, but difigently prosecuted by Dr. Ebkaed,
recently in his work : " The Results of Natural Sci-
ence," Konigsberg, 1861. With respect to our plan-
etary system, the said work endeavors to prove that
the earth is its teleological centre, and to that end,
farther, that the other planets could be either not at
all or only partly inhabitable ; that they are only ac-
cretions to the planetary nature, having their places
there simply on account of the earth ; and that con-
sidered under any other point of view they could
only appear as caricatures of the planetary nature.

Dehtzsch (p. 614) is in general inclined to this
view. He permits, however, a natural philosopher
by profession (Prof Franz Pfaff), to speak for him,
who nevertheless acknowledges (after a severe criti-
cism of the plant-family) that there may be imagined
elsewhere such beings as are organized in correspon-
dence to the prevailing relations on other heavenly
bodies. But one cannot see how the conceptions in
question can be called '■'creatures of fantasy"

We consider the view of the pure unreaMty of the
extra-earthly planetary world as neither cosmologi-
cully grouuded, nor of wholesome tendency in aid of
a bibUcal view of the world. As respects the first
point, one must clearly distinguish between an m-
habitability of the planets of^our solar system for
beings of our earthly organization, and a similar in-
habitabiliiy for spiritual beings in general. If the
earthly organization of man is to fix the measure for
the habitableness of supra-terrene bodies, then must
we also apply the analogy to the most beautiful and
brilhant stellar-world. And what must become of
the departed human souls, separated from their
bodies ? How shall there be found a native region
for angelic spirits ? But it would redound Uttle to
the glorification of the living God of Holy Writ to
consider the whole planetary group of our sun, the
earth alone excepted, as spiritless wastes. What-
ever in this respect is true of the Hegelian system in
general, in its relation to the stellar-world, is true of
the said view in special reference to our planetary
system.

[Note on the Astronomical Objection to
Revelation. — The question of the planets' inhabita-
bility, especially in its religious and biblical bearings,
has been very ably and scientifically discussed in 8
work entitled "The Plurality of Worlds" by Prof
Whewell of Oxford. The author mamtaius a view
similar to that of Dr. Ebrard, that the earth is the
advanced planet of the system, and that the most
scientific evidence goes to show that the other*

CHAP. I— II. 8.

185

(especially the largest, or those of least density) are
in a rudimentary or inchoate state. The same may
be true of all the visible bodies of the stellar spaces.
The only reasoning against it is simply the question,
why not, pourquoi twn, as Montaigne employs it,
without any inductive evidence. This author employs
also the modern view in geology with great perti-
nence and force : Immense limes without life or with
only the lowest forms of life ! If this is not incon-
sistent with the divine wisdom and goodness, then
immense spaces without life, or with only the lowest
forms of Ufe, for a certain time, is no more incon-
sistent.

So far, however, as this presents a diflBeulty to
revelation and Christianity, it is not due to modern
science alone, or even mainly. The inhabitability
of the planets, and the " plurality of worlds," are as
much a priori thoughts, that is, rising of themselves
to the musing meditative mind, as they aie the
results of any scientific or inductive reasoning. In
both eases, imagination is the chief power of the
mind employed, though modern science has furnished
it with its stronger stimulants. As such a priori or
independent thought, the notion of a plurality, or
even an infinity, of worlds, was very ancient. It
was, however, larger than the modern notion, being
ratlier a pluraUty of Koafiol, or mundi (that is, total
visible universes) than of worlds used, as the name
is now used, of planetary or stellar bodies. It was
the old question of the soul demanding a sufficient
reason for the non-existence, the absence of which
reason seemed to be itself a proof o\' the actual exist-
ence. Why not? If one world, why not two —
three — more — numberless? See Plutarch: De
Placitis philosophorum, vol. v. p. 239, Leip. ed.,
where among other statements and arguments he
quotes the sayiug of Metrodorua: Sltottov thai eV
fjukydhra TreSiQj evtx araxvi^ yfyTjibrifai, Kat epa Koa/doy
eV T# awelfiai, " it is absurd (incredibly strange) that
there should be but one head of wheat in a great
plain, and no less so, that there should be but one
cosmos in infinite space." The other idea of the
planets' inhabitability appears also in the Greek
poetry. See especially the fragment given by Pro-
elus:

^Wt^v ya7av aireipaTov ifivre treX-ftf-qif
a^dyaroi KXij^ovaw, enix^oviot Se re fXTjf7}y
T] ■ir6K?C oij^ie e^ei, TrtiAA* Harsa uoAAa jueAadpo.

Another laud of vast extent,
Immortals call Selene, men, the moon,
A land of mountains, cities, palaces.

The Bible is charged with narrowness in its space
conceptions, but how narrow is that science, or that
philosophy, which while vaunting itself, perhaps, on
its superior range of view, has no idea of any higher
being than man, and sometimes would seem to reject
any other conception of deity than that of a devel-
oped humanity, slowly becoming a god, an etre su-
preme, to the nature still below. How glorious the
Scripture doctrine appears in the contrast, as start-
ing with an all-perfect personal being: Jehovah
Taebaoth, Jehovah of Hosts, with cherubim and
seraphim, ipx«'i icvpi6rTfT€s, living principles, ruling
energies, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions,
principalities, and powers. If not in space concep-
tions, yet how sublimely in the higher idea of ascend-
ing ranks of being do the Scriptures surpass the low
ind narrow views of Herbert, Comte, and Darwin.
After a past eternity of progress, nature and the

cosmos have just struggled up to man 1 This is thi
highest limit yet reached after a movement so im-
measurably long, yea, endless in one direction ; and
that, too, not man as the Scripture represents him,
a primus homo, an exalted being, so constituted bj
the inspiration that gave him birth, and signed him
with the image of the eternal God, but man jus/
rising above the ape, just emerging from that las*
growth of nature that preceded him in this intermina-
ble series of chance selections at last falling into
some seeming order, and of random developments
that never came from any preceding idea. Man ag
he now appears on earth, and whom Scripture pro-
nounces a fallen being, the highest product of an
endless time I Such is " the positive philosophy,"
so boastful of its discoveries in width and space, but
so exceedingly low and narrow in respect to the
other and grander dimension ! It discards theology
and metaphysics as belonging to a still lower stage
of this late-born child of nature, but alas for man if
all the glory of his being, all his higher thinking, has
already thus passed away ! We may thank the Liv-
ing God for giving to us an ideal world, as in itself a
proof of something above nature, and of a higher
actual even now in nature than our sense and our
science ever have drawn, or may ever expect to
draw, from it.

The objection to revelation to which Lange here
alludes as drawn from the modern astronomy ia
itself simply anthropopathic. They who make it
imagine Deity to be just such a one as themselves.
If He has two worlds to take care of, it is incredible
that His providence should be as particular, and His
interest as near, as though He had but one to govern.
Such a mode of thinking makes worth, too, and rank,
wholly quantitative and numerical, banishing, in fact,
■all intrinsic quality, and intrinsic value, I'rom the
world of things and ideas. The bigger the universe
in space, the less the worth in each part, as a part,
and this without any distinction between the purely
physical or material to which such a quantitative
rule of inverse proportion might apply, and the
mo^al and spiritual, which can never be measured
by it.

The force of this objection comes from the fact
of the imagination overpowering the reason. The
lower though more vivid faculty impedes or silences
for a time the higher. Reason teaches intuitively,
or as derived from the very idea of God, that His
care and providence towards any one rational and
moral agent cannot be diminished by the number of
other rational and moral agents, or be any less than
it would be if such agent had been alone with Deity
in the universe. The light and heat of the sun are
the same whether the recipients are few or many.
The case, therefore, may be thus stated : If a certain
manifestation of the divine care for, and interest in,
our world and race (namely, such as is revealed m
the Bible) would not be incredible on the supposition
of their being but one such world or lace, then such
credibihty is not at all diminished by the discovery
that there are others, few or many, to any extent
conceivable. We must hold firmly to this as a pura
rational judgment against the swaying imagination
invading the reason, and even assuming to take its
place. If the interest revealed by Christianity could
be pronounced credible before the discoveries of
astronomy (and this is assumed as the ground of the
argument), then such measure is equally credible
now, or we are couvicted of judging God anthropo-
pathically, however we may diguify the feelinj

184

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

with the name of an enlarged and liberal philos-
ophy.

Besides, there is no end to the argument until it
banishes all providence, all government, all divine
hiterest conceivable in the cosmos — everything, in
short, which distinguishes the divine idea from that
of a wholly impersonal nature. On a certain scale
of the universe the Old Testament becomes incredible.
On a wider sweep Christianity, the old Christianity
ef the Church, can no longer be believed. The in-
carnation and the atonement must be thrown out;
God could not have cared to that extent for this
petty world. Turn the telescope, so as to enlarge
the field, or, through its inverted lenses, behold the
objects still farther off, and "hberal Christianity"
disappears. Even that has too much of divine inter-
est for the new view. Draw out the slide still
farther, and the very latest and faintest " phase of
faith" departs. Everything resembling a providence
or care of any kmd for the individual becomes incre-
dible in this time and space ratio. Prayer is gone,
and hope, and all remains of any fear or love of God.
Farther on, and races are thrown out of the scale as
well as individuals; even a general providence of
any kind becomes an obsolete idea. Not only the
earth but solar and stellar systems become infinitesi-
mals, or quantities that may be neglected in the cal-
culus that sums the series. There is no end to this.
We have no right to limit it by the present size or
power of our telescopes. The present visible worlds
of astronomy may be no more — they probably are no
more — to the whole, than a single leaf to the forests
of the Orinoco. The false idea must be carried on
until every conception of every relation of a personal
deity to finite beings, of any rank, utterly disappears,
and a view no better than blank atheism — yea, worse
than atheism, for that does not mock us with any
pretense of theism — takes the place of all moral fear
as well as of all religion.

And this raises the farther question : If such be
the diminishing effect on the religion, what must it
be on the science and the philosophy? If human
Bins and human salvation become such small things
when seen through this inverted glass, what becomes
of all human knowledge, human genius, and human
boasting of it ? We do not find that the men who
make these objections, as drawn from the magnitude
of the universe, are more humble than others ; but
surely they ought to be so, after having thus shown
then- own moral and physical nothingness, and,
along with it, the utter insignificance of their
science.

In one aspect, his mere physical aspect, man is
indeed insignificant. The Scripture does not hesitate
to call him a worm. It pronounces all nations
"vanity" — "the small dust of the balance," unap-
preciable physically in the great cosmical scales —
"less than i:otiiing and emptiness." Such is its
view of man in one direction, whilst in the other his
value is to be estimated by the incarnation of Christ,
and the very fact thU the Infinite One condescends
to make a revelation of Himself to such a being. —
T L.] ^

The cosmology of the Bible is geocosmic in its
practical point of view. Afier it has presented to us
the creation of the heavens and the earth, it lets us
sonclude from the deTelopn.ent of the earth the
development of the heavens, namely m respect to
Ihe creation of light and of m.-vn. From the spu-it^
world of earth we are to cont^uAe a spirit-world of
hejiven. But it puperabundauoly '.% iioates a develop-

ment of the earthly solar system parallel with tb«
development of the earth (ch, i. 14). That heaven
is an inhabited region, appears from many passages,
e. g.. Gen. xxviii. 12; and also that this region is
divided into a rich multitude of various departments.
And the question is not only of heaven, but also of
the heaven of heavens (1 Kings viii 2"?). Ohrisl
teaches us too : In My father's house are many man-
sions (John xiv. 2). But finally the Holy Writ fa-
forms us clearly, that notwithstanding the changea-
bility, and necessity for rejuvenation, of the entire
universe (Ps. eii. 27 ; Is. li. 6), there is yet a contrast
between the regions of growth on this side, and of
perfection on the other (Ezek. i. 21 ; 1 Pet. i. 4 ; 2
Pet. iii. 13, etc.). In this respect the newest and
purest astronomical view of the world corresponds
entirely to this biblical distinction between the
regions of growth here, and of perfection beyond.
But the Bible also promises for the form of the
world, even on this side, a new structure and perfec-
tion. Once all was night ; but in the present order
of things day and night alternate ; in the future the
new world shall be raised beyond the contrast of
day and night (Rev. xxi.). Formerly all was sea;
the present order consists in the contrast of land and
sea ; in the new world the sea shall be no more.

b. Tfie Idea of Nature in the Bible. The Bible
and the Investigation of Nature. — We have shown in
passing that the Scriptures fully recognize the idea
of nature, i. e., of the conditioned going forth of the
fixed life of nature from a fundamental principle
peculiarly belonging to it. Every creative word be-
comes the ideal dynamical basis of a real principle.
At first appear the principles of the separation. The
separation of heaven and earth has the more general
signification of universe on the one side, and of a
special world-sphere on the other as represented by
the earth, of which we now speak. At the second
separation (light and darkness) the co-operation of
the spirit of God is brought out, i. e., of the creative
formative activity of God ; at the third separation
(water and land) the co-operation of light is presup-
posed. The natural law set up by Harvey (see
Lange's " Positive Dogmatics," p. 269) : omne vivum
ex ovo, has been again brilliantly restored in modem
times by the exact investigation of nature in opposi-
tion to the theory of generatio mquivoca, which nat-
ural philosophy had taught (see Sobeenheim: "Ele-
ments of General Physiology," Berlin, 1844). In
Delitzseh also the conception of the generatio mqui-
voca plays a part in the account of the creation (p.
Ill), because he has not sufficiently considered that
the creative words, in the ideal they carry, form the
foundation of the actual principles of nature.

From the last-quoted principle it appears as fol-
lows:

1. Every grade of nature is fixed by a correspond-
ing principle of nature, the natural principle of the
plant, etc.

2. By its unfolding, this principle brings to light
the standard of its development as the natural law
of its grade. The natural principle is the first, the
natural law is the second.

3. By the new principle of the higher grade oi
nature, the natural law of the preceding grade L
modified in accordance with the new and higher fife.
The plant modifies the natural law of gravity, the
animal modifies the local attachment of the plant •
in man the animal instinct is effaced.

4. With each new life-principle God creates a
new thing. The creation of the new is however the

CHAP. L— n. 3.

189

most general idea of the miracle, as the announce-
nunt of what in new is the most general idea of
prophecy. Consequently, each new natural principle
is to the preceding surpassed grade of nature as a
miracle. " The animal is a miracle for the vegetable
world " (Hegel). From this relation of the new natr
Ural principles, as they form the new degrees of
nature, it follows that all nature is a symbolical sup-
port and prophecy of the ethical miracle of the king-
dom of God. For as the first man, Adam, miracu-
lously changes the natural law of the animal world,
that is, changes instinct into human freedom, thus
does Christ, as the new man from heaven, as the
completed hfe-principle and miracle, change the
Adainic laws of life into fundamental laws of the
kingdom of God. It is in accordance with his nature
to perform miracles witliin the Adamic sphere (1
Cor. XV.).

5. But what is true of the laws of nature, is also
true of the matter of nature. Principle is the first
thing in nature, law is the second, matter, as we
know it, is the third. For through the intervention
of a new and higher natural principle iu the world
by means of the creative word supporting it, the
life of the preceding grade is reduced to the grade
of matter. Thus by the appearance of the vegetable
principle, the elementary world becomes matter for
new formations ; so, too, the animal reduces the
vegetable world to the grade of material, and in like
manner does man change the grade of the animal
world. But the man from heaven makes from the
elements of the Adamic world the matter for a new
world. The materialists of our day have ridiculed
the idea of a hfe-power which should be different
from the supposed fundamental matter of the world.
Instead of the life-power, there should have been
opposed to them something more real : the hfe-prin-
ciple. The hfe-principle is fundamentally distin-
guished in the contrast of plastic formative power
and material substratum. They are both mutually
estabhshed each with the other, but above them
stands the principle. The materiaUst, therefore, as
he explains everything from a force of matter, which
no man has ever yet seen (see Lange's "Miscel-
laneous Writings," 1st vol. p. 54), does not only
deny the existence of the human soul and its ethical
nature and highest causahty, the Godhead, but he is
also the antagonist of the genuine zoologist who be-
lieves in the reality of the animal principle, as he is
of the genuine botanist who does not consider the
vegetable formations a shadowy play of matter on
the wall, and of the crystallographer who connects
imponderable forces and polarity — yea, of the genuine
ihemist too, who has perceived that the relations of
elective affinity in substances extend beyond the
atomistic conceptions. May it not possibly be explain-
ed, that as the material side of the natural principle is
formed by the creating word, so is the reference of the
origin of matter to a pure thought of God something
else than the reference to the difficult enigma of a crea-
tive matter ; and experience proves that the coarser
Batter everywhere, as outside or precipitate, pro-
ceeds from finer foi-mations. It is a radical contra-
diction that matter should generate spirit, and, never-
theless, be everyHjhere subjected to spirit, even to
tie disappearance of its original nature.

6. The ascending line of natural principles is an
jscending line of acts of creation, with which the
principles always the more strengthen, deepen, gen-
(ralize, and individualize themselves, and with
jrhieh, at the same time, new forms of the nat-

ural law and new combinations of substances ap
pear.

7. The finished lower sphere of nature does no
produce the newly appearing principle of the highei
sphere, but it is, however, its maternal birth-place.
And because the lower sphere prepares for the
higher, in order to serve as its basis, it is full of indi-
cations of it, and becomes throughout a symbol
which represents in advance the coming new world*
form.

8. With respect to the development of the nature-
principles into the reaUzation of the conditioned self-
generation of nature, we must distinguish the follow,
ing kinds of development: a. The development of
the world-creation in general; b. the development
of our solar system ; c. the spherical development of
the earth ; d. the gradual development of the indi-
vidual life on earth ;, e. the natural development of
the individuals themselves ; /. the development of
nature in the narrower and the broader sense, or 1.
apart from human hfe, and 2. in connection with it.

a. The Development of the Creation of the Worla
in general. — Through the analogy of the development
of the earth, the Scripture permits us to infer also a
development of heaven. The heavens are created
(Gen. i. 1 ; 1 Chron. xvii. 26 ; Neh. ix. 6 ; Ps. xxxiii.
6; cxxxvi. 5; Prov. iii. 19); the heavens grow old
and pass away (Ps. cii. 2*7 ; Is. h. 6) ; the heavens
are renewed (2 Pet. iii. 13 ; Rev. xxi. 5). Astronomy
also teaches a continuous growth, and in the samt
way recognizes indications of passing away in the
stellar world. But there is a difference between the
various celestial regions. The old Jewish and Ma-
hommedan tradition, and the Christian Apocryphas
know seven heavens (the Koran, the Kabbala, the
Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs). But the He-
brews admitted in general three heavens as in accord-
ance with the Scripture (Paul also 2 Cor. xii. 2-4 ;
the third heaven the paradise): 1. The heaven of the
air (the clouds, birds, changes of the atmosphere) ;

2. the heaven of the stellar world, the firmament;

3. the heaven in which God dwells with His angels,
paradise. Of the latter heaven it must be observed
that it is a symbohco-religious idea, and by no means
excludes the stellar world (see Lange's work : " The
Land of Glory "). The Scripture recognizes also the
distinction between an earUer heavenly stellar world
and the system to which this earth belongs, as we
find it indicated in the fourth day's work. When
the earth was founded the morning-stars sang to-
gether, and all the sons of God shouted for joy (Job
xxxviii. 7). Consequently before the foundations of
the earth those morning-stars were there. Also the
"Heaven of heavens," as well as the ascension of
Christ, point to a heavenly region which hes beyond
the cosmical sphere of the world, to a region "of
eternal sunshine." See the above quotations.

b. The Development of our Solar System. — Al-
though on the fourth day of the creation the whole
stellar world is introduced into the circle of vision of
the earth, nevertheless the cosmical completion of
the system belonging to the earth is especially indi-
cated. Special allusion is made to this system whei
the New Testament biblical eschatology treats of th
end of the heavens and the earth, and their renewal
(Joel iii. 4 ; Matt. xxiv. 29 ; 2 Pet. iii. 10).

[Note on the Sceiptueal Heavens anu Eakth.
— We think Dr. Lange carries too far what may be
called the cosmological view of the Mosaic account,
It either gives the writer too much science, or, ui
order to get a ground of interpretation a dependent

1S6

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

of his conceptions, makes him to be a mere automa-
tic medium — thus taking away the human, or that
subjective truthfulness which is so precious in any
view we may talce of this narrative. Hence the ten-
dency to regard the Bible heavens as the astronomi-
cal heavens of modern science, instead of the heavens
of the earth, nearly connected with the earth, and in
which the sun, moon, and stars appear as ligh%
whatever may be the near or remote causes of those
appearances. See remarks in note on the Hebrew
plural D-'auJ, pp. 162, 163. The symbolic contrast of
the heavens and the earth, with which Dr. Lange starts
in the interpretation, has all the value he attaches to
it ; but it is not at all lost in what he might regard
as the narrower view. The optical heavens, with
the appearances in it, was all the writer knew, or was
inspired to know, or describe. It was to him the
cosmos. As this enlarges, by science, or otherwise,
the conception of the heavens enlarges with it, but
only as a conception. The idea remains as in the
beginning. In keeping up this contrast, however,
we are not to regard the scientific bodies discovered
in the remoter spaces, as the heavens in distinction
from our own home, as though the heavens were
simply all that is off, and away from, the earth.
The planet Mars is no more a heaven, or heavens, to
us than we are a heavens to it. As knowledge hfts
up the everlasting gates, the conception of the mun-
dus enlarges to take in other earth-like bodies in
space; but the old idea travels forth unchanged.
The great symbolic contrast yet remains. The hea-
vens, too, enlarge their scale, and the pecuhar divine
residence, once thought to be in the near sky just
above us, is carried farther off, beyond the sky of
clouds, beyond the sphere of the moon, the sun, the
planets, the solar system. Science adds the stellar
bodies ; the heavens, the great symbolic, or rather
symbolized, heavens, are still beyond, high over all,
embracing all. " Who hast set Thy glory above the
heavens," n^a'i'n bs (compare i"? as used Gen. i.
20; XLx. 23, '('"^xn"!'? C?:©); "Who stoopeth
down to behold the things that are in the heavens
(the lower heavens) and the earth," Ps. cxiii. 6.
Solomon's language, " The heaven and heaven of
heavens cannot contain Thee," may, or may not, be
surpassed in its local conception, but no science, it
may be repeated, will ever transcend it in idea.
Whatever the number of spheres, real or imaginary,
the Qiac: "iKia , the heaven of heavens, is stiU the
great heaven above them all. — T. L.]

c. The Spherkal Development of the Earth, or
the Six Days' Work. — As was above indicated, the
six days' work have been represented in the sequence
of a twofold ternary, in which is mirrored the signifi-
cance of the number three. We construct these
ternaries in the following manner: 1. Light and the
lights ; 2. water and air, and the animals of water
and air ; 3. the solid land and over it the vegetable
world ; the land-animals and over them man. As to
the strict consistency of these days' works, the
most celebrated naturalists, as Cuvier, have expressly
acknowledged it. Now we find these days' works
construed in the most manifold way ; in part purely
iccording to the Scriptures, in part purely according
to natural science, and partly in distinct comparison,
whereby the harmony between the Bible and natural
science is contested or maintained. — Scriptural repre-
sentations of the six days' work. Here the 104th
Psalm exceeds all. First day, vers. 1,2; second day,
rers. 3, 4 ; third day, vers. B-1 8 ; fourth day, vers.

19, 20. The fifth day and the first half of the sixtt
are freely inlaid into the picture from the fourtee-ith
verse. The sixth day also from vcr. 14 ; but in ver
23 man appears more distinctly in his rule. Hcrt
follows an accurate picture of the whole creation
from ver. 24. The creation of the new world, which
is the aim of the Apocalypse, passes also through n
sevenfold stage. Here an accord in the order of the
six days' work is not to be misunderstood. 1. Tha
seven congregations as the seven candlesticks of the
earth, Christ in a figure of light in their midst, with
seven stars in His hands — an allusion to the creation
of Ught of the first day (ch. i,-iii.). 2. The seven
seals. The council in heaven and the seven seals or
decrees of sorrow on earth — an allusion to the crea-
tion of the firmament between the waters above (ch.
iv. 6, the "sea of glass"; comp. vii. 17) and the
waters beneath (the blood of the lamb,* ch. vii. 14),
ch. iv.-vii. The seven trumpets. Decrees of judg-
ment on the earth preaching repentance (ch. viii. 7)
and on the sea (ver. 8) — allusion to the separation
of land and sea (see also ch. x. 2), ch. viii.-x. 2.
The seven thunders (voices of awaking whose speech
had been sealed). The angel who had awakened
the seven thunders, raises his hand to heaven and
swears that hereafter time shall be no more.f Epi-
sodes from the stage of the seven thunders: the
swallowed scroll, the measuring of the temple of God,
the two olive trees, the woman in heaven clothed
with the sun, the moon under her feet, and a crown
of twelve stars on her head — an allusion to the
lights created to mark the seasons (ch. x. 3 to ch.
xii. 2). 5. The seven heads of the dragon. The
(flying) dragon in heaven, the woman with eagles'
wings, and the beast out of the sea with seven heads,
the earthly anti-Christ representative of the seven
heads of the dragon — allusion to the birds of the
heavens and the beasts of the sea (ch. xii. 3-xiii. Id).
6. The seven last plagues or vials of wrath. Intro-
duction: the animal out of the earth, the number
666 (with reference to the significance of the number
6 ; perhaps also the sixth day) ; the lamb on Mount
Sion, the image of God with the 144,000 virgins who
bear on their foreheads the name of the lamb and
the name of the father, i. e., are images of God ; the
announcement of the judgment, of the seven last
plagues ; the judgment on the earth ; the whore, her
counterpart the bride and her bridegroom, heroes
and deliverers, judges of spirits and associates in the
apostasy — allusion to the animals of the earth and
to man created in the image of God, with the com-
mand : Rule over them and make them subject to
you, ch. liii. 11-xix. 21).:];

* (Dr. Lange's fancy here seem s altogether too exuberant
The parallelisin with the Mosaic account in the ] 04th Psalm
is too striking to be mistaken. It was doubtless, too, in the
mind of the writer of the Apocalypse, as it is also evident ia
the beginning of the Gospel of John, but many of the
resemblances here traced bv Br. Lange altogether fiail to
satisfy.— T. L.]

+ [Dr. Lange's rendering here is that of Lnther, and is
the same with our English translation. But there can be
hardly a doubt of its being erroneous. It should be, " that
there shall be no more delay"— that is, in what is to follow.
See Bloomfield.— T. L.j

X [It may seem strange that Dr. Lange, while laying so
much stress on these remoter, if not altogether mr.cifhl,
parallelisms with the creative account which he finds in the
Apocalypse, should have overlooked the much more distinct
reference in the beginning of the Gospel of John. "Whether
the principium there is the same with that in Genesis, may
adnut of discussion, but there can bo no doubt of the paral-
lelism, and the mention of light and life immediately fol-
lowing makes it unmistakable. It is a higher light, indeed*
for ' the darkness overtakes it not," as it should b« *en*

CHAP. I.— n. 8.

187

7. The great Sabbath of God (ch. xx. and xxi.).
It is, of course, understood that so origmal a crea-
tion as the Apocalypse could not be an allegorical
copy of the six days' worli. In the Epistle of Bar-
nabas (among the writings of the Patres apostoUci)
we find ch. xv. the incorrect literal interpretation of
the passages Ps. xc. 4 and 2 Pet. iii. 8 (according to
wiiich a thousand years of earth should malie one
day of God, consequently six thousand years of his-
tory the great spiritual week of God which is to pre-
cede the divine millennium sabbath). This became
later a standing presumption of the chiliastic com-
putations. One of the first patristic representations
of the hexaemeron with polemical references to the
heathen view of the world, we find in the apology of
Theophilus of Antioch : Ad Auiolycum, lib. ii. cap.
1 2 sqq. Many others have followed these (see Intro-
duction). Among the modern bibiio-theological
representations of the six days' worli, that of Herdek
(" Oldest Record of the Human Race " j occupies a
prominent place. It rejects all combinations of the
scriptural text with natural science. It traces back
the account to the teaching of God ; but it arose by
means of human observation of the rising sun, as in
this the picture of creation is ever unrolled to the
eyes of the observer. The representation itself he
calls a hieroglyphe for the instruction of man in the
great pictures of creation, as presented to his con-
templation in the order of life, first work, then rest
(the sabbath-law), and in the numbering of days
(with reference to the week) as given to him in lan-
guage, etc. He finds in the account the symbols of
the first religion, natural science, morality, politics,
chronology, writing, and language. In his poetic
diction there is much that is beautiful ; but the pic-
ture he gives us of the terror of the Orientals in
respect to darkness and labor is very partial and
exaggerated. The same may be said of many other
thmgs in his book. The ignoring of the reahty of
the six days' work is rationalistic. The construction
is as follows :

I. Light.

II. Firmament. III. Terra firma.

IT. Lights.

V. . . C of heaven. VI. Creatures of earth.

VIL Sabbath.

In the spirit of Herder, but independent in its
view, and detei-mination of the individual parts, is the
representation in F. A. Keummacheb's " Paragraphs
on Sacred History " (p. 22 if.). The six days, as
such, and in themselves understood, are to him divine
days. Zahn also falls back on Herder in animated
representation (" History of the Kingdom of God," p.
1 ff.). Gkdbe's dehneation of the six days' work is
very comprehensive and full of meaning ("Features
from Sacred History," p. 11 ff. — Scientific reprnsewt-
ation of tlie six days^ work. On the historical devel-
•pment of the doctrine of the cosmos, see Alex, von
Humboldt, iii. p. 3 ff. Steffens : " Polemical
Sheets for the Advancement of Speculative Physics."
Second number, on Geology, Berlin, 1835 (here are
quoted, p. 6, the respective geological works of
Cuvier, Bou^, Brogniart, EUe de Beaumont, De
la Beche, and Von Leonhard). Merlekek : " Cos-

lered. There is no uiglit following that new and eternal
lay, and so there are no mornings and evenings to succeed,
tt is a new creation, and a new chronology, but this idea
»uly makes more clear the reference to the old Mosaic crea-
aion and the Mosaia diiys. — T. L.]

mography," Leiprig, 1848, p. 3. There is also the hifl-
torical part of Lyell'b " Principles of Geology," an4
Vogt's " Compendium of Geology " (Braunschweig,
1864, 2 vols.); Reosch: " Bible and Nature," p. 71.
— Here belong Qdenstedt: "Then and Now." A
popular treatise : Harting: " The Antemundane Crea
tions compared with the Present." From the Dutch,
Leipzig, Engehnann, 1869. See, moreover, the prelim-
inary literature. We must distinguish those treatises
which regard the Hexaemeron of Moses, and thosa
which do not. And further, we must distinguish the
systems which assume the formation of the earth by
radical revolutions in a steady sequence of new crea-
tions (Cuvier), and those which assume a gradual
transformation with partial revolutions. Harting be-
longs to the latter. We must, however, certainly
maintain that a seed or germ of creation (for the
transformation) must have passed through the ca-
tastrophes out of the earlier stage into the later,
analogous to the process at the flood, but transform-
ed in a creative way during the metamorphosis of
the earth. But the doctrine of the great catastrophes
is not therewith excluded. In respect to those who
deny the existence of any harmony between the Bible
and natural science, it may be said, that a few the-
ologians in Germany, with shuUow scientific acquire-
ments, have undertaken the work ; such as Ballen-
SHEDT (in the notorious book : " The Primitive
World "), Bretschneider, and Strauss. In England
recently Goodwin (in the Essays and Reviews).
ScHLEiEBMACHEK has also lu this respect expressed
anxieties which prove that he was not well posted
on the point (" Studies and Criticisms," 1829, p.
489). Most recently has this assumed opposition
become a special dogma of the Hegelian school of
Tiibingen, which has its main altar in Eastern Swit-
zerland. On the aide of natural science the harmony
has been mainly contested by French authors ; in
Germany, by Vogt and Burmeister. On the side of
the naturalists, who at the same time were scientific-
ally learned and Bible-believing men, stand Coperni-
cus, Kepler, Newton, Pascal, Haller, and Euler; at
a later period the Frenchmen Cuvier, Brogniart, De-
luc, Biot, Ampere; in Germany, Steffins, H. von
Schubert, A. Wagner, and others. (See Reusch, p.
63 ff.) To these add also the Bible-believing cos-
mologists — the Frenchmen Marcel de Serres, deBlain-
viUe, the Belgian Waterkeyn, and especially many
Englishmen and North Americans (Reusch, p. 67 ;
see especially also Delitzsch, p. 609). A significant
position is taken by the already quoted work of
Buckland : " Geology and Mineralogy," etc., as given
by Werner, in the German edition of the well-known
"Bridgewater Treatises," vol. v., with which com-
pare the valuable criticism of it by W. Hoffmann, in
"Tholuck's Literary Advertiser," 1838, Number 44.
" The conditions on which the great geologist treats
with his timid brothers in the theological world are
(according to W. Hoffmann) the following; 1. Ge-
ology has evidently proved that the surface of our
planet has not been from eternity in its present con-
dition, but has passed through a series of creative
operations, which followed each other in long, fixed
periods of time. 2. There-is an exposition of natural
phenomena which stands so little in contrast with the
Mosaic history that it even throws light on dark
parts of it, and thereby confirms it. 3. The authen-
ticity of the Scriptural text must remain unscathed,
but the exposition demands concessions from the
literal expositor; the reader must make this, and
indemnify himself therefor by the accession whici

18S

GENESia, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

geology supplies to natural theology. 4. The Bible
does not aim to give solutions of geological and other
questions of natural science. Else, God would have
found it necessary to endow man with omniscience,
because he was obliged, at the same time, to impart
to him all degrees and kinds of human knowledge, if
the revelation were not to remain an insuflScient one."
In several points Hoffmann has corrected the author
irith a free and large survey, namely, in the endeavor
of Buckland to transfer aU the periods of the geolog-
ically determined earth-formation into the undefinable
beginning before the first day of the creation, although
to those geological periods the long biblical day-peri-
ods are still to be added. Hoiimann, on the contrary,
alleges that then the eyes of the trilobites, for exam-
ple, must have existed before the creation of light.
The same is true of the first vegetable and animal
world throughout. The same untenable view, how-
ever, that will transfer the geological periods, with
their relation to each other, into the time of the
Thohu Vabhohu, meets us also now in various forms.
It is represented by Andreas Wngner and Kurtz (see,
on the contrary, Delitzsch, p. 112). The more de-
fined combination of geological results and the bib-
lical account appears in a form sometimes mainly
scientific, and again mainly theological ; but the two
series cannot be strictly separated from each other.
Reusch places here Marcel de Serres, 'Waterke}Ti, An-
dreas Wagner, Wiseman, Nicolas: "Philosophical
Studies of Christendom," Soeignet (La Cosmogonie
de la Bible devant lea xdenees perfectionees, Paris,
18B4), Pianciani, Kurtz: "Bible and Astronomy,"
Keerl and Westermeyer, whose work, in his view, is
without scientific value. So also Mutzl, Michelis,
Ebrard, and a series of Essays in the Periodicals :
"Nature and Revelation" (Miinster, 1855 ff.), and
"The Catholic" (Mentz, 1858 sqq.). We also enu-
merate here, La Cosmogonie de la Revelation^ par
Godefoy, Paris, 1841, the previously quoted works
of 0. Reinsch, Fr. von Rougement, and Bohner (with
respect to the cosmogonal theory of Kant and La
Place). The newest commentary on Genesis, by
Keil, shows no progress. Keil insists on regarding
the account of creation as an historical record in the
strictest sense ; he opposes the division of the six
days' work according to ternaries, he sets the act of
creation in excluding contrast with the idea of the
natural process, boldly questions the evidence of the
various periods of the creation, and contends that the
days of the creation are simple earth-days. With this
continued darkening of the present view of the state
of the case, it is a small merit that the theosophic
view of the Thohu Vabhohu seems sets aside (p.
16).

The six days' works are above all things to be
comprehended as six consecutive acts of creation, in
which, every time, a new creation is placed as a new
appearance of the cosmos. For the world is to be
regarded throughout as being, in respect to its founda-
iion, the act of (jod, or creaiw/i (in the stricter sense);
dccording to its development, nature, whilst, accord-
ing to its appearance, cosmos, and, according to the
plastic life-principle lying _at its base (the future of
man and the God-Man), it is won. The creation is,
In the first place, and in general, represented as cre-
ation of heaven and earth ; then the history of the
earth is specially brought out with reference to its
relation to heaven, and also to give an idea of the
cosmical creation beyond the earth in our planetary
ijatem. The characterintic traits are the following :

IJie First Day. — The separation of darkness and

light, i. e., of dark and light matter. We must hew
preserve the text from the terrifying pictures of dark
ness in Herder, and the conceptions of darkness
approaching dualism, of certain theologians of th€
present day. The Scripture speaks also of a " smiting
of the sun" (Ps. cxxi. 6; Jonah iv. 8), and of a sa
cred obscurity, also of a beneficent shade, as Chris
tendom recognizes a holy night ; it knows also a
higher unity of day and night (Revelation xx. 21
see"TheLandof Glory,"p. 150; Notaljs: "Hymna
to the Night"). Nothing is more dangerous to life
than the commingling of physical and ethical dark-
ness (see Isaiah xlv.). God did not make physical
darkness in so far only as it is privative, mere ab-
sence of light, but he made it in so far as he made
the earth, the darkness in general, and the order of
life : day and night. With respect to light and it«
effects, comp. Schubert: "Mirror of Nature," p. 457
ff. ; also F.. A. Krummacber's poem : " The Light,"
and Milton's " Salutation to Light." The light ia
in the Scripture as an image of the Godhead, or of
its indwelling (1 Tim. vi. 16). It is God's garment
(Ps. civ. 2), an image of the being and life of Christ
and of its efficacy. Not without reason have some
designated light as the first creature of God, and dis-
tinguished between latent light -= material darkness,
and free Ught-matter. Comp. what Hoffmann has ob-
served, in his quoted criticism, about the visible cre-
ation proceeding from the invisible sphere of the
creative powers, the imponderable substances dynam-
ically regarded. (Comp. Heb. xi. 3.) The unity of
the contrast of centripetal and centrifugal power
(sympathy and antipathy), attraction (gravity) and
repulsion (motion), warmth and light, appears to lie
in something beyond the relative contrast of elec-
tricity, where warmth predominates, and that of
magnetism, where light predominates (although in
both one is set with the other) ; which remoter prin-
ciple we may designate as a breath of life, whose mate-
rial product is an inconceivably minute, fundamental
form of the luminous world-body which is to spring
from it, as the cell or the fundamental form of organic
life, in an element of growing Ught, that is, which
becomes light, or an ether, which as earth-matter has
attractive power, and, as a medium of Ught, repul-
sive power. With respect to the evenings and the
mornings, it is to be observed that Kurtz has also
effaced their optical reality. By the evenings is
meant the going out or departure of the separate
visions. The permanent reproduction of the word,
" Let there be light," is not so much the rising of
the sun, according to Heider, as rather the electric
spark, the lightning proceeding from the dark thun-
der-cloud, the northern light of the long polar night,
just as every meteoric revelation of the Ught-naturp
of the earth. For this is clearly intimated, that the
earth, until its arrangement into cosmical dependence
on the sun, found itself in a condition of self-illumi-
nation, like that towards which it ever strives to rise
in the polar night. Physical darkness is undoubtedly
made by the Scriptures an image of ethical darkness,
for it is the comparatively imperfect. But we again
distinguish the black night, which may be in measure
illuminated by every spark ; the gray night of mist,
which is in positive opposition to the Ught, and the
white night, or blinding light, by which the Ught is
corrupted into the worst darkness, or the most evil
night.

Second Day. — About the upper waters, see the
Exegesis. The aUusion they contain to the mattei
of the distant world-space, the space of heaven, If

CHAP. I.— n. s.

188

found also in mythology (aee Delitzsch, p. 614).
But it is questionable whether, along with the upper
waters, there is also presupposed here a world-mat-
ter out of which the lights are formed on the fourth
day of creation (A. Guyot, with the addition of the
mist theory of La Place ; Fr. de Rougement, trans-
lated from Fabarius, p. 61, with distinct reference to
our planetary system ; Bohuer, p. 168, a clear and
hstructive representation). But it is to be observed
that the lights of the fourth day clearly refer to the
light of the first day, consequently not to the upper
waters of the second. The rakia, as firmament,
mdicates the boundary line behind which water, air,
and aether, flow together. Consequently, this firm.i-
meut indicates, at the same time, the boundary line
between the centripetal and centrifugal force of mat-
ter, between its impulse to become earth, and its
impulse to become light. But this is just what
makes the rakia a symbol of the real heaven : it is
the equator which spirits pass in their passage to the
home in light. The second day is therefore the sep-
aration of the atmosphere and the element of liquid
earth (dividing the substajice of light and the sub-
stance of darkness), and probably still glowing hot.
With the firmament, between the coldness of the
sether and the warmth of the earth, as between light
and gravity, are built the first formations of the
earth as the vessel of its liquid nucleus ; neither
Plutonic nor Neptunian, because fire and water are
not yet separated. For the contest between Pluto-
nism and Neptuniam, see Delitzsch, p. 609. The con-
trast of both systems does not begin till the third
day of the creation, with the separation of water and
land. The beginning of the third day of creation
(the evening) probably marks the period of the ac-
tual water-formation from the precipitates of the
recent atmosphere, with which the entire new sur-
face of the earth is overfiowed. In the transition
from hght days, and rain-storms, and hurricanes, is
mirrored the creation of the second day. The crys-
tals and precious stones children of night. *' On the
second day God made nothing," says Kougemont, "he
only caused a, separation." But such a separation
was a creation.

Third Day. — Separation between land and water.
In accordance with this, the development of fire, which
brings forth the earth, and combines with water, to
continue the formation of the earth. The first ap-
pearance of plants on points of earth in insular dis-
persion. Eemains of the general flood : deserts,
sandbanks. (Question, whether the plants through-
out were created before coal, or whether coal is not
mainly to be considered as pre-existing as a formative
substance of the plants.)

Fourth Day. — The cosmical combination of the
lights of heaven and the earth. Cosmico-atmospheric
and chemical completion of the earth for the condi-
tions of a higher life. EcMptio. Beginning of the
relations of the zones. Continued operation : the
zones, the seasons, the periods. The metals children
of light.

Fifth Day. — Animals of the water — birds. The
conclusion of this period and the first half of the
following ; the main period of the strata-formation
»nd the petrifactions, although this period begins
with the end of the third day.

Sixth Day.— The catastrophe introducing this
closes, with its completion not manifest before the
appearance of man, or the cycle of the great general
revolution3,and introduces the world which is intended
to be Adam's home. The natural law, in its central

efiFect aa a law of necessity, la abolished in the destina
tion and freedom of man.

Seventh Day. — God reposes and rests in man,
Man reposes and rests in God. God"s sabbath ii
reflected in the sabbath of the world. Just as the
geology of the first day represents the cosmogony
through the universality of light, so the firmament
of the second day represents the heaven above and
the earth beneath. Then the fourth day, in contrast
to the third, points up again to the cosmos. On th«
fifth day of creation the birds of heaven must a(
least indicate the cosmical relation ; on the aixth
day man, the special repreaentative of the spirit-
world.

d. The Gradual Development of the Individual
Life on Earth. — The idea of the natural life is the
idea of a relative independence communicated by God
to the world, which passes through the stages of
symbolical independence to actual independence, ot
that fi'eedom of man in which nature is abolished
We distinguish, accordingly, the following degreef
of independence in an ascending line : 1. The ele
ment: or dependent self-existeuce to be annulled
(through chemistry); 2. the chemical combination:
or the mutual relation of the one element to thf
other, i. e., to its related opposite ; 3. crystals : self-
formation in forms and colors ; 4. plants : self-
production, reproduction ; 5. animals : self-motion
inwardly (self-perception), outwardly (motion in the
narrower sense) ; 6. man : self-consciousness and
power of self-control ; 7. the power denoted points to
the man from heaven, the God-man : or complete
self-control in complete self-comprehension in the
unity with God, nature, and humanity (see Lange's
" Positive Dogmatics," p. 247).

In respect to the classification, we remark, 1.
That every lower grade reappears in all higher
grades in a continually modified form ; 2. that it ia
the coming grade as a symbol and actual prophecy;
and 3. that it takes the lower place of a serving and
supporting substance for the higher grade. In man
all grades are combined and aubordinated to spirit.
As he is an image of God, so also is he an image of
the earth ; so also of the universe. Microcosm.
The idea of the lower grade is not so to be understood
as if the stamp of divine authority were wanting to
it. 5. Every grade comprises again lower and higher
formations ; with the lowest it reverts to the pre-
ceding grade, but with the highest it presents, in its
solemn pauses of formation, a prehminary or provi-
sional completion wliich becomes the symbol of the
completion of life in general. Tlirough those relaps-
ing or bastard-like formatiojis arise the poisons,
according to H. von Schubert and K. Snell (see Lan-
gb's *' Dogmatics," p. 266), which are a7i allegory of
moral discord and relapse into sin. The completed
types of a fixed grade of nature are, on the contrary,
the precious stone, the palm, the rose, the eagle,
the dove, the lamb, etc., becoming with their tran-
sient completion symbols of the highest life. The
period which is peculiar to each grade, appears with
it in full power; hence in the element, the obscure,
enigmatical, apparently isolated existence ; in chemis-
try, the whole irresistible power of physical elective
affinities ; in the crystal, the stately play of the sterne?t
forms and the most beautiful colors; in the plant,
the whole power of reproduction (through root, seed,
and branch), and of growth high into space, and fat
into time ; in the animal, the motion in all kinds and
in all grades ; in man, finally, the aelf-consciousnese
in that perfected intensity which makes it the most

(90

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

peculiar characteristic of his being. 7. The individual
formation appears in every grade in greater power.
Hence the elements have mostly lost themselves in
chemical combinations, and these again submit to
the most manifold separations. Hence crystals are
mostly a'tered, arrested, or distorted through disturb-
ing influences or checks, and seldom appear pure.
Hence plants are capable of greater degeneracy in
their kinds than animals, and the metamorphoses of
the subordiuate animals greater than those of the
higher. This disposition to degeneracy and to
variety has lately become an inducement to dispute
the idea of fixed species, as we see it in the work of
the English naturalist Darwin, on the origin of species
in the animal and vegetable world by natural genera-
tion, translated into German by Bronn, Stuttgart,
1860. This work, doubtless, will only be able to
induce more exact formulas as to the grade of the
individuality of the species and the susceptibility of
modification in their pure ground-types through
antagonistic or favoring influences.

e. The Natural Development of the Individuals
themfielves. — It passes through a regular series of
Jtages or metamorphoses in which the metamorphoses
of growth to maturity, of the transiiion from one
ground-form into another (analogous in the insect-
world to the passing through various natural grades)
are to be distinguished from a higher state of perfec-
tion. It has indeed been doubted whether from the
beginning our nobler grains have not been distin-
guished from the wild species, and also the tame
domestic animals from the wild. The Scripture
seems to speak in this tone in the distinction appear-
ing in the very beginning between cattle and wild
animals, and farther on in the distinction of certain
plants of Paradise (see Delitzsch, p. 622 and ch. ii.).

f. The Developuient of Nature at large. — 1. Apart
from man. That nature waits patiently for man
appears from the fact that left to itself it grows wild,
and in boundless luxuriance threatens to overwhelm
and smother itself, as is proved by the primitive for-
ests, the marshes, and the miasmas. 2. In reference
to man. Nature is intended to develop itself in
accord with man. It therefore sympathizes in his
fall (Gen. iii. 17 flf. ; xix. 28 ; Deut. xxviii. 15 fiF. ;
Is. xiii. 6 if. ; Rom. viii. 19 ff.), and in his resurrec-
tion (Deut. xxviii. 8 ; Ps. Ixxii. ; Is. xxxv. ; Ixv. 66 ;
Rom. viii. 21 ; 1 Cor. xv. 46 ff. ; 2 Pet. iii. 13 ;
Rev. XX. 21). See De Rodgemont, pp. 2 and 3.

Therefore also has man in his individual form,
and man in his totality, his natural side ; and there-
fore it is that the most sublime idea of nature (for
the idea of nature, see the quotation from Aristotle
in Lange's " Dogmatics," p. 268), or the idea of an
inceptive founding, of a gradual development, and a
final completion of animal Ufe, does, for that very
reason, present itself to us in the history of the king-
dom of God, as the miramlows tree, which continuei
to grow from, the beginning to the end of the world,
with its crown reaching into eternity. And especially
in the history of the God-Man, does it thus appear
es a tree whose roots go back into the foundation of
creation, and whose boughs, branches, blossoms, and
fruits spread throughout the new humanity. The
natural sciences have not yet attained to the great-
B«as of the scriptural idea of nature.

Of the Eelation of the Account of the Creation
imd of the Holy Writ in general to the Natural
Sdences. — In this relation a fourfold collision may
be conceived : 1. An incorrect exegesis of the Scrip-
ture may clash with an incorrect exegesis of nature

(the investigation of nature is indeed only exegesii^
and its teachings are to be distinguished from thi
objective facts themselves). 2. An incorrect scrip-
tural exegesis can contradict the ground-text of the
life of nature. 3. A false exegesis of nature can
come in conflict with the text of the Scripture. The
fourth case, that the sense of the Scripture itself, or
the text of nature itself, might be in contradictioD
with each other, could only be imagined on th
ground that Scripture and nature were not, both of
them, books of revelation of the same God. The
thorough, scientific, and theological investigation
confirms more and more their harmony. — Pretended
incongruities in the account of creation itself are: 1.
Light before the lights or illuminating bodies. This
is thoroughly removed (see Exegesis). 2. The earth
proceeding from the water in contrast to Plutonism.
This objection reposes on the misunderstanding of the
waters ver. 2 and ver. 6, and exaggeration of the
demands of Plutonism. 3. The firmament on the
fourth day. See the Exegesis and the fundamental
thoughts. 4. The days of creation: Also removed
by the correct exposition which makes them pecu-
liar days of God. When, however, naturalists fill
their mouths with millions of years as a necessity for
the formation of the earth, they fall into contradic-
tion with the spirit and the laws of nature itself. It
is a law of nature that the subordinate formations
arise more rapidly than the higher ones. And fur-
ther, that hfe in the glowing, warm moments of its
origin, moves more rapidly than in its development.
If man continued to grow in the same proportion as
in the maternal womb, he would increase beyond the
highest trees. 5. The relation between the heliocen-
tric and the geocentric view, see above. — Pretended
collisions between the scriptural miracles and nature,
See "Bible-Work," Matthew; "Life of Jesus,"
ii. p. 268 ; " Philosophical Dogmatics," p. 467. On
the prophetic-symbolical parallel-miracles, see more
particularly in the " Bible-Work," Exodus.

11. The World as Cosmos. — The idea of the
cosmos, i. e., of the regulated, unitary, beautiful
appearance of the world, makes itself known, at first,
through the sevenfold verdict: "God saw that it
was good." In this we must bear in mind that, with
the good, the adjective aia means also the appro-
priate, the agreeable, the beautiful. But when it is
said for the seventh time, after the creation of man,
and with enhanced emphasis : Behold everything was
very good, there lies therein a reference to the fact
that the great world, the macrocosmos, has reached
in man, as the microcosmos, its living point of unity.
A variety, however, which with its appeatance rises
into an ideal unity, forms the very idea of (he beau-
tiful. But here this idea is, at the same time, in its
completeness, the idea of the good ; fcr in man the
finite world has reached its unending eternal aim.
And then there is what may be called the poetical
account of man affirming his appearance in that
parallelism of phrases, ver. 27, of which it has been
observed, it is the first example of religious poetry,
as the song of Lamech, ch. iv. 23, is the first exam-
ple of secular. The solemnity of the cosmical ap-
pearance of the world is then again specially expressed
in the delineation of the rest of God on the seventh
day. The sabbath of God is the primitive picture ol
the human days of rest and feslivity, in which the
adorning of the world appears in the reflection of
human adornment, and human worship endeavors ic
unite in itself all forms of the beautiful, of art, as it
also unites with the most beautiful perirds o( tbi

CHAP. I.— n. s.

191

life of nature in the course of the year. The Holy
Writ retains also this view of the world especially
in the appreciation of the beautiful, even of female
beauty, and in the reverence of the sublime and
beautiful nature (Ps. viii. 19 and civ. ; Is. xl., etc.),
in the glorifying of the beautiful service of Jehovah
(who Himself is adorned with light, Ps. civ.), and in
its own festal robes of beauty. It may be observed,
in passing, that the Jewish Rabbinism has discov-
ered strange reasons why, in the account of the sec
ond day, there does not also stand the expression
" He saw that it was good ; " it was because, say
they, on that day the apostate angels fell, because on
it God created hell, or because the waters brought
the flood over the world. It is generally assumed
that the sentence of approbation of the firmament
on the second day is comprised with that pronounced
on the formation of the land on the third day, and
on the firmament on the fourth. This is pursued
farther in the preceding exegetical illustration. — It is
known that the Grecian idea of beauty and of the
cosmos is elevated far above that of the Chinese,
Batisfied as it is only with the delicately formed, the
variegated, and the cheerful, and whilst it detests
the shadows in the picture. Certain representations
respecting the darkness and night in the treatment
of the six days' work remind us of the Chinese or
Persian views; for instance, in Herder, Delitzsch,
RouQEMONT (p. 11), and in Cheistianhs ("Gospel of
the Kingdom," p. 5). In one respect, again, is
there presented a similar difference between the
Grecian and the scriptural idea of the cosmical.
The former throws the obscure into the background,
because it cannot resolve it into higher unities. For
the Hebrew, that which is the ugly in a smaller unity
is only the picturesque shadow in a general higher
unity (see Ps. civ. 20 ; cxlviii. 7, 8). The obscurity
of the cosmos, originating with sin, is quite as well
to be regarded subjectively, according to which the
world meets the sinner in an uneasy threatening
form (Ecclesiastes 1. 8), as objectively, according to
which the creature, as suffering, must, in reality,
with fallen man, sigh for redemption (Rom. viii.
19).

12. Tfie World as ^on. — That the world also in
its truest and most inward principle of Ufe and devel-
opment is comprised in man, appears already fcom
the strong emphasis with which man is introduced
in the first chapter of Genesis as end or aim of the
creation, but still more from his principial position
at the head of things, which is given to him in the
second chapter. The idea of the aeon is a develop-
ment and a developing period of life placed with the
power of life in the principle of life. The world as
8Bon has also the principle of its life-power, its dura-
tion, form, and development in man. And thus is it
explained that with the distinction of universal his-
tory into the history of the first and second man, or
Adam and the Messiah, there is also distinguished a
twofold aeon. But it is in aecoi dance with the idea
of the seon, that the new aeon o' Christ can have
principially begun with His appearance and redemp-
tory act, whilst the old aeon still externally continues.
The life-do-elopment of the seon starts from the be-
giiming and appears, at first, gradually, but not per-
fectly, until the close. Just so it is explained that
the world in the course of its development depends
on the bearing of man, and that the history of man
is the history of the earthly cosmos. The sinless man
and Paradise, Adam and the field burdened with the
tuise, the r lin of the first race and the iood, Noah's

generation and the rainbow, the people of promise
and the promised land, the renewal of humanity,
through Christ, and the renewal of the earth, the
judgment, and the end of the world, these are only
the principal epochs of a chain of events which are
expressed in the most manifold separate pictures and
traits (see Lanqe's " Life of Jesus : '' the Baptism of
Jesus, the natural events at His death and ascen-
sion).

13. That the Scriptures neither know nor will
know of pre-Adamites (see Hahn : " Compendium of
Faith," ii. p. 24), nor of various primitive aboriginal
races, appears not only from Genesis i. and ii., but
also from the consistent presumption and assertion
of the entire Holy Writ ; for example. Matt. xix. 4 ;
Acts xvii. 26 ; 1 Cor. xv. 47. Hero we can bring
out only the following points ; 1. The original unity
of the human race coincides with the doctrine of the
unity of the fall of man in Adam, and the unity of
the redemption in Christ. It also accords with the
biblical and Christian idea of the unitary destination
of the earth. 2. The autochthonic doctrine of the
ancients stands in intimate connection with their
polytheism; the special race of any certain land cor-
responds with the special gods of said land, as the
speech of Paul in Athens clearly shows (Acts xvii
25, 26). 3. The greatest naturalists have mostly de-
clared themselves against the originality of different
human races, see Lange's "Dogmatics," p. 330; the
greater part of the CHrlier defenders of said view
belonged to the department of natural philosophy.
With the distinction of the various ground-types,
which are formed from the one human species, the
most serious difficulties are banished, though not
solely by reference to climatic relations ; and so in
regard to the alleged fruitfulness of sexual combina-
tions among the various races, the proof of such
fruitfulness is justly pronounced one of the strongest
proofs of unity. 6. The autochthonic theory has
never been able to harmonize itself in relation to the
ground-forms to be presented ; and it can also, 6. not
deny the fact that the origin of the various types of
men points back to a common home in Asia.

14. As to the doctrine of the original image,
compare the dogmatic works. The following dis-
tinctions need special attention : 1. obs and nia^ ,
image and likeness. The Greek expositors referred
the first to the dispositions of man, and the latter to
his normal development; thus also the scholastics
referred the former to the sum-total of the natural
powers of man (reason, Uberty), and the latter to his
pious and moral nature. This distinction appears
again in another form in the older Protestant dogma-
tics, when it distinguishes between an image that
man has not lost by sin (Gen. ix. 6 ; James ill. 9),
and such a one as he, in fact, has lost, although this
Protestant distinction does not refer itself back to those
words image and likeness. Image has already been
made to refer to the similitude to God in man (the
so-called /tiwptJ^eo?), likeness to man as microcosm in
so far as he unites the whole world in himself and
presents it in a reduced scale, because the world is a
likeness of God on a grand scale (A. Fkldhoff:
"Our Immortality," Kempten, 1836). We maintaii.
rather that the image designates the principle in
accordance with, and with a view to which, man hai
been created — consequently, the dynamic-plastic idea
of the God-Man (which view is supported by the fact
that man, according to Gen. iii., wished arbitrarily
to reaUze this idea). We maintain, therefore, thai
the image denotes the primitive image, as in Christ

192

GB^^!SIS. OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

ilone is it plainly so called,* and comes in Him to
ill realized appearance. Therefore is it said in the
image^ that is, the determinable similitude of man in
proportion to the imnge of Christ. The likeness, on
the contrary, is the real appearance of the copied
similitude, as it was peculiar to the first man in the
condition of innocence from the beginning. The
older Protestant dogmatics distinguished, as said
(without reference to the words image and likeness),
the substantial human affinity, to G-od, especially in
spiritual powers, reason, etc., and the image in the
narrower sense, the justitia originalis^ the status
integritath with its separate attributes (especially
impassibility, immortality). They laid the emphasis
on the fact that the image in this stricter sense
was lost. Thereby has this opinion, for its part,
represented the glory of the first man in various
ways as too much developed, whilst the Socinians,
contrary to the nature of the spirit, would consider it
as a mere abstract power (see Lange's " Positive Dog-
matics," p. 304). 2. To say nothing now of the
Encratites and Severians, who denied to the female
sex a share in the similitude, there may be farther
noted the strange contrast between such as would
find the image merely in the bodily appearance of
man (The Audians, and lately Hofmann), or merely in
his spiritual nature (Alexandrians, Augustine, Zwin-
gli), since here the simple observation suflices, that
the body of man is above all an image of his pecu-
liar spiritual nature. In accordance with this the
similitude can naturally be understood only of man
in his totality. Its root is the spiritual nature or
the divine affinity, its appearance is the bodily form
in which man effects his dominion over nature, and
although this does not fulfil tht; idea of his simili-
tude, it certainly appears as the first and most com-
mon realization of it. Man is the administrator of
God on earth. The similitude, i. e., the disposition
and designation of man to the image, has remained
to him; the image in its integrity (5o|a) he has lost.
Still, an obscure outline of it, especially of the like-
ness, has remained to him, as is proved by the re-
mains of the manifoldly evil administration of men
on earth. The distorted inrage of the divine assumes
various forms in sinful man, even to the image of
evil spirits. One must make the distinction between
the pyunitive image, Christ, and tlie copg, human
nature, but not so as if the primitive image were the
exclusive Godhead, or the copy pure creature. See
also the article "Image" in Herzog's Real-Lexicon.
15. Man (C7S) indicates liere collectively human-
ity according to its origin in the first human pair, or
in the one man in general, who was certainly the
universal primitive man and the individual Adam in
one person. Adam, referring to Aclamah; the red
one, from the red earth taken. Or is it, in fact, as
Starke maintains, the beautiful, the brilliant? It is
true, CTS< in Arabic may also mean to be beautiful,
to shine, and Gesenius remarks : sclent Arabes duplex
genus hominum dislinguere, alterum rubrum, guod
rws album appellamus, alterum nigrum. If the
earth had the name of Adam, Adamah, as might be
Inferred from the first appearance of the word in ch.
ii. "7, the conception of Adam had a good sense, as
brilliant, beautiful, analogous to the commendatory
appellations of man in other nations. But it is clear

* [Compare H'*b. i. 3, where Christ is called "the express
Imago," whicli is a poor translation of the Greek xapaK'n]p
f^e un-oo-To'a-ewc, the Impression, stamp, or imag:e of the
Bultstance. Compare, also, Coloss. i. 15 : e'lKuv Toy 0eou ToiJ
u^Tov— "image of the invisible God." T. L.]

that Adam is named according to Adamah, cL. ii 1
and so Panl has comprehended him as the x"'"^' (1
Cor. XV. 47). On the word Adam, comp. Delitzsch,
pp. 141 and 619. The Scripture indicates by this
name that it is in unity with the wonderful fact, that
man was created by God, though he went forth from
the earth in the form of a natural growth under an
" inspiration of the earth," as Steffens expresses him-
self

16. The Sabbath. The view set up by Sehrodei
and Gerlaeh of the late origin of the sabbath in the
giving of the law, finds a contrast in the exaggerated
importance of the significance of the word sabbath
in Delitzsch (p. 131 ff.), where he says, " Sunday has
a cburchly solemnization, but the sabbath remains
the blessed and hallowed day of days," etc. The
sense of these and similar words is not entirely clear,
especially when one considers that under the days
of creation Delitzsch does not understand real days
but periods. Also the beaulifully expressed parallel,
in Dehtzsch, of the creative Friday when everything
was finished, and the Friday of the redemption, when
Christ died with the words: "It is finished;" that
is, the sabbath of creation and the day of rest of
Christ in the grave, as bringing up with the resurrec-
tion of Christ the now prominent and deep signifi-
cance of that first Sunday, when God said : " Lei
there be light." For historical particulars, see Winer,
article " Sabbath ; " Hfjsgstenberg : " The Day of
the Lord." See especially the article " Sabbath "
by Oehler in Herzog's " Real-Encyclopasdia," where
the existence of a clearly marked pre-Mosaic solem-
nization of the sabbiith among the Jews, and the
analogous existence of a heathen, that is, an Egyp-
tian weekly festival, is decidedly questioned. That
the heathen nevertheless, from time immemorial,
have known certain festive periods, appears from
their mythological systems.

17. As significant figures, as signs of a future
sacred symbol of numbers already appearing in our
section, are to be observed the number two, appear-
ing in the various contrasts (heaven and earth, etc.)
as the number of nature or of life; the number three
in the contrast of the two ternaries ; the number
four as number of the world in so far, as on the
fourth day the cosmos in the whole was completed ;
the number six as the number of labor, and seven
as the sacred number of the divine labor concluded
and perfected in the solemn rest of God. The num-
ber seven appears besides in the sevenfold, solemn
expression: God saw that it was good. But the
number ten also is seen in the tenfold introduction
of the creative word : " God spake : Let there be."

18. The so-called anthropomorphisms of the
present chapter : God spake, God saw, God made,
God rested, form the foundation of th^ whole anthro-
pomorphic and anthropopathic style of dehneation in
Sacred Writ. We must here observe that the anthro
popathic expression may not be understood as literal-
dogmatic (anthropopathists) neither as mythical
(spiritualists), but as religio-symbolical, representing
the divine ideal-doing under the figure of human
action, not, however, in the sense as if human life
action, and image wen the original that shadowi
itself in the similarities of divine action, but in the
sense that the divine speaking, working, and resting
form the foundation for the analogous, comparative
doings of man (see " Bible-Work," John) ; just as
God's day is the original image for the day of man,
but not vice-versa.

19. The first chapter of Genesis clearly contaiitf

CHAP. I.— n. 3.

193

the germs of all fundamental doctrines of theology
in the stricter sense, as well as of anthropology ;
that is, it Is the basis for the doctrine of God (the
first article of the apostolic Confession of Faith), of
His attributes and His personality, of the world, of
the religious and earthly-real side of the world ; fi-
nally of man, his nature, dignity, and destiny. With
the image of God, in which man is created, is also
expressed the future of Christ, as it lay in its ideal
destination in the divine counsel from eternity (see
Lange's "Dogmatics," p. 211). The possibility of
sin is, moreover, alluded to in the words : Rule
over them and make them subject to thee. It ap-
pears, however, more clearly in the second chapter.

HOMILETICAI, AND PEACTIOAL.

(Kleist : " Hymn to God ; " Geliert : " God is
my Song ; " Klopstook's " Odes to Creation ; " Fe.
Ad. Krummacher : " The Days of Creation "). —
Homily on the six days' work from ch. i.-ii. 3.
Point of view ; The creation as a revelation of God :

1. His omnipotence (Let there be!); 2. His wisdom
(means and end, the grades of nature and the image
of God) ; 3. His goodness (the living beings and
their movement and nourishment) ; His love (man).
— The creation as a future of man (the preparation
of the house of God for man and man for the house
of God). — The creation as the advent of the God-
Man: 1. The days' works of God a prophecy of man;

2. the perfected man on the sabbath of God a proph-
ecy of the Gud-Man. — The first creation a prefigura-
tion of the second creation or the redemption. — The
week of God: 1. God's work in nature; 2. God's rest
in man. — The sabb:ith of God a prophecy of the di-
vine Sunday. — The week of God in the history of
the world. — The appointment of the whole course of
the world as a work of God: 1. The Chiliastic error
therein : the chronological computation, etc. ; 2. the
truth therein: the expectation of the divine period
of rest (Rev. xx.). — The world according to its various
forms: 1. As creation; 2. as nature; 3. as cosmos;
4. as Eeon. — The work of God and the work of man.
What is different, and what is common to both: a.
The order ; b. the constancy ; c. the gradual progres-
sion; d. the aim. — The account of the creation con-
trasted with ancient and modern errors (see Doctrinal
and Ethical). — The account of the creation in its
truth and sublimity. — The basis of aU the days' works :
Heaven and earth. — The contrast of heaven and
earth running through the entire Holy Writ as a
symbol of religion. — Heaven as the home of man
whilst on the earth : 1. The sign of his origin ; 2. the
direction of his prayer ; 3. tae goal of his hope. —
The first three days' work as the preparation of tlie
last three. — The word of God as the word of power
in the creation. — The spirit of God as the formative
strength of all God's works. — Creation as a mirror of
the Trinity. — The creation a revelation of hfe from
God: 1, The foundations of life in the elementary
world; 2. the symbolical phenomena of life in the
animal world ; 3. the reality and truth of life in the
human world. — The glory of the Lord in the work
of creation : 1. The co-operation of all His quahties
(omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, etc.) ; 2.
the unity of all His attributes. — Separate Sechons
and Verses. Ver. 1 : In the beginning. The birth
of the world also the birth of time. 1. The fact
that the world and time are inseparable ; 2. the
ippucation: a. the operations in the world are

13

bound to the order of time, 6. time is ^ven for
labor. To-day, to-day 1 — The relation of worldly
time to the eternity of God (Ps. xc. 1). — The begin-
ning of the Scriptures goes back to the begirmlng
of the world, as the end of the Scriptures extends to
the end of the world. — The outline of creation: Hea-
ven and earth: 1. Heaven and earth in union; 2.
earth for heaven ; 3. heaven for earth. — The primary
form of the earth and the creation of light a picture
of the redemption : 1. The redemption of mankind in
general, 2. of the individual man. — Waste and void
the first form of the world. — Laying the foundations
of the world (Eph. i. 4, and other passages). — The
spirit of God the sculptor of all forms of life. — The
word of God: Let there be: 1, How the growth of
the world points back to the eternal existence of the
word ; 2. liow the eternal word is the foundation for
the growth of the world. — The word — let there be —
in its echo through time as the word of the creation,
of the redemption and glorification.— The first clear-
ly defined creation : the hght. — The significance of
light ; its physical and religious significance. — God's
survey of light. — Light a source of life : 1. Its good
as existing in its ground ; 2. its beauty as disclosed
in its appearing. — The creation of hght at the same
time the creation of physical darkness (see Is. xlv.).
— How carefully we must guard against the commin-
gling of natural and spiritual darkness. — The natural
darkness as it were a picture of the spiritual. — But
also a picture of the " shadow of His wings." — Even-
ing and morning, or the great daily phenomenon of
the alternation of time. — The creation of fight a
day's work of God: 1. The first day's work; 2. a
whole day's work ; 3. a continuous day's work ; 4. a
day's work rich in its consequences. — The first day.
Vers. 6-8 : The second day's work, or the firmament
of heaven. — The firmament in its changing phenome-
na a visible image of the invisible heaven. — "Vers. 9
and 10 : Land and sea. The beauty of the land, ths
subhmity of the sea. The symbolical significance of
the land : the finn institutions of God ; of the sea :
the wave-like hfe of nations. — The second day of
God. Vers. 9-13: The earth and the vegetable
world. The green earth a child of hope. — The plant
the prelude and symbol of all life (of animal, human,
and spiritual). — The providence of God in the crea-
tion of the vegetable world before the creation of
animals and man. — This providence a picture of the
same providence with which he thought and com-
manded our salvation from eternity. — The store-
houses of the earth supplied before the appearance
of man, according to the Scriptures and natural sci-
ence (coal, minerals, salts, etc.). — The third day.
Vers. 14-19 : The creation of the heavenly lights foi
the earth. — The sun. The moon. Sun and moon
(Ps. viii. 19). The stellar world. — A glance of faith
into the stellar world. — The ofiice of the stars fo'
the earth : 1. God's sign for faith ; 2. sacred signs
for the festive periods of the solemnization of the
faith ; 3. spiritual watchers and guides for the spirit-
ual life of man; 4. homes of life for creature-life. —
The fourth day. Vers. 20-23 : The life of the fishes
in the sea and the birds under the heaven a sign of
the possibility of an endlessly diversified existence of
spiritual beings. — The blessing of God on the animal
world (in every climate and sea). — The fifth day.
Vers. 24 and 25 : The animals of the earth as the
forerunners of man : 1. The first signs and pictures
of human life ; 2. its most intimate assistants ; 3. its
first conditions. — Vers. 26-31 : The creation of man;
1. A decree of God; 2. an announcement of tb«

194

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

hnage of God; 8. the last work of God. — The office
of man : 1. God's image in his power and perfection ;
2. God's lilceness in his appearance. — The peifect
fulfilment of this destiny. — The one divine similitude
in the contrast of man and woman. — The blessing of
God on man: 1. His future; 2. his calling; 3. his
possessions and his sustenance.— The institution of
marriage (see oh. ii.) — The calling of man, through-
out, a call to dominion : 1. In representing God ; 2.
in ruling over the beasts ; 3. in the free self-control.
— The purity of the first creation. — The verdict of
God: Very good. — Vers. 24-31. The sixth day. —
The completion of the world, the sabbath of God. —
The significance of the rest of God on the seventh
day. — The sabbath of God, the sabbath of man: 1.
Man a sabbath of God ; 2. God the sabbath of man.
— The contrast between struggling creation and joy-
ful labor, also in the life of man. — The blessing of
God on the sabbath. — The sabbath in its significance :
1. Its source in the heart of God, like the life of man
Jthe bUss of God) ; 2. its signs : the solemn pauses
(God saw that it was good), like the evening-rest,
preludes of the Sunday ; 3. its fruitfulness : the festi-
vals of the Old Covenant, the Sunday of the New
Covenant, the eternal sabbath-rest, and celebration
of the Sunday in eternity. — The festal demeanor
according to the pattern of God: 1. Reposing; 2.
blessing; 3. hallowing. — The first completion of the
world a presage of its final completion.

Starke, ver. 1 : The question what God did be-
fore the creation. He chose us (Eph. i. 4), He pre-
pared for us the kingdom (Matt. xxv. 34), He gave
us grace in Christ (2 Tim. i. 9), He made the decree
of the creation. — Some understand by the beginning
the Son of God (Col. i. 16 ; Rev. i. 8), at which also
the Ohaldaic translation aims by rendering it: in
msdom (comp. Wisdom of Solomon ix. 4; Ps. civ.
24 ; Prov. viii. 22) ; but because the Son of God is
nowhere * absolutely called the beginning (see, how-
ever, Col. i., apxTi), and Moses, besides, intends to
describe the origin of the world, the first explanation
is reasonably preferred to the second (namely, from
the beginning of the creation). — Moses, with these
words : in the beginning, overthrows all the reasons
of the heathen philosophers and atheists with which
they maintain the eternity of the world, or that it
perchance has arisen from numberless atoms (see
Rom. i. 19 and 20). — -That the world is not eternal
may be seen from the following passages : Ps. xc. 2 ;
Prov. viii. 22, 24, 25; Is. xlv. 11, 12; comp. ver.
13 ; Matt. xiii. 35 ; xxiv. 21 ; xxv. 34 ; Mark x. 6 ;
2 Tim. i. 9 ; 2 Pet. iii. 4 ; John xvii. 24 ; Eph. i. 4 ;
1 Pet. i. 20.— The spirit of God (Ps. xxxiii. 6).—
Ver. 3 : Of the speaking of God. Although God did
not speak as we do, nevertheless the speaking of God
was a real genuine speech, in a higher but also more
appropriate sense than speaking is said of man.
For as God really and properly, although not in a
natural manner, generates hke man, so also is it
with divine speech. — Ver. 6 : God created light on a
Sunday, and on that day the children of Israel passed
tl rough the Red Sea, etc. — God is a father of hghts

" ;Uilless it be Prov. viii. 22, is^i; In^SJS"! "'JSp ilin'
■rllioli can only be rendered " Jehovah possessed me, or
bdgat me, the beginning of hie way." This probably was
the ground of the translation in the Jerusalem Targum, and
there would seem to be something in it, if we would in any
way connect the ut-cation of the world with the eternal
beginning, as Lange does in respect to the creation of the
flhuT'ih — chosen in Uim, created in Uim. The expressions
nem paraUeL— T. L.]

(James i. 17), of the external light, of the internal,
natural light of reason, of the spiritual light of grace,
and the eternal light in yonder world of glory. — Ver.
11: The herbs not only a house of supply, but also
a store for healing. — To this third day belong also
the subterranean treasures, iis precious stones, metals,
and other minerals. — Ver. 29 : We cannot say that
they had not the liberty of eating flesh. Whether
they really used this or preferred to eat fruits an
herbs, we can reasonably refer to its proper place.—
(Ver. 31 : Since God could have created everything
in a moment, no reasonable cause can be given why
He preferred six days, unless we reflect that it had
perhaps a reference to the six great changes in the
church, to which will finally succeed the sabbath of
the saints. Thus the first day is a prefiguration of
the time from Adam to Noah, etc.) — A Christian can
use the creatures, but he must not misuse them (1
Cor. vii. 31) that they groan not against him (Rom.
viii. 19). — Ch. ii. 3 : Discussion whether the first men
were bound to respect the sabbath. 0>i the eonira-
rii: 1. Every service of God connected with certain
times and places had a view to man after the fall ; 2.
man in a state of innocence has served God at all
times and in all places ; the sabbath was first insti-
tuted in the wilderness : God gave the sabbath only
to the Jews. Reasons for it : Appeal to the contents
of our passage, etc. — The sabbath-day a favor of
God.

Schroder to ver. 3 : Then spake God, says Chry-
sostom, "let there be light," and there was hght,
but now He has not spoken it, but Himself has be-
come our light. — From Valerius Herberger: But it
is much more that the Lord Jesus will finally trans-
port us, after this temporal light, into the eternal
light of heaven, where we shall see God in His light
face to face, and praise Him in the everlasting hea-
venly light and glory. — From Luther : He utters not
grammatical words^ but real and material things.
Thus sun, moon, heaven, earth, Peter, Paul, I and
thou are scarcely to be reckoned words of God, yea,
hardly a syllable and letter (?) in comparison to the
entire creation. — From Michaelis: Moses endeavors
in the whole history of the creation to present God
not merely as almighty, but at the same time as per-
fect, wise, and good. Who consideis all His works
and has created the best world. — Vers. 6-8: The
conclusion of the first day's work was an actual
prophecy of the work of the second day of creation,
it was on the basis of the light shining into and sep-
arating the moist chaos of the world, that God made
the division. — From Calvin : We well know that tor-
rents of rain arise in a natural manner, but the flood
sufficiently proves how soon we can be overwhelmed
by the violence of the clouds, if the cataracts of hea-
ven are not stayed by the hand of God. — God named.
The subsequent naming on the part of man is only
the prophetic fulfilment of the naming of God here
and elsewhere. — Vers. 9-13 : The first (rather the
second) division (vers. 6-8) is followed by a second,
both closely and intimately clinging to and antithet-
ically conditioning each other, for which reasoa
some would even reckon vers. 9 and 10 to the pr&
ceding day. — Valentin Herberger : Is it not
miracle? We take a handful of seed and strew
them on one earth and soil, where they have the
same food, sap, and care, nevertheless they djD not
commingle, but each produces its kind : the one white,
the other yellow, the fruit sweet and sour, brown
and black, red and green, fragrant and offensive,
high and low. Thus we, though, like the seeds, buriei)

CHAP. I.— n. 3.

196

Ji one consecrated ground (Sirach xl. 1 ), will never-
theless at the day of judgment not be confounded
with each other, but each will go forth in his flesh,
yet incorruptible (1 Cor. xv. 38). — Vers. 14-19.
From Luther: He maintains the same order as in
the three preceding days, in that He first adorns the
heavens with lights and stars, and afterwards the
earth. Even the heathen philosopher Plato says,
that ejes are especially given to men that, by the
observation of the heavenly bodies and their move-
ments, they may be to them as guides to the know-
ledge of God. It is by the heavenly bodies that men
judge of the weather; by their help they find their
way on the water and on the land. So, too, a star
led the wise men to the manger, etc. — Michaehs :
They (the stars) are the great and almost infallible
clock of the world, ever moving at the same rate. —
From Luther : Hereby is developed and shown to us
the immortality of the soul, from the fact that, with
the exception of man, no creature can understand the
movement of the heavens, nor measure the heavenly
bodies. The hog, the cow, and the dog cannot mea-
sure the water that they drink, but man measures
the heavens and all their hosts. Therefore there
shows itself here a spark of eternal life. — From Cal-
vin: ''Moses paid more attention to us than to the
stars, precisely as became a theologian." — The true
morning-star is Christ (Rev. xxii. 16), the sun of
righteousness (Mai. iv. 2). — The animals of the water
are in marked contrast with the animals of the air.
Water and air. The latter is as it were the embodied
liquid light, the former embodied darkness ; in its
depths there is neither summer nor winter, it is the
heavy melancholy element, whilst the air, light and
cheerful, gives life and breath eveiywhere. The in-
habitants of the former are opposed to those of the
latter, the fish to the birds, as water and air, dark-
ness and light. The fish is cold, stifi', mute ; the
bird warm, free, and full of melody. Yet not with-
out reason were both created on one and the same
day. They have many things in common, and are
in structure and movement closely and intimately
allied ; the variegated scaly mail of the fish points to
the colored feathery coat of the bird, and what the
wings are to the latter, the fins are to the former.
Water and air once lived together, and do so now ;
as the air descends into sea and earth, and vivifying-
ly penetrates the water, the latter, for its part, rises
into the air, and mingles with the atmosphere to its
remotest border. — That God blesses the animals, ex-
presses the thought, that God creatively endows ani-
mals with the power of propagating their kind, and
also points to the work of preserving the world.
" Here we see what a blessing really means, namely,
a powerful increase. When we bless we do nothing
more than to wish good ; but in God's blessing there
is a sound of increase, and it is immediately efficacious ;
80 again, His curse is a withering, and its effect in
like manner immediately consuming." Luther. —
Only the largest water-animals are introduced, be-
cause from them the greatness, omnipotence, and
glory of the creator most clearly shine forth. The
land-animals a product of the earth — with heads
bent downwards. — Various views as to the time of
the creation of the angels (p. 20). — The Redeemer
rests also through the seventh day in the grave. —
In divinely solemn stillness lay the young world, a
mirror of the Godhead, before the eyes of the still
anfallen first human pair, as with Him they kept
loly day, representing in their divine similitude the
labbatb of God in the creation, and the sabbath of

the creation in God, harmoniously joined in ona
— Of a sabbath-law, there is nothing said in the text
Israel's later sabbaths (as the whole law was tc
awaken a sense of sin) were reminding copies of this
sabbath of God after the creation, and uufulflllec
prophecies not only of the completion of the theocra
cy of the Old in the Christocracy of the New Cove
nant, but also of the final consummation of the pres"
ent order of things, especially on the last greai
sabbath, etc. — The ancient allegorizing of the days
of creation according to the periods of the kingdom
of God (p. 23). — "Six days," says Calvin, "the
Lord occupied in the structure of the world, not as
if He needed these periods, before whom a moment
is a thousand years, but because He will bind us to
the observing of each one of His works. He had
the same object in His repose on the seventh day."
(Augustine had already expressed himself in the
same way. There lies at the base of this an abstract
comprehension of the divine omnipotence, and a
great ignoring of the idea of nature. Luther's con-
jecture: The fall occurred on the first day of crea-
tion, about noon.)

Lisco : Death is nothing in the creation. Every-
thing lives, but in very manifold modification. — Man
is created in the image of God, i. e., so that all divine
glory shines forth in him in a reduced scale. He
has a nature allied to God, and therein lies the pos-
sibility and capability of becoming ever more like
God. — The whole human race is one great family.
All are blood-relations. — The dominion of man ovti
nature obtains, in progressive development and ex
tension, by the arts and sciences, by investigation ol
nature's laws, and by using its powers (of course
under the conditioning of life in the spirit througt
community with God).

Geelaoh: The whole subsequent history is writ-
ten only for men (L e., according to the human
stand-point) ; therefore sun, moon, and stars, the
host of heaven (ch. ii. 1), appear merely as lights in
the firmament of heaven, and nothing is told us of
the inhabitants of heaven, although even in this book
the angels frequently appear, and the fall of some is
already in ch. iii. presupposed, etc. — All things have
had a beginning. — The world was to develop itself in
the contrast of heaven and earth, which repeats itsejf
on a small scale — on earth, in spirit and nature, and
in man, in spirit and flesh. — It is self-evident, theie-
fore, that God's speaking is not the production of an
audible sound, but the realization of His thoughts
through an act of His will. — The "naming" is equi-
valent to determining something in accordance with
its nature or its appearance. There is thereby indi-
cated the power of God as ruling and thinking all
things. (The naming here is not meant as a creative
calling, but as an expression of the divine adaptation.)
— The upper firmament from which descend Ught and
warmth and fertilizing moisture, casting blessings on
the earth, attracting with its wonderful moving and
fixed lights the observation of the rudest man, and
drawing forth the anticipation of, and longing for,
a higher home than this earthly one, is the visible
pledge, yes, perhaps the distant gleam, of a heavenly
world of light. It bears with it, therefore, a nam<
which is the same with the kingdom, where in un-
dimmed light "our Father in heaven" reveals Him-
self — As originally everything was sea, thus in the
glorified earth there will be no more sea. — It is ab-
surd to suppose, because fruit-trees oidy are her«
spoken of, that the others, as thorns and thistles, did
not appear until after the fall of man. (Only the fao*

106

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

that they at a later period burdened the field, is al-
luded to by Augustine as a punishment.) A very
fitting distinction of a similitude of man, which can-
not be lost, and of such a one as has been lost. — The
reader must carefully guard against the Jewish fables
fvhich haYe also found their way among Christians,
namely, that man was at first created as man and
woman in one person, and afterwards both sexes
were separated from it. — God rested, etc. Perfect
rest and the greatest activity are one in Him (see
John V. 17). — Whether a fixed observance of the
seventh day was ordered with the revelation of the
history of creation, or whether this was first given to
the people of the law with the other laws, presents
an obscure question, but the latter view is the more
probable ; in Genesis, at least, there is found no trace
of the observance of the sabbath, and still less among
heathen nations; the division of weeks, as found
among some, might have been made according to
the quarters of the moon. (The knowledge of the
week, and the religious consecration of this know-
edge, forms, indeed, the patriarchal religious basis
of the sabbath-law, which no more came into the
world abruptly than any other religious institution.)
Cahver Bible Exposition: The number seven,
important through the whole Old Testament, reminds
one of the year of jubilee and the rest of the sabbaih
which is allotted to the people of God above, whither
Jesus has gone before to prepare a place for His
own. — BoNSEN : The days of creation go from light
to light, from one (ontstreaming) of light to another.
Man as the real creature of light is the last progres-
sive step. — Fruits of trees " above the earth " in con-
trast with bulbous plants, which are included in the
herbs (?). — Signs. Sun, moon, and stars ; especially
sun and moon are to be signs for three important
points : for festive periods (new moons and sabbaths),
for days of the month, and for the new year (begin-
ning of the solar and lunar year). — The week has its
natural basis in the approximate duration of the four
phases or appearances of the moon's disk, whose
unity forms the first measure of time, or the month,
according to the general view of all Shemites.
Astronomically the number seven has in the ancient
world, and especially among the Shemites, its repre-
sentation in the seven planets, or wandering stars,
according to the view of the senses (?): the moon.
Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
Thence comes also the series of our week-days. —
Arndt (Christ in the Old Covenant) : As long as
there is a world there is an advent. — The birth of
the world is the great moment of which it is declar-
ed : God said : Let there be light, and there was
jght.

[Note on the Ceeation-Sabbath. — The question
of the sabbath in all its aspects stands whoUy clear
from any rlifficulty as to the length of the creative
days. We have already shown that there is not only
a bare consistency but a beautiful scriptural harmony
in the less being made a memorial of the greater.
See Introd. to Gen. i. pp. 135, 136. God's great rest,
or ceasing from His work of creation, commences
with the first human consciousness following the
hiapiratior that makes the primus homo. Then the
heavens and the earth are finished. Nature and the
world are complete ip this crowning work, and the
divine sabbath begins. This is blessed and hallowed.
Time, as a. part of nature, is now proceeding in its
regular sun-divided order, and from this time a sev-
enth returning part is also blessed and hallowed for
man, as a season in which he is to rest from his

works, and contemplate that now unceasing sabbati
of God, which, from the very nature of the case, can
have no such shorter recurring inteiTals. Hence the
force of our Savioiu^'s words that the sabbath, the
weekly solar sabbath, was made for man, They who
contend that the divine sabbath is simj^y the first
twenty-four hours after creation is finished, make it
unmeaning, as predicated of God and His works. In
this sense God no more rested on that solar day than
on every one that follows until a new creative aeon
or a new creative day, arises in the eternal counsels.
Such a view destroys the beautiful analogy jiervading
the Scripture, by which the less is made the type of
the greater, the earthly of the heavenly, the tempora
of the eternal. It makes the earthly human sabbath
a memorial of something just like itself, of one long-
past solar day, of one single transient event, instead
of being the constantly recurring witness of an asonian
state, an eternal rest, ever present to God, and re-
served for man in the unchanging timeless heavens.

But the question with which we are most con-
cerned is in regard to the sabbath as established foi
man. Does this seventh day, or this seventh portioL
of time, which God blessed and hallowed, have thug
an eternal and universal ground as a memorial of the
creative work with its sevenfold division, or does it
derive its sanction from a particular law made long
after for a particular and peculiar people? The
question must be determined by exegesis, and for
this we have clear and decisive, if not extensive,
grounds. It demands the close consideration of two
short passages, and of a word or two in each. " And
God blessed the seventh day," Gen. ii. 3. Which
seventh day ? one might ask, the greater or the less
the divine or the human, the ieonian or the astro
nomical ? Both, is the easy answer ; both, as com
mencing at the same time, so far as the one cormecta
with astronomical time ; boch, as the greater includ-
ing the less ; both, as being (the one as represented,
the other as typically representing) the same in
essence and idea. The attempt to make them one in
scale, or in measure, as well as in idea, does in fact
destroy that universality of aspect which comes from
the recurring, moving type as representing the stand-
ing antitype. Take away this, and all that we can
make out of the words, as they stand in Gen. ii. 3, is
that God blessed that one seventh day (be it long or
short), or, on the narrower hypothesis, that one day
of twenty-four hours which first followed His ceasing
to create, and left it standing, sacred and alone, away
back in the flow of time. But blessing the day
means blessing it for some purpose : it is the expres-
sion of God's love to it as a holy and beneficent
thing among the things of time, as carrying ever
with it something of God, some idea of the Blesser,
and of the love and reverence due to Him as the
fountain of all blessedness and of all blessed things.
So the blessing upon man looks down through all the
generations of man. No narrower idea of the bless-
ing of the sabbath can be held without taking froir
the word all meaning. "And hallowed it, init Ui^ jl^l
and m,ade it holy. This also is a very plain Hebrew
word, especially in its Piel form, as any one may see
by examining it with a concordance. We have given
to the word unholy (the etymological opposite) too
much the vague sense of wickedness in general, tc
allow of its fairly i-epresenting the opposite in idea
The holy throughout the Old Testament is oppo3e(?
to the common, however lawful in itself it may be.
To hallow is to make itncommon. To hallow a tim(
is to make it a time when things which are commoq

CHAP. I.— n. 8.

19^)

it other times, and peculiar to other times, should
lot be done, but the time so hallowed should be de-
moted to other and uncommon uses. Of course,
things essential and necessary at all limes are not
mcluded, or excluded, in such distinction. Neither
will it hold of days or times that mere human author-
ity thus devotes to any separate uses. Such devotion
may be as partial, or as indefinite, as the authority
chooses to make it. But when God hallows a time
it is for Himself. Not simply whatever man does,
but whatever he does for himself, or for his indi-
vidual worldly interest, at other times, that must he
not do on the times that God has hallowed for His
own special remembrance ; but he must, on the con-
trary, do other things which are more immediately
connected with that special remembrance. Anything
less than this as a general principle leaves the word
to hallow or malie holy, as used by God, and of God
(unless specially limited to some partial application),
an unmeaning utterance. It is the portion of time
which the Creator of time keeps for Himself, out of
the time He has given to man. It is elevating a por-
tion of the human time to the standard, or in the
direction at least, of God's own eternal sabbath.
There can be no hallowed time to God alone ;
there can be no hallowed time in itself irrespective
of any agents in time. Therefore, the expression,
Be hallowed it, must be for men, for all men who
were to be on the earth, or it is a mere blanli. It is
God's day in which men should Uve specially for
Him. It is sometimes said, we should hve every day
for God. If it be meant that there should be no
special times m which we live to God as we do not,
and cannot, at all times (when God permits us, in
living for Him, to Uve also for ourselves), then is it a
hyper-piety which becomes profanity in claiming to
be above the need of a provision instituted by the
divine wisdom and grace. Like to this is the plea,
that, if there be a sabbath at all, it should be spent,
not in reUgious aots,^so called, but in the study and
the contemplation ot' nature. This cavil has a high
sound, but it would soon be abandoned, perhaps, by
many that use it, if the contemplation of nature
spoken of were what it ought to be, a contemplation
of the very sabbath of God — nature itself being that
holy pause in which God rests from His creative
energies, that ineffable repose in which, though
superintending and preserving. He provides for man
through law that he can comprehend, and an execut-
ing Word that he can devoutly study.

If we had no other passage than this of Gen. ii. 3,
there would be no difficulty in deducing from it a
precept for the universal observance of a sabbath, or
seventh day, to be devoted to God, as holy time, by
all of that race for whom the earth and its nature
were specially prepared. The first men must have
known it. The words " He hallowed it," can have
no meaning otherwise. They would be a blank
unless in reference to some who were required to
ieep it holy. After the fall, the evil race of Cain,
loubtless, soon utterly lost the knowledge. In the
mie of Seth it may have become greatly dimmed.
Enoch, we cannot hesitate to behev(^ kept holy sab-
bath, or holy seventh day (whether the exact chrono-
logical seventh or not), until God took him to the
holy rest above. It lingered with Noah and his fam-
ily, if we may judge from the seven-day periods ob-
served m the ark. Of the other patriarchs, in this
respect, nothing is directly told us. They were
devout men, unworldly men, confessing themselves
pilgrims on earth, seekmg a rest. Nothing is more

probable, prima facie, than that such men, as w«
read of them in Genesis, and as the Apostle has
described them to us, should have cherished an idea
so in harmony with their unearthly pilgrim-life, even
though coming to them from the faintest tradition.
To object that the Bible, in its few brief memoranda
of their lives, says nothing about their sabbath,
keeping, any more than it tells us of their forms of
prayer and modes of worship, is a worthless argu
ment. The Holy Scripture never anticipates cavils;
it never shows distrust of its own truthfulness by
providing against objections — objections we may say
that it could have avoided, and most certainly would
have avoided, had it been an untruthful book made
either by earlier or later compilers. The patriarchs
may have lost the tradition of the sabbath ; it may
not have come to them over the great catastrophe of
the flood ; or they may have lost the chronological
reckoning of it; but, in either case, it would not
affect the verity of the great facts and announcements
in Gen. i. and ii., however, or by whatever species of
inspiration, the first author of that account obtained
his knowledge. For all who believe the Old Scrip-
tures, as sanctioned by Christ and supported by the
general bibUcal evidence, there it stands unimpaired
by anything given or omitted in the subsequent
history.

But there is another passage which shows con-
clusively that, through whatever channel it may have
come, such a knowledge of the sabbath was in the
world after the time of the patriarchs. The language
of the fourth commandment (Exod. xx. 8), to say
nothing of Exod. xvi. 22-27, cani.ot be interpreted
in any other way. Semeinber the sabbath-day,
naffln ni"' ns ^"dt . The force of the article is
there, though omitted, in the Hebrew syntax, because
of the specifying word that follows. It is just as
though we should say in English : Remember sab-
bath-day. Take the precisely similar language, Mai.
iii. 22, naa n-iin JITDT : Remember the law of
Moses, or, Remember Moses' law. As well might
one contend that this was the first promulgation of
the Pentateuch, as that Exod. xx. 8 was the first
setting forth of the sabbatical institution. There
was no call for such language had that been the case.
It would have been in the style of the other com-
mands : ' Thou shalt have no other gods ; Thou shalt
not take the name, etc. ; Thou shalt keep a sabbath,
or rest,' etc. We dwell not upon the distinct refer-
ence that follows to the creation-sabbath, and the
perfect similarity of reason and of language. The
artless introduction is enough to show that those to
whom it was addressed are supposed to have known
something of the ancient institution, however much
its observance may have been neglected, or its reck-
oning, perhaps, been forgotten. The use of the word
TiST (remember) would seem to point to some such
danger of misreckoning, as though the Lawgiver
meant to connect it back chronologically, by septen-
nial successions, with the first sabbath, or the first
day of the conscious human existence. Or he may
have had in view future reckonings. The old law of
a seventh day, or a seventh of time, being preserved
as an immutable principle, there might have been e
peculiar memorial reckoning for the Jewish people,
as there afterwards was for the Christian church
when the resurrection of Christ was taken for the
initial day of reckoning, as being, in a most solemn
sense, to the church, what the creative finishing had
been to the world. So that, in this respect, th«

198

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES

Christian eeventh day may have been no more a sub-
stitution than the Jewish.

A seventh part of time is holy for man. God
blessed it and hallowed it. Such is the deduction
from the language of Gen. ii. 3. There are other
questions relating to the sabbath, its adaptation to
the human physical constitution, and the change of
reckoning as between the Jewish and Christian dis-
pensations, but they would come more in place in
commenting on some other parts of the sacred vol-
ume, to which they may be, therefore, referred.
The religious aspect appears more in the universal
hallowing in Genesis than in the more national estab-
lishment among the Jews, where mere rest from
labor seems more prominent than religious worship,
or that holy contemplation of the divine which is tlie
living thought in the creative account, and which
comes out again so emphatically in the Christian
institution as more suggestive, than the Jewish, of
the eternal rest. It is a great, though very common,
mistake, that the Jewish aspect of the sabbath is the
more severely religious, as compared with the Chris-
tian, which is sometimes claimed to be more free in
this respect. Strict as the Jewish institution was, in
its proUbitious of labor, it was in fact the less reU-
gious ; it had less of holy contemplation ; it had no
worship prescribed to it ; it was, in a word, more
secular than the primitive or the Christian, as being
enjoined more for secular ends, namely bodily rest

and restoration for man and beast, and even for th«
land. These, indeed, are important ends still remain-
ing. The connections between the sabbath and th«
physical constitution of man form a most valuable
part of the general argument, but as they bear upon
the biblical view as collateral confirmation rather
than as connected with its direct sanctions, we would
simply refer the reader to some of the more instruc
tive works that have been written on this branch of
the subject.

James Aug. Hesset; "Sunday, its Origin, His
tory, and Present Obligation" (Bampton Lectures
preached before the University of Oxford), London.
1860; James GiLFiLLAN : "The Sabbath viewed in
the Light of Reason, Revelation, and History, with
Sketches of its Literature," Edinburgh, 1862, repub-
lished by the N. Y. Sabbath Committee and the
American Tract Society, New York, 1862; Philip
Schaff: "The Anglo-American Sabbath (an Essay
read before the National Sabbath Couvention, Sara-
toga, Aug. 11, 1863), New York, 1863 (republished
in English and in German by the American Tract
Society); Mark Hopkins: "The Sabbath and Free
Institutions" (read before the same Convention),
New York, 1863; Robert Cox: "The Literature on
the Sabbath-Question," Edinburgh, 1865, 2 vols.
On the practical aspects of the sabbath-question,
comp. the Documents prepared and published by the
N. Y. Sabbath Committee from 1867 to 1867.— T. L.]

SECOND SECTION.

Man — Faradiae — t?ie Paradisaical Pair and the Paradisaical Instiiutions, — Theocratic — Jehovistie,

Chapter II. 4-25,
A. — The Earth waiting for Man.

4 These are the generations [genealogies] ' of the heavens and of the earth when they

were created, in tlie day [here the six days are one day] that the Lord God [not God Jehovah, muct

less God the Eternal. Israel's God as God of all the world] made the earth and the heavens [the theo.

5 oratio heavens are completed from the earth]. And every plant of the field before it was in the
earth, and every herb of the field before it grew ; for the Lord God had not caused it
to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man [Adam] to till the ground [adamnh].

B. — The Creation of the Paradisaical Man.

6 But there went up a mist from the earth [including the sea] and watered the whole face

7 of the earth [the adamah or the land]. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of hfe, and man became* a living souL

C. — The Creation of Paradise.

8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden [land of delight], and there Le

9 put the man whom lit bad formed : And out of the ground made the Lord God tc
grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food ; the tree of life also in

10 the midst oi the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evih And a rivei
went out of Eden to water tke garden; and from thence it was parted and became intc

r.BAP. II. 4-26.

m

11 four heads. The name of the first is Pison [sprending] ; that is it which compassetb

12 [winds through] the whols land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of thai

13 land is good [fine] ; there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second
river is Gihon [gushing], the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia [Oush]

1 4 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel [swift-flowing] ; that is it which go^sth towara
the East of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

D.— The Paradise Life.

1 5 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dresa it

16 and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, Of every tree of the

17 garden thou mayest freely eat [bssn hDn]. But of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die [pijan ma].

E. — Paradisaical Development and Institutions.

i8 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone ; I will mase

19 him a help meet for him ["nsss , his contrast, reflected Image, his other l]. And Out of the ground
the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought
them unto Adam to see ^ what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every

20 living creature, that was the name thereof And Adam gave names to all cattle, and
to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field ; but for Adam there was not

21 found a help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam,

22 and he slept ; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof And
the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought het

23 unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh
she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man [isc/mA, man-ess, because taken

24 from isoft, man]. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave

25 unto his wife ; and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and
his wife, and were not ashamed.

[^ Ver. 4. — n^npn. Bendered by Lange genealogies. More properly generalimis in the primary sense, and without
any reference to time, like TH , or yevea. Births^ Greek : yeveo-ety, whence the name of the book in the Septuagint. It is
directly applied to births, or succeesions (one thing, or event, proceeding from another), in nature, and this may be
regarded as primary. For example, see Ps. xc. 2, ^Is*^ D^"in , he/ore the mountains were liom, generated. — T. L.]

["^ Ver. 7. — Lange renders: "und so ward der Mensch eine lebendige Seele.'* Luther has alfo. The Hebrew has
simply in^T , which we render : and man became, like the Vulgate and LXX. ; but the verb seems to have an emphasis,
which Lange rightly aims to give, and so man became, etc. : in this special manner, namely by the divine inspiration
directly ; since the animals also are called n^H 123S3 , living soul, though their life comes mediately through the general
life of nature or the DTlbN nlT , as mentioned ch. i. 2. See Ps. civ. 29.— T. L.]

[8 Yer, 19. — nlN'^b , to see. Lange : "um zu sehen." Some of the Jewish commentators raise the question whether
this has tbr its eubject'God or Adam. If the latter, then nlSli has the sense ol judging, determininff, which it will well
near.— T. L.]

EXEGETICAL AND CB.ITIOAL.

1. The present section, ch. ii. 4-25, is coniiected
with the one that follows to the end of eh. iii., by
the peculiar divine designation of Jehovah Elohim.
It has also a still closer connection with oh. iv., inas-
much as the next toledoth, or generations, begin
with ch. V. 1. That, however, ch. ii. 25 is really a
separate portion, appears from the strong contrast in
which the history of the fall, ch. iii., stands to the
history of Paradise, ch. ii. Eeil denotes the whole
division, even to the next toledoth (ch. v. 1), as the
history of the heavens and the earth. Upon the
lompleting of the creative work, ch. i., there follows
the commencing historical development of the world,
with the history of the heavens and the earth in three

sections: a. Of the primitive condition of man in
Paradise (oh. ii. 5-26) ; b. of the faU (ch. iii.) ; c. of
the breaking up of the one human race into two dis-
tinct and separately disposed races (ch. iv.). It
must be remarked, however, in the first place, that
in ch. ii. there is not yet any proper beginning of
historical development in the strict sense, and, sec-
ondly, that chs. iv. — vL 1-1 do evidently cohere in a
definite unity presenting, as consequence of the his-
tory of the fall, 1. the unfolding of the Une of Cain,
2, the unfolding of the line of Seth, and 3. the inter-
folding of both lines to their mutual corruption. So
far, therefore, does the history of the first world pro-
ceed under the religious paint of view. But the
generations of the heavens and the earth go on from
the beginning of our present section to ch. v. In
respect to tliis, Eeil rightly maintains that the phras<

200

GENESIS. OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

eleh tholedoth (these the generations) must be the
superscription to what follows (ver. 33). The ques-
tion arises : in what sense ? On good ground does
Keil insist that toledoth (a noun derived from the
Hiphil Tib^n , in the construct plural, and denoting
properly the generations, or the posterity of any one)
means not the historical origin of the one named in
the genitive, but ever the history of the generations
and the life that proceeds from him — or his series of
descendants (we may add) as his own genesis still
going on in his race. This word, therefore, in its
relation to heaven and earth, cannot denote the origi-
nal beginning of the heaven and the earth (Delitzsch
thinks otherwise), but only the historical development
of heaven and earth after they are finished. For the
toledoth or " generations of Noah," for example, do
not denote his own birth and begetting, but his his-
tory and the begetting of his sons. From what has
been said it follows, therefore, that the human history,
from ch. ii. to the end of ch. iv., is not to be regarded
as a history of the earth only, but also of the hea-
tens. And in a mystical sense, truly, Paradise is
neaven and earth together. Let us now keep special-
y in view the section of Jehovah Elohim, chs. ii. and
lii. When we bear in mind that the name Jehovah
Elohim occurs twenty times in this section in place
of Elohim that had been used hitherto (the excep-
tions, ch. iii. 1, 3, 5, are very characteristic), and
that, besides this, it is found only once in the Penta-
teuch (Exod. ix. 30), the significance of this cormec-
tioi] becomes very clear. When once, however, the
documentary unity of the Elohim and Jehovah sec-
tions is clearly entertained, this section becomes im-
mediately a declaration that the Covenant-God of
Israel, originally the Covenant-God of Adam in Para-
dise, is one with Elohim the God of all the world.
Immediately, too, is there established the central
stand-point of the theocratic spirit, according to
which Jehovah is the God of all the world, and
Adam, with his Paradise, is the microcosmic centre
of all the world (in respect to the names Jehovah and
Elohim, see Keil, p. 3.5). As far as specially con-
cerns our section, ch. ii., Knobel gives it the super-
scription: "The Creation, Narration Second." It
must be remarked, however, that here the genesis of
the earth, in contrast with the generative series that
follows, is presented according to the principle that
determines the ordering of things ; so that Adam, as
such principle, stands at the head. (It is according
to Aristotle's proposition : the posterior in appear-
ance, the prior in idea.) The representation must,
indeed, give him a basis in an already existing earth ;
yet still for the paradisaical earth is it true that the
earth is first through man. The paradisaical earth
with its institutions, uniting as they do the contrast
of heaven and earth, or rather of earth and heaven,
is the fundamental idea of the second chapter. For
an apprehension of this contrast, in part akin to and
partly variant, see Delitzsch, p. 138. From the
very supposition of the earth as existing, it appears
that the author presupposes still another representa-
tion of the creation, and that the present is only
meant to give a supplement from another side. It is
incorrect to say here, as Knobel does, that the origin
of plants in general goes before the origin of
man.

2. Ver. 4. The construction of De Wette is to
this eifect : " At the time when God Jehovah made
earth and heaven, there was no shrub of the field,"
etc. Still harsher and more difficult is the construc-

tion of Bunsen: "At the time when God the Evtr
lasting made heaven and earth, and there was no
yet any shrub of the field upon the earth, and n«
herb of the field had yet sprouted (for Jehovah God
had not yet made it to rain upon the earth, etc.),
then did God the Everlasting form man," etc. Both
of these are untenable and opposed to the simple ex-
pression of the text. (See also Delitzsch and Keil.)
Ver. 4 is indeed not altogether easy. On the day in
which the Lord made the earth and the heavens, that
is, on the one great day, in which here the hexaemc-
ron is included (with special reference, indeed, to its
closing period), there commenced the history of the
heavens and the earth in their becoming created—
that is, in the same period in which they becama
created. Out of the paradisaical history : Eai'th and
heaven, arose the converse history : Heaven and
earth, in a religious sense, just as in a genetic sense
there was the same order from the beginning.

3. Vers. 5 and 6. And every plant ot the
field. — The word bs with the negative particle is
equivalent to the German gar nichts, not at all. The
Hebrew conjunction 1 leaves it at first view unde-
cided, whether the superscription goes on so as to
take in the words, and every herb, etc. And yet, on
that view, there would be a failure of any concluding
sense. The most probable view, therefore, is that
which regards the conjunction as merely a transition
particle, and passes it over in the translation. Ac-
cording to Knobel and others this narration is actual-
ly at variance with that of ch. i., as, for example, in
its view of the dryness of the earth before the intro-
duction of the plants, etc. (see ver. 22), and, there-
fore, we must conclude that it belongs to another
narrator. In regard to this assumption of different
documents, we may refer to the Introduction (for the
modes of representation in the Jehovistic portions,
see Knobel, p. 23 ; Ukewise the head Literature, p.
24). The designed unity of both representations
appears from the manner and way in which, even
according to Knobel, the second of these narrations,
in many of its references, presupposes the first. The
full explanation of this unity becomes obiious from
the harmonic contrast which arises when the univer-
sal creation of the world is regarded from the ideal
stand-point of the Jehovah behef (see John xvii. 6;
Eph. i. 4). The author carries us back to the time
of the hexaemerou, when no herb of the field had
yet grown. Nevertheless there is not meant by this
the beginning of the third creative day, but the time
of the sixth. The apparent contradiction, however,
disappears, when we lay the emphasis upon the ex-
pression '^ of the field," and by the herbs and plants
of tlie field XhaX are here meant, understand the nobler
species of herbs that are the growth of culture. In
opposition to Delitzsch, Keil correctly distinguishes
between T^fa and '['ns . Delitzsch has not suffi-
ciently removed the difficulty that arises when w«
carry back the date of this to the time before vegeta-
tion existed. There would be (apparent) contradic-
tion (he admits) between the two narratives, but not
an inexplicable one — then it is no contradiction at
all. It is the paradisaical plants, therefore; these
did not yet exist; for they presuppose man. See
other interpretations in Lange's " Positive Dogmat-
ic," p. 242. Keil connects our interpretation witU
that of Baumgarten ; " By the being ot the plant is
denoted its growth and germination." This is e?er
wont to follow very soon after the planting of tht
germ. By assuming, indeed, a. certain emphasis OB

CHAP. II. 4-25.

20

She verbs fl^ni and nas"' , we may get the sense:
the herbs of the field were not yet rightly grown, the
plant was not yet come to its perfection of form or
feature, because the conditions of culture were as yet
wanting. But this thought connects itself more or
less with that of plants produced by cultivatiou,
which, as such, presuppose the existence of man.—
Had not caused it to rain. — To the human culti-
vation 01 the world belong two distinct things : first
the rain trom heaven together with sunshine, and
secondly the labor and care of man. Both condi-
tions fail as yet, but now, for the first time, comes in
the first mode of nurture. The fog-vapor that arose
from the earth (ha-aretz, including the seaj waters
the earth-soil (the adamah). It is rightly inferred
from ver. 6 that the vapor which arose from the
earth indicates the first rain. If it means that the
mist then first arose from the earth, there would
seem to be indicated thereby the form of rain, or, at
all events, of some extraordinary fall of the dew.
From this place, and from fhe history of the flood
(especially the appearance of the rainbow), it was
formerly inferred that until the time of the deluge
no rain had actually fallen. But from the fact that
the rainbow was first made a sign of the covenant
for Noah, it does not at all follow that it had not
actually existed before ; just as little as it follows
from the sign of the starry night which Abraham re-
ceived (Gen. XV.), that there had been no starry
oight before, or from the institution of the covenant-
sign of circumcision, that circumcision had not ear-
lier existed as a popular usage (two points which
the Epistle of Barnabas has well distinguished, al-
though the critics have partially failed in understand-
ing it. Epistle of Barnabas ix.). A similar view
must be taken of the previous natural history of the
paschal lamb, of the dove, and of the eucharistic
supper ; they were ever earlier than the sacramental
appointment. In fact, there is in this place no ex-
press mention made of ruin proper, and it may well
suggest here one of those heavy falls of dew that
take place in the warmer climates. Our text may
fairly mean, not that the rain was a mere elementary
phenomenon, but that it belonged to the divinely
ordered economy of human cultivation in its inter-
change with the labor of man. The most we can
say is, that the watering of the soil was a precondi-
tion to the creation of man himself. Just as cultiva-
tion after this, so must also, primarily, the cultiva-
tor of the soil come into existence under the dew of
heaven. Moreover, the earthly organization of man
consists, in good part, of water. The words Adam
and adamah are used here, as we may well beUeve,
to denote a close relationship of kin. As Adam, how-
ever, is not simply from the earth (ha-aretz), so the
adamah is not simply the theocratic earth-soil pre-
pared by the God who created man. Adam is the
man in his relation to the earth, and so is adamah
the earth in its relation to man.

[Note on the Summakt of the First Creative
Account in the Secono.— Knobel has to admit the
internal evidence showing that this second account
recognizes the first and is grounded upon it, thereby
disproving the probabiHty of a contrariety either in-
tended or unseen. The attempt, however, of Lange,
and of others cited, to reconcile the seeming difficul-
ties, can hardly be regarded as giving full satisfac-
tion. Another method, therefore, may be proposed,
which we think is the one that would most obvious-
•y commend itself to the ordinary reader who believed

in the absolute truthfulness of the account, and kneT
nothing of any documentary theory. The two narra-
tives are a continuation of the same story. The sec
ond is by the same author as the first, or by one in
perfect harmony with him, and evidently referring tc
all that had been previously said as the ground-work
of what is now to be more particularly added respect-
ing man, and which may be called the special sub-
ject of this second part. Hence the preparatory
recapitulation, just as Xenophou in each book of the
Anabasis presents a brief summary of the one pre-
ceding. This reference to the previous account thus
commences : " These are the generations of the hea-
vens and the earth" — that is, as has been already
told. That mbn refers to the creative growths,
births, evolutions, or whatever else we might call
them, would be the first and most obvious thought.
When told that they mean the generations of Adam,
as subsequently given, and this because " Paradise is
heaven and earth together," or "Adam with his
Paradise is the microco.smic centre of the world," we
admit the justness and beauty of the thoughts, but
find it difiicult to be satisfied with the exposition.
Again, whoever will examine the uses of nbx (these)
in NoLnius' " Concordance," will find that it refers
as often, and perhaps oftener, to what precedes than
to what follows. The context alone determines, and
here it decidedly points to the first chapter. There
is, however, no difficulty in taking it both ways, as a
subscription to the first passage, or as a superscrip-
tion to the second, at the same time. That "the
generations of the heavens and the earth " means
the previous creative account, and not that which
comes after, would seem to be decided by the words
immediately added, C5<"i3n2 , "in their being creat-
ed " — " in the day (that is, the time or period taken
as a whole) of the Lord God's making the earth and
heavens." To seek for mysteries here in the trans-
position of the words " earth and heavens," would be
like a similar search by the Jewish Masorites of
something occult in the little n (NT^rt 'n) of the
word DXian:. Either the whole previous time is
referred to, or, as is more probable, the earliest part
of it, before not only man but vegetation also. Or,
in the day, may mean, as some have thought, the
first day, when the material of the earth and heavens
had been created, but all was yet unformed. Now
this seems to be very much what is meant by what
follows in vers. 5 and 6. In the day when God made
the earth and heavens ; here the writer might have
stopped, so far as his main design was concerned,
and gone on immediately to give the intended more
particular account of man ; but he is led to enlarge
his recapitulating summary by an addition that may
be regarded either as parenthetical or exegetical —
" the earth and heavens, and every shrub of the field
before it was in the earth, and every herb before it
grew," etc. He puts the greatest and the smallest
things together to denote totahty. All was made
before man. And then, to make the language more
emphatic in the assertion of its being a diviue work,
and that it was before man, who is excluded from all
agency in iis production, it is further declared that
this first appearance of the vegetable world was not
in its origin, an ordinary production of nature (such
as growth produced by rain), and was wholly inde-
pendent of human cultivation. It had not yet rained
in the ordinary way, that is, the regular production
and reproduction of the seasons had not yet takir

202

GENESIS, OK THE FIEST BOOK OF MOSES

place, and there was no man to till the gi'ound. It
was after this first supernatural vegetation that the
irrigating processes commenced, when God made " a
law for the rain (nBsb pn , legem pluvm, Job
xxviii. 26), and caused the mist to go up (the evapora-
tion and condensation) that watered the whole face
of the TTOtH , the earth's soil. This assertion of
supernatural growths being premised as antecedent
■ummary, the writer immediately proceeds to the
main and direct subject of this second section : 1S^*1 ,
and after this (as is demanded by the ' conversive
denoting sequence of event) the Lord God formed
man."

The language is irregular and parenthetical, but
artless and clear, at least in its general design. The
terms employed are those that a writer with those
primitive conceptions would use in impressing the
idea of the supernatural. The iirst plants were made
to grow without that help of rain and of human cul-
tivation which they now require. A striking diifer-
Ince between this and the first account is that it is
wholly unchronological, just as would be expected in
a summary or a recapitulation. It is an introduction
to man, as showing briefly what was done for him
before he is brought into the world, and then what
follows is wholly confined to him. Thus viewed,
there is the strongest internal evidence that the two
accounts are from one and the same author, who has
neither desire nor motive to enlarge upon what he
had previously said. It is the style of one who
understands himself, and who has no fear of being
misunderstood, or taken for another, by his reader.

Perhaps the best view of the whole case would be
gained by making a fair paraphrase, which is only
putting it into a more modern style of language and
conception : ' Such were the generations of the hea-
vens and the earth in that early day when God made
not only the great earth and heavens, but even the
lowly shrub and plant — made them by His own divine
word — made them when they yet were not (as Raschi
gives the sense of mo , without preceding causality)
without the aid of rain — before the rain and before
any human cultivation. For it was after this early
day (1 in "ISI being granunatieally both illative and
denoting sequence) that the mists began to go up
(nbs', the unconnected future form here denoting
series, habit, or continuance, see Job i. S ; Judg. xiv.
10 ; Ps. xxxii. 4), from which come the descending
rains that now water the earth. And it was after all
this that the Lord God made man, his body from the
earth (from nature), his spirit from His own divine
inspiration ; and thus it was that man became a liv-
ing soul.'

The IS or mist here that went up can mean
nothing but the rain itself. It is the same process,
and that the word is to be so regarded is evident
from its use, Job xxxvi. 27: "For He maketh small
the drops of water, when they pour down the rain of
its vapor," Tisb "laa ipT"' . It may be a question
whether IT'ffl bs (ver. 4) is to be taken as the object
of nllDS , ver. 3, as it commonly is, or is to be re-
garded as connected with what follows, so as to be
the subject of the verbal force that is in 0"ia . This
word is not well rendered before, as though a thing
could be before it was, unless in an ideal sense,
which we cannot suppose to be the writer's meaning
here. The being in the earth was essential to its

being a plant ; otherwise it is but the idolon or image
of a plant, according to the crude and untenable viefl
that would represent God as outwardly or mecban^
cally making it and then putting it in the earth to be
brought forth (see Introduction to the First Chapter,

p. ). The word DTB , says Kaschi, is equivalent

to tiC? "IS , until not, or, not yet, and contains a ver-
bal assertive force. So the Targum of Onkelos rendeis
it, and the Syriac by a similar idiom, j] "^.iSii.

It would then read : And as for the shrub, it (was]
noi yet in the earth, the herb had not yet begun tc
grow; thus giving to ClB the force of a negative
verb, like ^^ S< , only with the idea of time. And
then, with this negative force in C~a , the bs , ac-
cording to the Hebrew idiom, makes a universal nega-
tive of the strongest kind, being equivalent to gar
nichts, as Lange says — nothing at all. Thus the ex-
pression : every shrub was not, etc., which with us
would be a particular or partial negative equivalent
to not every, is the widest universal in the Hebrew :
In the day of God's making the earth and the hea-
vens, when (as 1 may well be rendered) there was not
the least sign of shrub or plant growing in the earth.
See LuD. de Dieo : Critiea Sacra, in loc.

This is, in the main, the view of Delitzsch, though
he still seems to have some perplexities about the
time. We get clear, however, of the difficulties of
Lange and others. There is no need of bringing this
vegetation down to the sixth day, and referring it to
the growth of cultivated plants from the adamah.
The language will not bear it. In like manner there
is disposed of the explanation of some of the Jewish
Rabbis, that the plants barely came to the surface on
the third day, but for the want of rain did not come
forth and reach their perfection until the sixth.
Maimonides says justly, that this is against the posi-
tive declaration that the " earth did bring themfovth "
(ch. i. 12). In refuting it, however, he lays the em-
phasis on mo , the field, in distinction fro'n the
earth generally, and so regards it as spoken of culti-
vated plants. But this seems forced, ard thert
stands in the way of it the word U^tV , whicli is espi-
ciaUy used of uncultivated growths, as of tke deser'^,
Job XXX. 4, 7, or of the wild bushes in the ii'ildemus
of Beer-Sheba, Gen. xxi. 16.

See the attempts to reconcile the two accounts in
Wordsworth, Murphy, and Jacobus. The troi.ole
springs from the assuming of a chronology, and en-
deavoring to find it, when the chief feature of this
second narrative, or of the summary that precedis it,
is its wholly unchronological character. There 8 no
time in it. The near and the remote are bn.ught
together : In the day when God made the h'-avens
and the earth, from the firmament down to thr shrub
— or, when there was not a sign of a plant in the
earth — made them by His divin'j word, befc e there
was any rain (compare Prov. viii. 24, nlS^JC ')''S3
CIS ■'HIDJ , when there were no fountains full of
water), though afterwards " He made a law for the
rain," and the mists went up and descend./d to fer-
tilize the earth, etc. This absence of rain was
somewhere in this summed-up day of creation; itn
place, however, is not fixed in the series, and it il
alluded to not for its own sake, but in connection
with the plants as originating from a bii^jher causality.
— T. L.]

4. Ver. 1. The Lord God Itormed man.—
Knobel : " As the principal -.ivMou of the earth th(

CHAP. n. 4-25.

2oa

author has him created before all his fellow-crea-
tures." This is incorrect, inasmuch as the represen-
tation evidently has in view no genealogical or chro-
nological order. It only presents him as the chief
divme thought, at the head of the Paradise-creation.
*' In respect to the mode of origin of the divine-form-
ed man the first chapter says nothing ; it only indi-
cates that man is of a higher, and, at the same time,
of an earthly nature, without being a product of the
earth. But now, on the threshold of a history rising
*nd revealing its purposes, there is need to know
something more particular in respect to his mode of
origin, so that, along with the fact of hia existence,
we may understand his estabhshed relation to God,
to the surrounding vegetable and animal world, and
to the earth in genei-al." Delitzsch. The spirit of
the Old Testament, with all correctness, represents
the nature of man, m respect to his bodily substance,
as earthly; and just so does physiology determine.
In the matter of his body man consists of earthly
elements ; in a wider sense he is out of the earth
(ch. xviii. 27 ; Ps. ciii. 14), and at his death he goes
back to his mother-earth (ch. iii. 19, 23; Job x. 9;
xxxiv. 15; Pa. cxlvi. 4; Eccleaiastes iii. 20; xii, 7).
" According to the classical myth Prometheus formed
the first man of earthy and watery material (Apollo-
dorus, Ovid, Juvenal), and in the same manner Vul-
can made the first woman (Pandora) out of earth
(Hesiod). In other places the ancients represent
man as generated out of the earth (Plato in the Kri-
tiaSy and others, Virgil) as well as the beasts."
KnobeL The name Adam does not denote precisely
one taken from the earth (]^15t, yyiy€vi]s\ but one
formed from the adamah, the soil of cultivation in its
paradisaical state; just as the Latin homo from
humus^ and the Greek xoi«os from x^^^i do not refer
back to the earth-matter generally, but to the earth-
soil as adapted to cultivation. This derivation from
adamah is adopted by most (Kimchi, Eosenmiiller,
and others). On the contrary, others, after Joseph us,
derive the word from the verb mx , to he red^ with
reference to the ruddy color of man, or the reddish
soil of Palestine. Knobel, again, explains it, with
Ludolf, from the JEthiopian mx , to be pleasant^
agreeable^ according to which it would denote some-
thing of comely form.* One Jewish Doctor, and

* [Why should we go to the remote ^thiopic here, and
take a secondary sense of a secondary, when the primary
derivation seems to lie right before us in the Hebrew :
D^X from HTQnx , man from the earth, whether homo be
from hwmus or not. The reasoning of Gesenius will not
bear close examination. "There must have been a name
for man," he says, "much earlier {multo antiquior) than
the tradition of the Mosaic cosmogony." As far, however,
as we can learn anything of the first history of the race,
from whatever source derived (biblical, heathen, or mytho-
logical), cosmogonies, or notions about cosmogonies, belonged
to the earliest human thinking, and might as well have fur-
nished the ground of the most popular namps as anything
else. The question, however, is not about "a name" for
man (any name), but this name Adam which seems the
established one in the Hebrew books. What more natural
origin than the traditional could there have been, even with-
out deriving it from a cosmogony ? Names ever have a
leason for them, though that reason, in many cases, may be
tost or undiscoverable. They are given from that lact or
Quality which most impresses us in the thing named. Man
IS ever returning to the earth, and this might easily suggest
the name, and the idea, too, that in some way he also came
out of the earth: ""Who am but dust and ashes," "153?
■iBXIj Gen. xviu, 27 ; Job xxx. 19; Ps. ciii. 14. Somo
and humus certainly suggest each other, and the etymology
is not wholly impaired by the n in the genitive. Those
names are most unpressive and likely to be most ancient
that are taken from the eoirowful aspect of humanity. Such ,

after him Eichhorn and Richers, would make th
word D"l (Ezek. xix. 10 = mian) the etymologica.
ground, and would, therefore, give it pre-eminently
the meaning of image or likeness. The two first
explanations are in so far one as the primitive con-
templation saw the reflection of the reddish earth in
the glow of the ruddy cheek or in the color of the
blood. In this it must be maintained that the earth-
ly lowliness of man, as thereby expressed, becomes
modified by the superior excellence of the primitive
paradisaical earth. First after the fall does it thus
properly become the lowliness of this lower earth.
As, therefore, in respect to one half, the lower des-
cent of the outward humas nature is expressed by
the name Adam, so also, on the other side, there ia
the hidden nobleness of the adamah, and the destiny
of man to draw the adamah along with it m ita
development to a higher life. In respect to the
Greek word for man, &v^pu}TTos (— 6 &VM a^piay, the

is the case with that other Hebrew appellation for man,
113"i3N t weak, side, afflicted. Compare it with Horoer'a
^poToi (mortales), which he seems so fond of using, and in
similar connections of thought. TU"'5< , although having the
more exalting sense when in contrast with Dlfi< (see Ps.
xlix. 3 ; Is. ii. 9 ; t. 15), is clearly allied to 1i;3X (the n lost
or compensated by the long vowel). The plural D'^^SN ^
the n in the Arabic , . LaaO 1 > ^^^ ^ t^e Arabic name for
woman — XJi ^^^^ nii35< , show this beyond a doubt. The

first name for man, or the more common one, would not be
from strength, or from a ruddy color. These do not distin-
guish him, at least, to the emotions. They are not such aa
would affect the soul, like his sorrowful return to the earth.
Afterwards, when he forgot himself in his pride, and began
to boast, he might call himself "ill;? (T13«), vir, avrtp—hero,
strong one — but these names are not the primitive ones.
Least of all would he think of calling himself anmulhig
according to Knobel's notion, that is, pleasant, agreeable,
handsome one. Certainly not, if his primitive condition
were that which the " higher criticism," in spite of history
as well as of revelation, is determined it shall be. The
squalid dweller in the cave, surrounded by wolves, and
bones, and stone-axes, and hardly distingnishable from his
beastly companions, would be the last one to be called, or
who would think of calling himself, the agreeable one, accord-
ing to this derivation for which the rationalists go to the
^thiopic.

The same thought of depression, lowliness, and depend-
ence, may be traced, if we mistake not, in the Greek
avOpujiro^ as contrasted with the later avrip. The etymology
favored by Lange, 6 avta a.9pS>v, is untenable. So we may
eay of the kindred one sometimes given, avta TpeTrmv oy-iJ-a,
turning the eye upward, to denote the proud commanding
look (comp. Ovid : Metom. lib. i. 85), It is not only unphil-
ological, but also too artificial for a coimnon name, though
it might do for a poetical epithet. It would rather seem to
come directly from Tpi^to, to feed, nourish, bring up. The
alpha is probably an article, as contracted in ii 'vOptono';, or
av0p(jiiTo^ with the rough aspirate and the nun euphonic.
'AfSpwTTO?, man, a nursling, a foundling, a child of earth and
nature. So from the same verb is dpep.p.a, often used for the
feeble young of animals, and so applied, especially by the
comic poets, to a feeble, worthless man. In this way we
account for what otherwise seems strange, the contemptuoua
use of !iv9p<a-no^ as distinguished from di/^p ; as u avBptii-ne^
Oh fellow, Oh poor creature !

The higher we ascend in language, the more numerous,
in all departments, as well as the more impressive, do we
find names derived from this sense of human frailty. It is
the wailing cry called out of man by a feeling of the contrast
between his hopes and his apparently dark earthly destiny
— between his ideal and his actual, his young vigorous liie
and the certainty of the death that awaits him. "Who am
but dust and ashes ! '* Notwithstanding what Geseniua
would maintain in respect to its improbability, this style of
naming belongs to the earliest patriarchal speech. Whether
it was before or after any cosmogonical traditions (a ques-
tion on which Gesenius and Knobel would seem to lay so
much stress), it certainly points to an older idea as its origin ;
and what more likely to have been such than the Scripturs
favored derivation on which we have been dwelling 1— T. L.

204

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

npward looking), compare Delitzsch, p. 141, and
Knoeel, p. 25 So also for the Indo-Germanic Mensch,
in the Sanscrit iiianu (from vtna^ to think, related to
manas, spirit), see the notes in Delitzsch, p. 619.
The translations of iSlS' , dust, also clay, soil (Lev.
xiv. 42, 45 ; English Version, mortar), are exegeti-
cal; Vulgate: l>e limo ierrm ; Luther: Out of the
larihrdod ; Symmachus and Theodolion: x""" ^"^
TJts aSafi-a, God formed him out of the dust of the
earth. The verb ns"" must certainly have its em-
phatic distinction here from N13 and iiBjy. It de-
notes the curious structure of man according to his
idea, as an act of the divine conscious wisdom (Ps.
cxxsix. 13; Prov. viii. 81). — And breathed into
his nostrils. — " The inbreathing takes place through
the nostrils ; for this is the organ of the breath, but
the breath itself is the expression and sign of the
inward existing life. From the breath of God comes
the life of man (Job xxxiii. 4 ; Is. xlii. 5), and the
breath in the nostrils of man is the divine breathing
(Job xxvii. 3). In a similar manner does the Chal-
iaic myth make the creature to be formed of earthy
Blatter and the divine blood ; the blood is taken for
the seat of life (see eh. ix. 4)." Knobel. The ex-
pression evidently presents tlie formative agency of
God in an anthropomorphic form. There is the
mouth of God and the nostrils of the man as he
comes into existence ; it is as though He had waked
him into life with a kiss (compare 1 Kings xvii. 21).
It evidently means the impartation of the divine hfe,
on which depends the divine kinsmanship of man
(Acts xvii. 28, 29). nac: (from CC3), breath, spirit,
breath of the spirit, breath of man, life of the spirit,
is more specific than mi , more universal than ifls:
but may be interchanged with both, as sometliing
that stands between them ; yet only in relation to
man. Here it evidently denotes something which is
common both to God aud man, something which
goes forth from God and enters into man — God's
" breath of life," that is, the spirit of God in its active
self-motion, as in man it calls out the spiritual prin-
ciple, the spirit of his life, but none the less as the
spirit in its actual personality. The ifQW , or breath
of God, has the predicate D"'in (life or lives) from
the adjective n«n (ch. i.), in order to distinguish
primarily the living subject, and, in the next place,
the life itself. The life, in its most intensive sense, is
the unity of the life in all living persons, aud in any
living thing ; — it is the personality, irss (from aiE: ,
to breathe), the life's breath, the soul of hfe, anima,
i|/ux^. the principle of the animal vitaUty, and, in
this respect, the life itself; in a wider sense it is
animus, the personal spiritual soul, the psychical
affection, the man himself. In our text it denotes
the man in his totality as living soul. In consequence
of the formation of the human figure out of dust
from the earth-sod, and the animation of this figure
ttrov. gh the impartation of the life from God, does
man become a hving soul. For the psychology of
the passage, see the Fundamental Ideas.

6. Ver. 8. Planted a garden in Eden. — As
•"ehovah-God (farther on, vers. 15 and 16) is named
OS the establisher of the order of life, of natural
science, or of the human knowledge of it (ver. 19),
of marriage and the law of the family (vers. 21, 24),
as the judge aud founder of the religion of the prom-
ise and of the moral conflict on the earth, of the
earthly state of sorrow and discipline (ch. iii. 7),
and, finally, as the Immediate director of human

chastity and the author of the human clothing (vei.
21), so also here, in the beginning, is He represented
as the first Planter, the Founder of human culture,
vrhich is as yet identical with the human cwltus or
woi'ship. Dehtzsch transfers this • planting to the
time of the first vegetable creation (p. 146); but
this is not agreeable to the sense of the text, which
does not relate things chronologically, and presup-
poses the creation of man. In consequence of the
previous preparation for the future of man in the
bedewing of the earth, an Eden is already originated.
The name Eden (enjoyment, pleasure, delight), as the
region of Paradise, would denote, according to De-
litzsch, a land determinate but no longer ascertaina^
ble by us ; since the Assyrian Eden, he thinks,
which is vocahzed by the doubled segol and men-
tioned Is. xxxvii. 12, and the Ccelo-Syriac Eden men-
tioned Amos XV., are altogether different. But if the
garden in Eden had its name from a determinate
boundary and enclosure, and if the paradisaical
streams went forth in all the world, then it becomes
a very serious question whether the author had in
view any distinct boundary of Eden itself, as any
determinate land. It appears, at all events, to have
been his intention to represent the whole paradisaical
adamah as an Eden in respect to its nature and laying
out, although he meant by it, primarily, the undeter-
mined wide environs that surrounded man, whilst, at
the same time, supposing a distinction between Eden
aud the earth generally. There is also the passage,
ch. iv. 16, which seems to presuppose a limitation of
Eden to one determinate region; still it must be
noticed, in the mean time, that the soil becomes
cursed for man's sake. According to the represen-
tation, it is a view that takes the form of three
spheres : the earth, the Paradise, the garden. At aU
events, the best supposition in regard to man is that
he was created in Eden, although by a new act of
God he is early transferred to the centre of Eden,
that is, of the Paradise. Besides this place, the name
Eden occurs vers. 10 and 15; ch. iii. 23; iv. 16;
xiii. 10; Joel ii. 3; Ezek. xxxi. 16, 18. — A garden,
"l? . The Septuagint translates it irapaSeiiros ; the
Vulgate : Paradisus. " Spiegel explains this word
(Avesta, i. p. 293) according to the Zend : Pa'iri
daeza, is a heaping round, an enclosing, with which
the Hebrew 'jS (properly, soynething covered or shel-
tered) well agrees. It is carried out of the Indo-
Germanic into the Shemitic, and is found in the
Hebrew, where it has the pronunciation 0'1'nS
(Par-dhes), Cantic. iv. 13; Neh. ii. 8; Ecclesiastes ii.
5." Knobel. An explanation, now set aside, is that
which derives it from the Sanscrit paradifa (alien,
foreign, wondrous land). The conceptions — Garden
of Eden, Eden Garden, Garden of God — by reason
of the symbolical significance of these expressions,
play into each other. By the garden, according to
Knobel, is to be understood "a garden of trees."
Thus much is clear, that the garden of the paradisai-
cal nature was distinguished for its trees. The gar-
den lay in the eastern district of the Eden region
(mpa) ; there is probably indicated along with this
the stand-point of the reporter. The Eastern land ifl
the home-land of humanity. — There He put the
man. — As the creation of Eve is transferred to Para-
dise, it is as well not to lay stress upon the fact of
Adam's having been created outside of Paradise;
the fundamental idea consists in this, that Adam was
immediately transferred from his state of nature (or
his universal relation to the adamah) into the statt

CHAP. II. 4-26.

201

of culture, or hia particular relation to Paradise.
•'Both facts are announced before in a summary
way, but are unfolded in what follows ; just as the
facts summarily announced in the first verse of ch.
i. receive afterwards a wider explanation." De-
litzsch.

6. Vers. &-14. And out of the ground made
the Iiord to grow. — ^We must not regard this act
as a chronological following of the preceduig. . Man
finds himself well-eared for in Paradise by means of
its abundance. This consists in fruit-trees of every
kind. It may fairly be regarded here as an indica-
tion of the spirituality of the human enjoyment, that
the lovely aspect of the trees is named first, then the
good that is given along with it — that is, agreeable
and healthsome food — but this spiritual side of the
human enjoyment comes out, in its perfection, with
the mention of the two trees that form a contrast in
the midst of the garden; for, according to ch. iii. 3,
the tree of knowledge stands likewise in the midst
of the garden. The significance and efiicacy of the
tree of life are more particularly given ch. iii. 22 ; it
could have procured for Adam the power of living on
forever. That this efiicacy is not to be regarded as
something purely physical appears from the contrast
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, whose
efficacy, again, on its own side, is not to be regarded
as purely spiritual (see ch. iii. 22). The spiritual
side of the tree of life is also supposed Rev. ii. 7 ;
xxii. 2. It is, therefore, just a false contrast when
Knobel tells us that " the narrator supposes in Para-
dise two trees, of which the fruits of the one strengthen
the physical power of life and sustain the life itself,
whilst that of the other arouses and advances the
spiritual power, and thereby induces a higher know-
ledge." (!) Truly, the garden appears a " region of
wonder, on account of this tree not only, but as the
plane of God's personal presence, the place of the
vocal utterance of a spiritual voice by the serpent,
and on account of the cherubim. The wonderful
consists, in the first place, in this, that here is the
region of innocence, of the integrity both of the
human spirit and of the surrounding nature, and that,
consequently, hei'e the spiritual and the natural are
embraced in pei'fect union; whilst therefore it is,
that outward things become of typical and sym-
bolical significance in their potential measure. It
belongs now to the perfection of the garden, not
merely that it is watered with its own Paradise rivers,
but also, that by means of the four streams that go
out from its one united stream it stands in close con-
nection with the whole earth, and sends forth to it
its own peculiar blessings. From the reading of the
text : a stream went out, instead of, a stream ^oes
out, Delitzsch finds proof that the author speaks of
Paradise as of a thing purely past. Much rather,
however, does he speak of Paradise after the fall, as
of a place at least still existing, but closely shut up
by means of the cherubim. That is, the representa-
tion is not now purely geographical ; it is also, at
the same time, throughout symbolic. According to
our representation, the stream originates, not in
Paradise itself, but outside of it, in the land of Eden;
and so here, too, as in the case of Adam, must we
distinguish between the origin in nature, and the
destiny that was to have its development m culture.
In Paradise itself, therefore, does this one stream,
jn its going out of the garden, divide itself into four
(D-iaxi) flood-heads (not "rain-streams," nor
" brooks "), which as four rivers part themselves in
all the world, the stream-heads become head-streams. |

— The name of the first is Pishon: The free>
flowing (Fiirst) ; the full-flowing (Gesenius). By tin
name Pishon has been understood 1. the Phasis, 2,
the Phasis-Araxes of Xenophon, 3. the Bisynga oi
Fradatti (Buttmann), 4. the Indus (Schulthess), 5
the Ganges (Josephua, Eusebius, Bertheau), 6. ths
Hyphasis (Haneberg), 7. the Nile (the Midrash), 8.
the Goschah (C. Bitter). See the Doctrinal and
Ethical. — That is it ■which encompasses the
whole land of Havilah. — ^ According to Fiirst, it is
the same with circuit, region. (This is what Havilab
probably signifies ; according to Delitzsch it meana
sandy land.) The word 330 (primarily, to surround)
may be interpreted of a circuitous flowing round,
though it also occurs in the sense of surrounding on
one side. The verb may also denote a winding pas-
sage through (Is. xxiii. 16, ^•'j) 'ao , "Go round
about through the city "), and here it may be better
conceived of as a winding through than as an encom-
passing. We choose an expression that at the same
time calls to mind a region of streams. — Where

there is gold That is, especially or abundantly —

the mother-country of gold, not only in respect to
quantity, but also in respect to quality. — The gold
of that land is good. — Besides its fine gold, Havi-
lah is also famous for its spices, such as Bdolach
(Num. xi. 7), similar to manna, or according to Jose-
phus BdelUon, and, similarly named (see Knobel),
"an odoriferous and very costly gum, which is in-
digenous in India and Arabia, in Babylonia and
Media, and especially in Baotriana. It must have
been well known to the Hebrews." To this is added,
in the third place, the precious stone oriil) , schoham.
According to most interpreters it is an onyx stone,
sardonyx, or sardius, which belong together to the
species chaleedon. The Targumists and others
would understand by schoham the sea-green beryl.
The onyx, 'on the contrary, has the color of the
human finger-nails, and that is denoted by the name.
With this agrees ctlili as " signifying something thin,
delicate, pale" (Knobel). In respect to the geography,
see furthei- on. — The name of the second river is
Gihon. — "According to Josephus, Ant. i. I, 3,
Kimchi, and others, also as might be inferred from
the Septuagint translation of Jer. ii. 18, Ben Lira
24, 27, there was understood by it the Nile, which
flows through all the south-lands (tt)i:) that fell
within the circuit of the narrator's view" (Fiirst).
Under the Gihon, moreover, according to the Shem
itic use of the word, there have been understood the
Oxus, the Pyramus, and the Ganges, ao , the
dark-colored (?), is a proper name for the oldest son
of Ham, the ancestor of the Ethiopians. Thence
it is given to the south-land, especially Meroe, and,
thereupon, to ^Ethiopia and the south-region general-
ly. And yet under the like name may be understood
a dark-colored people that dwelt in southern India,
in Upper Egypt, and in South Arabia (Ktesias and
Arrian). In lil^e manner are there different geogra-
phical districts under this name (see Fijrst : Lexti
con). — The name of the third river is HiddekeL
— The Tigi'is, the rushing, so named from its violent
flowing. Dan. x. 4, it is called the great river— .so
also the Euphrates. The Zend 'form is ticfra, tigr,
tiffira, swift, raging.* — Toward the east of As-
syria (Lange : Before ot in front of Assyria). The

* [There would seem, at first view, but a faint res'im-
blance between hiddckel and Tigris. There can be bat lit.
tie doubt, however, of their etymological conDection Cht

206

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

word nalp before Assyria can also mean to the
east, but aa a preposition it has the more common
eense before, frontward. The latter sense, taken
freely, is here to be preferred ; since the Tigris, in
fact, forms the western boundary of Assyria. Ac-
cording to some, Assyria is to be talien here in a
wider sense. — The fourth river is Euphrates. —
The outbreaking, the violent. It is the greatest river
of Wsstern Asia, and, therefore, called the great
river, or the river, without anything more. The
origii. of the Greek form 'E,v<pp6.rT\s is explained either
from n"iSS = rriB , or from the Persian T/ra*, Ufrat.
For the different derivations, see Fiirst.

1. Vers. 16-17. Took the man and put him in
the garden. — The author takes up again what is
said in the 8th verse about the transfer of Adam to
Paradise, but adds to it, at the same time, the pur-
pose for which it was done, namely, to dress it and
to keep it. According to Delitzsch man was created
outside of Paradise ; since he must first see the extra-
paradisaical earth, in order that he might have a
worthy estimation of the glory of Paradise, and of
his own vocation as extending thence over the whole
frorld. Such an assignment of a purpose is altogether
.00 didactic. The garden is the place of the human
vocation, and of the human enjoyment in its undivid-
ed unity. This enjoyment has two sides, to eat and
to refrain. In like manner the vocation has two
sides, to dress and to keep. The first thing is to
dress it ; for nature, which grows wild or rank with-
out the care of man, becomes ennobled under the
human hand (Delitzsch). Says the same writer, this
work was as widely different from agriculture pro-
per, as Paradise itself differed from the later culti-
vated land, but it was still work ; " and work was so
far from being unparadisaical, tliat, according to ch.
ii. 1-8, even the creation is regarded as a work of
God." We must distinguish, however, work in its
narrower sense, as it stands under the burden of
vanity (made subject to vanity, Rom. viii. 20) from
the paradisaical work, or activity. Even of the later
Israel is it said : There is no toil in Zion.* Accord-
ing to DeUtzsch, the whole earth, from Paradise out,
was to become a Paradise : "The garden is the most
holy (or the holy of holies), Eden is the holy plice,
whilst the whole earth around is its porch and court."
The comparison is not wliolly appUeable; since
where there are no spiritual orders, there could be
no proper mention of court and sanctuary. — And to
keep it. — The garden, as such, is uninclosed and
{mwalled; still must Adam watch and protect it.
This is, in fact, a very significant addition, and seems
to give a strong indication of danger as threatening
man and Paradise from the side of an already exist-
ing power of evil (Delitzsch and others), although,
even in that case, the guarding of the garden belong-
ed to man's vocation ; since against the misuse of his
freedom, he had only to take care of his own free
will, and, with it, the possession and the integrity of

1 in ipTn may be the article hardened, or it may be part
3f the syllable TPl (sharp, swift) in composition. ITie re-
mairder bpi and Tigris have cognate letters— DKL, TGK.
The intermediate or transition form is seen in the Aramaic
ilk,.?, Arabic, ^1^^^\ j DiglaUi, DGL. The Zend TOR

IB the same word.— T. L.]

* [The reference here would seem to be to Num. xxiii.
21, which the German Version gives : " Keine Muke in Jacob,
und keine Arbeit in Israel; no toil in Jacob, no labor in
Israel," iastead of our more correct Version : "no iniquity
in Jacob, no perverseness in IsraeL" — T. L,]

Paradise. Knobel refers the care with which AdaiB
was charged, to the task appointed him of guarding

Paradise against the mischief of the wild beasts

Of every tree of the garden. — Says Knobel:
" The author clearly assumes that in the early period
men lived alone from the fruit of trees, and at a latei
period first advanced to the use of herbs and grair
(ch. iii. 17), whilst the Elohist, in the very beginning
assigns both to men (ch. i. 29). According to th
classical writers, such as Plato (Polit. 272), Strabo
and others, men in the beginning ate herbs, berries,
bark, and fruit of trees, especially acorns ; the raising
of grain came in later." That the paradisaical man
did not eat herbs is nowhere said ; but the fruit of
tlie trees is prominently presented because of its
symbolic relation to the two mysterious trees in the
midst of the garden. The free enjoyment of all
trees is strongly expressed by the intensive idiom,
bsNFl ibx . So much the more precise, therefore,
is the limitation of the freedom. — But of the tree of

the knowledge of good and evil -According to

Hoffmann and Richers, "11 211) means good ana
bad simply. Dehtzsch denies this, and rightly.
" The good," says he, " is obedience with its good,
the bad is disobeiience with its evil consequences.
Here it must be remarked, that the conception of
physical evil can be, at the most, only as a conse-
quence of moral evil, and that, therefore, the ethical
contrast is the main thing, though not to the exclu-
sion of the physical side. 2'he tree, in any case,
was a tree that might produce this knowledge ; that
is, it was the tree of probation, through which Adam
might come to a conscious distinction of good and
evil, and, thereby, to a moral transition from the
state of innocent simplicity into a state of conscious,
reUgious virtue. Did he not sin, then he learned, in
a normal way, to know the distinction between good
and evil — the good as the actuality of believing obe-
dience towards God, which was, at the same time,
the maintaiidng of his own life in its self-command
and freedom — the evil, as the possibility of an unbe-
lieving and disobedient behavior towards God,
which must have for its consequent, slavish desire
and death. The opinion of Hilarius cannot be sus-
tained {Spicilegium Solesmense,\. 162): Arbor fduri
de se mendacii nomen accepit. For, ' not to know
good and evil,' is the sign of the infantile childish-
ness (Dent. i. 39) or of senile obtuseness (2 Sam. xix.
36) ; the conscious free choice of the one or the
other indicates the most mature period of fife (or
that of the so-named anni discretionit. Is. vii. 16 ;
Heb. V. 14). So to know good and evil, and to dis-
tinguish between them, is called the charisma or gift
of a king (1 Kings iii. 9), the wisdom of the angel (2
Sam. xiv. 17), and, in its higher exercise, of God
Himself (Gen. iii. 5, 22). By the tree of knowledge
of good and evil man is to attain to a consciousness
and to a confirmation of his freedom of choice, and,
in fact (according to God's purpose in his determina-
tion for good), to a freedom of power — that is, to a
true freedom available for the choice of good or its
opposite. It was designed to bring out the necessary
seli'-determination of a creature choosing freely, cither
for or against God, either for the God-willed good or
the possible evil — and so to make perfect its inde-
pendence. The very idea of a free personal being
carries with it the necessity that its relation to God
be a relation of free love " (Delitzsch). It is an en-
tire perversion of the meaning of this probation-tree
to teach, as the Gnostic Ophites did, that, onlj

UHAP. II. 4-26.

2(0

Ihrougt the eating of this tree, is man enabled to
ittain to his self-conscious free development, or, as
Hegel and his school have taught in modem times,
that sin is a necessary transitiou-point to good. The
victory of Christ in the temptation shows us how it
is for man to come to the knowledge of good and
evil in a normal, and not in an abnormal, way. The
knowledge of the distinction which Adam obtained
in this way, was in him from the beginning, though
dark and confused. Along with his freedom of
choice, heretofore undeveloped, there was established,
not only his capability of probation, but also his need
of such probation. This probation does, indeed,
suppose the previous existence of a divine vcJ/xos, or
law (Dklitzsoh, p. 154); but we err when we con-
found this paradisaical v6iiot with the law of Moses
as it was given to sinners. Moreover, the Mosaic
commands are not mere positive instructions ; they
are, to the extent of the ten commandments, moral
laws of nature precisely adapted to the human stute,
but because of their having become foreign and ob-
jective to the consciousness of the sinner, they are,
therefore, placed before him in the way of positive
revelation. In the yiuoi, or institutions of Paradise,
however, must the abiding laws of life constitute the
ground of that revelation -form which is adapted to
the commands. That is, in relation to the tree of
probation, God could not have made it to be a tree
af probation in the exercise merely of an arbitrary
positiveness ; there must lie in the tree itself an in-
nate efficacy ; and a natural speech, that may serve
as a warning to man against its use. The sign-word
of the tree (or the designating name) would, through
the divine interpretation, become to man a positive
paradisaical prohibition. Even granting, moreover,
that the tree was not properly a poison-tree, still the
explanation that belongs to it has been too lightly
treated, since it might have led us upon the proper
track ; but that its tendency must have been to pro-
duce a change in the human spiritual frame, is a doc-
trine to be firmly held (see Lange's " Dogmatics," p.
409). It becomes important as an elucidation of this
mysterious fact, when we are told that the sin of
Noah, the second head of our race, became manifest
through the enjoyment of wine. To say nothing of
the coarse conceptions of Bohme and others as lately
taken in a mythical sense by Sorensen, we must
decidedly protest against the theosophical dualistic
representation of the probation-tree as we find it in
Baumgarten (p. 43), and still later in Delitzsch.
"When we remember," says DeUtzsch, "that the
paradisaical vocation and destiny of man had for its
aim the overcoming of evil that had intruded into
the creation, we cannot wonder at there being a tree
.n Paradise itself, created indeed by God, but whose
mj'sterious background was a dark ground of death
and evil placed by God in ward ; which tree, in order
that man might not fall into the participation of evil,
and thereby of death, is hedged around by the divine
prohibition, not as by an arbitrary sentence, but as
by a warning rather of holy love" (p. 155). We
may not resort to the myths of the Thibetans, Hin-
dus, etc. (p. 165), in support of an assertion of such
a nature that, according to it, we cannot think of
anything determinate or ordained, without setting
forth under it, in opposition both to the Scriptures
iind to the monotheistic consciousness, a material
evil (or an evil inherent in matter). According to
Delitzsch, the tree actually carried in it " the power
of death." The question arises : What is meant by
■he threatenins; : " In the day that thou eatest there-

of thou shalt surely die." Knobel holds the sense t«
be, that he should die immediately; because the in.
finitive absolute before the finite verb, he says, ex
presses the undoubted, the certain, the actual. Bu
notwithstanding this, Adam must have lived quite I
long time after the fall. In vain is it attempted ta
set aside this difficulty either by the rendering tc
become mortal (Targum, Symmachus, Hieronymus,
and others), or by making it that introduction of
pain and sorrow into life which goes before death ill
our conception of it (Calvin, Gerhard, and others)
StiU less, indeed, can we think of a death-penalty t«
be pos'*' rely inflicted (Batav., Tuch, Ewald, and oth
ers). The nearest solution is overlooked, namely,
that the expression must have, even here, an ideal
symboUcal force ; in other words, that death here,
corresponding to the biblical conception of dea*""
must be taken primarily to mean a moral dea.
which goes out of the soul, or heart, and through t\
soul-life, gradually fastens itself, in every part, upon
the physical organism (Lange's " Dogmatics," p.
ill). The sign of becoming suddenly dead does not
necessarily belong to the conception of death. It
allows too of a long dying in the physical depart-
ment. Hofiinann has not thought of this in that very
strange exposition of his, which it is hardly worth
while to cite. Knobel lays much stress upon it, that
man, according to ch. Hi. 19, 22 (as he insists), was
not created immortal. It is true, that after the fall
the tree of life is named as the condition of perma-
nent duration; but the possibility of falling into
death, under the supposition of transgression and
separation from the tree of Ufe, is something quite
different from what we embrace under the conception
of mortality. Knobel, with Clericua and others,
would refer the threatening, in the first place, to the
hurtful, life-endangering power of the fruit, and sup-
poses, therefore, that the strong expression : thou
shalt immediately die, is to be understood in a peda-
gogical sense (or as a warning is given to children) ;
and yet it would be rightly an announcement of death,
since man, through his sin, throws from him the en-
joyment of the tree of life. Let it be then a repre-
sentation of the Hebrew mode of thinking ; but the
coimection of the promise of long life to the observ-
ance of the divine commands throughout the Old
Testament (Knobel, p. S3) is not a mere Hebraic
representation; it is carried still farther in the
New Testament in the words; Whosoever believ-
eth on the Son hath everlasting life. And yet
it must be perceived that already in the Old Tes-
tament, and so certainly here, the conception of
life, as also the conception of death, hath its ethical
and ideal ground ; on account of which the trw
of life is not to be thought of as having a
merely physical efficacy. Rightly, too, has Keil,
who is here in special opposition to Delitzsch, de-
fended the spiritual propriety of the ethical concep-
tion.

8. To vers. 18-25. It is not good that the
man should be alone. — Keil : " As the creation of
man is introduced by a divine decree, so the creation
of woman is preceded by God's declaration : It is not
good, etc." On the supposition that the second
chapter, Uke the first, presents the genesis of man in
a generic chronological series, as we find it in De
litzsch, there arises a difficulty in respect to the seo
ond. Then must man have existed so long a time
before the creation of the trees of Paradise that he
must have died of hunger ; since he wo jld have had
around him only a plant-producing district, and

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

would have existed then for himself alone as the one
only completed being ; just as the body, too, of this
man would have been something first completed, and
then the soul imparted to this body from without.
Without doubt, however, this genetic chronolofjical
conception of the second chapter ia a misapprehen-
eion of its antithetical and complementary relation to
the first. It is not good that man, etc. What can
this mean after it had been so often said in the first
chapter, He saw that it was good ? The expression
does not denote a condition positively bad, but rather
an incompleteness of being, whose continuance would
eventually pass over from the negative not good, or
a manifest want, into the positive not good, or a
hurtful impropriety. It must be observed that this
point of time Ues between the last preceding declara-
tion respecting God on the fifth day : and He saiv
that it was good, and the final judgment very good,
at the close of the sixth. According to Knobel the
Bcnse would be this : Jehovah shows that a solitary
existence is not good for man ; He determines upon
the creation of some being that may correspourl to
hum, and forms first the beasts for the purpose of
seeing whether they would satisfy the human want. (!)
To this conception the text is throughout opposed,
and especially in the words : I will maise a help for
him (i'njDS) as his opposite (his converse), not mere-
ly his like (DeUtzsch). The exposition of Delitzsch :
He needed such a one that when he had it before
him he might re(«gnize himself, obliterates the pecu-
liar point of the expression. It allows, too, of its
apphcation to the relation of one man to another.
The opposite (or converse) here spoken of, depends
not upon any if, or casual condition. What is meant
by this obliteration becomes evident farther on.
The primary thing (he seems to think) is to provide
a help for man in his vocation-destiny ; but then there
comes also into view the possibility that he may
transgress the command of God, imd die the death,
in which case the aim of the creation would be ren-
dered vain. How suspicious this I the making the
motive for the creation of the woman to be this fu-
ture possible eventuality — especially since Eve herself
it is who realizes that possibility. Moreover, De-
litzsch means that Adam would then, as the second
seduced, have been rather the object of the divine
compassion (but Eve, the first seduced, what of her !),
and finally leaves us to conclude that it does not
mean: I \vill make one like to him that he may
propagate his race. But see ch. i. 28, where the
theosophic deriving of the propagation of the race
from the eventuality of the fall is clear, and without
reserve, and forever cut off. When there is given to
1333 the sense to be conformable, or correspondent
(see Knobel), it does not bring out the emphasis of
the word, in this place, according to the original im-
port of the root 153 ; although, on the other side,
the sensual meaning, anteriora, i. e., pudenda (Schul-
tcns, and others), can only be regarded as a coarse
exaggeration of the expression. — Ver. 19. And out
of the ground the Lord God formed every
beast of the field. — Obviously does the representa-
tion that follows serve as an introduction to the
representation of the creation of the woman ; that is,
the order observed in mentioning the creating of the
beasts is detei-mined by a motive not at all chrono-
logical, but looking only to the fact itself. But in
what could this motive lie ? In bringing the beasts
before him, was there something of a purpose in the
Creator to awaken in man a consciousness of the

need of some help of kindred birth to himself? Thii
is the supposition of Michaelis and Rosenmiller.
Delitzsch and Keil have something of the same
thought (p. 48). On the other hand, it is the snp
position of Jacob Biihme and other theosophists that
from looking at the beasts in pairs, there was awak-
ened a sinful desire in the as yet androgynic Adam
These wild phantasies (Myst. Mag. p. 116) have yet
been able to influence the latest representation? of
the paradisaical relations. Bohme's views of the .sex-
ual relations are perfectly abominable. It has been
maintained that in the first chapter the creation of
the stars is laid on the fourth creative day for the
purpose of counteracting the heathen star-worship;
since the stars, or heavenly bodies, are brought in as
conditioned by the preceding creations, especially
that of light. In analogy with this view, and in
opposition to the animal-worship of the heathen-
world, would the passage before us represent the
beasts as creations subordinate to man : in the first
place, because man had to give them names, and
secondly, because among them all he found nothing
of like birth with himself, to say nothing of any
superiority. At all events, for the Oriental mind, the
passage presents a very significant elevation of the
woman, as human, over the lower animal-world, and
her equality of birth with the man. It is no real
difference, as Knobel holds it is, that here the Crea-
tor forms the beasts out of the ground, whilst in the
first chapter they come forth (and yet in consequence
of the creative word) from the earth. Creating and
formivg are just different points of view of the same
conception. The apparent difference proceeds partly
from this, thiit here we have the more definite, namely
the forming of the beasts out of the earth. Th*
beasts of the field ; taken here in the comprehensiv
sense — the wild and the tame. — And every fowl
of the air (the heavens). — The fish of the sea and
the reptiles are passed over. Keil finds the ground
of it in this, that both classes, the beasts of the field
and the birds of heaven, are like men in being formed
out of the earth, and, therefore, stand to him in nearer
relation than the water-animals and the reptiles.
But the earthy matter is found also in the two last,
although it may not be without meaning that both
the classes here preferred were formed out of the
adamah. More to the purpose is the second ground
mentioned by Keil, that " God brought the beasts to
Adam to show him the creatures that had been or-
dained to his service." At all events, the domestic
animals are of these two classes. It is specially to
be considered, moreover, that in these beasts there
is already a more distinct pairing, which is a symbol
of human marriage ; especially is this the case with
the birds. Still the main purpose set forth is : to
see how he would name them. With the intuitive
knowledge of the beasts there follows the naming of
them ; for speech is the thought outwardly realized*
(on the essential connection of thinking and speaking,
see Keil, p. 47) ; and with the naming commences
the dominion. Consequently the first science to
which God introduces man is the science of nature ;
his first speech, to which he is led for the mention of
zoological properties, is the naming of the animals.
That this his naming was an actual calling out, and
that the assigned domestic animals followed his call,
lies included, as matter of fact, in the very represen-
tation itself From this centre spreads out the know-

* (For a very able and a very full discussion of thi
primitive naming — the philosophy and the theology of it-
see Kaulen's Sprachverwirrunft, pp. 90-106. — T* L.J

CHAP. n. 4-26.

209

ledge of man over all nature. — ^Ver. 20. And the
man gave names. — Here the cattle have the first
place in the selection, because their place, in the
future, is next to man. — But for Adam. — We do not
translate for man, since the principal thing here is
the care for the individual man, for Adam. The new
knowledge satisfied his need but not his heart. — Ver.
21. A deep sleep to fall. — nr^"in , a deep sleep,
in which the consciousness of the outer world, and
of his own inward life, is wholly gone. "Sleep, in
and of itself, is ordained for the divinely created
human nature, and is as necessary for man, as a
creature of earth, as the change of day and night for
the universal earthly nature. But this deep sleep is
different from natural sleep, and God causes it to fall
upon man ui the day-time, in order that out of him
he might create the woman." Keil. Thereto the
remark of Ziegler : "Everything out of which some
new thing is to come, sinks down before the event
into such a deep sleep " In fact, this preparation
for a new being suggests to our minds the preceding
creative evening. In Job iv. 13, nm-in denotes a
deep sleep in which a dream-vision (a clairvoyant or
seeing dream) unfolds itself. On this account, prob-
ably, have some interpreters thought that here also
there was intended an ecstasy or vision. — And took
one of his ribs. — According to Bohme, man had
lost the magical propagation (of which he was capa-
ble by means of his androgynio nature), through his
longing in sleep (the forty-days' sleep of the tempta-
tion) for the sexual contrast, and that the woman
proceeded from him not in consequence of a creative
act, but by means of the divine fiat remaining in
Adam ; because (3od saw that now he must have the
object of his desire, since he could no more propa-
gate himself magically. The confident theosophist
here becomes Moses' tutor (p. 111). According to
Hoffmann, God must have made the womim not out
of parts of man's breast, but out of his abdomen,
where there might be found a portion of the body
capable of being lost. Keil strives in a manner
worthy of acknowledgment to express himself fViirly
in respect to these fantasies (p. 49). As in them-
selves they wrong not only the scriptural text, her-
meneutics, and reason, but also the moral feeling, so
are they still more strange through their combination
with the consequences of the fall. On the other
hand, Delitzsch finds something of an ideal human in
the manner and way of the woman's creation (p.
160). Still as to the further formation, or restora-
tion of Adam, it is not perhaps to be understood that
" he closed the cavity that was made by putting flesh
in the place of the rib that was taken away," but
rather, with De Wette, " he closed the flesh in its
place." In respect to the literal conception, the
question must still arise. Whence could such flesh
nave been taken ? But it is just this tilling from
without, by which that vacuity, or that want, which
was ordained to man, is removed. Delitzsch lays
stress upon this, that Adam must have been already
complete as man before Eve was taken from him.
But thereby the symbolical side of the representation
is marred. So far as the fact is concerned, it is sat-
isfied by recognizing that the sexual contrast is first
called into being in the way of the unfolding of the
first human form. This fact, on its physical side, is
ever reflected in the child-world. Delitzsch pre-
sents the view that the outward form of Adam vi^as
not double-sexed. " To speak generally, it was
without sex. In its most refined nature Adam had

14

the sexual contrast in himself. With its going fortt
from the unity of his personality, there necessarily
connected itself that configuration which was de-
manded for the then commencing sexual life." The
expression : he built (fisa), indicates the farther ma.
temal appointment of the woman (from n32 , to build,
comes "jj, icn, a son). In respect to the wide-spread
view of antiquity concerning the sexual unity of man,
see Knobel, p. 35. — ^Ver. 22. And brought hex
unto the man. — "In the passnge above we recog-
nize God as the first teacher of language ; here he
appears as the first bridesman ; speech is, in some
respects, emblematical of the divine, and so, too, is
marriage." Delitzsch. — Ter. 23. This is no'w. —
Literally : tim once, or this time. In contrast with
the long missing of his help, he finds at last his de-
sire realized. She it is — or this is it. The demon-
strative pronoun njtt not only expresses, by its
threefold repetition, the joyful appropriation of
Adam, but also serves as a specific feminine indica-
tion. He immediately recognizes the fact that she
is formed out of his being, out of his solidity (his
bone), out of his sensibility (his flesh), and yet hia
counterpart; therefore, in correspondence with the
fact of her derivation from him, and her belonging to
him, does he give her the name maness (woman, as
the old Latin has it, vira from vir). It is not exactr
ly certain that the woman was taken from the lieart-
side : nevertheless it is a probable interpretation of
this symbolically significant narration. At all events
is she taken out of his breast, and not out of the
lower part of his body. According to Knobel it is,
because she stands by his side (Ps. xlv. 10) and is
his attendant, his companion, and his helper. The
Hebrew readily expresses the conception of attend-
ance through such phrases as at hand, by the side
(Job XV. 23 ; xviii. 12), Sbs naU) , to be a compan-
ion, a friend (Jer. xx. 10). — Ver. 24. Therefore
shall a man. — The question arises whether this ia
something farther said, and to be understood as
Adam's speech, or whether it is the remark of the
narrator. In Matt. xix. 5, Christ cites this language
as the word of God. That, however, makes no dif-
ference ; since Adam may utter the word of God de-
rived from the divine fact, as well as the narrator.
It seems to favor the idea of the narrator's speaking,
that he so often inserts his remarks with an "3"^5
(wherefore ; ch. x, 9 ; see Delitzsch). On this ac-
count Keil decides that it is the language of the nar-
rator, especially since it is spoken of father and
mother. DeUtzsch, however, insists that the words
must be taken as a prophetic or divining expression
of Adam himself. The word must evidently have
the significance of a moral life-ordering for all
humanity — a meaning which results from this expres-
sion maness, or woman. It is, therefore, most closely
connected with what precedes, and suits better here
the mouth of Adam than that of the narrator.
With the latter it would have been merely a histori-
cal remark, with which, moreover, the future tensfe
would not have been consistent. In the mouth of
Adam it is a law of life for all human time, and. in-
deed, of such a nature that it expresses, at the same
time, a feeling of self-denial in that he gives to hia
cliildren, in the conclusion of marriage, a free depar^
ture from the ancestral home. It is evident that
here all the fundamental laws of the marriage-life are
indicated. 1. The foundation of the same, the sex-
ual affinity ; 2. the freedom of choice (as this avails

210

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

also for the wife in relation to the recognition of the
man, and the free departure from father and mother) ;
3. the monogamio form of marriage and its original
indissolubility. They become one flesh — an expres-
sion which does indeed include the sexual connection,
but, as something lying beyond all that, it expresses
the essential unity and higher wholeness of man in
man and wife. 4. The relativity of the departure
trom father and mother; the first relation is not
taken away by the second, but only made subordi-
nate to it ; it supposes the relations to be normal. —
Ver. 25 And they Tvere both naked.^"In this
view, that the first men went naked, all other anti-
quity agrees with the Hebrews, e. g., Plato ; Polili-
eus,2TA\ DioD. Sic. i. 8." Knobel. Expositions of
this condition of nakedness entirely opposed to each
other are found in Knobel and Dehtzsch. "They
had, therefore, in the beginning, no feeling of shame,
and none of that moral insight to the beginning oi'
which such feeling of shame belongs. After the
entrance of the latter they made themselves aprons
to cover their shame (ch. iii. 7), and at a later period
they were furnished with clothing from the skins of
beasts. People wholly uncultivated go perfectly
naked, those that are somewhat cultivated have par-
tial coverings, whilst those who have a complete
civilization go wholly clothed." Knobel. On the
other hand, Celitzsch : " Their bodies were the cloth-
ng of their inner glory, and this glory (rightly under-
stood) was the clothing of their nakedness." And,
finally, Keil, with a more apt conception of the case:
'' Their bodies were made holy through the spirit that
animated them. Shame first came in with sin, which
took away the normal relation of the spirit to the
body, begat an inclination and a desire in conflict
with the soul, and turned the holy order of God into
sinful enticement and the lust of the flesh." In the
view of Knobel, Grecian art must be accounted a
coarser thing than many a crude mythological repre-
sentation. But as the first men must be distinguish-
ed from mere naked savages, so also are they not
to be regarded, according to a Jewish Midrash cited
by Delitzsch, as something transparent or luminous
" which the clouds of glory must have overshadow-
ed." Nakedness is here the expression of perfect
innocence, which, in its ingenuousness, elevates the
body into the spiritual personality as ruled by it,
whilst, on the contrary, the feeling of shame enters
with the consciousness of opposition between spirit
and sensual corporeity, whilst shame itself comes
in with the presentiment and the actual feehng of
guilt.

[Note on the Time-Successions of the Sixth
Day and of the Eden-Life. — This second account,
in its latter part, appears to be an enlargement, or
magnified picture, of the sixth day. Taking it in its
intrinsic character, or apart from any outside diffi-
culties of science, it strongly suggests two thoughts :
First, its pictorial aspect, on which we have already
jwelt (Introd. to Gen. i. p. 163), and, secondly, that
the events here narrated, or painted, could not have
been regarded by the narrator himself as all taking
place, in their consequential nexus, within the time
of a Itfw solar hours, or the latter half of one solar
(lay. He could not so have told the story had such
1 view bMn constantly present to his own mind.
The consistency of impression would be utterly de-
itroyed bj' the rapidity. Here is a consecution of
events growing regularly out of each other, each one
preparing the way for what follows. Here are fonna-
tioDS, growths, seeming natures, conditions of life.

wants growing out of such conditions, adaptations \c
such wants, preparations for such adaptations, k
course of discipline for man, a development of know-
ledge and of language out of such discipUne, the
means for such development, a strange state of hu
manity called a trance or deep sleep, a wondrous
change in the previous human nature arising out of
it — all most briefly sketched, but all there, in cohe-
rent continuity. Besides this, there is the prepara-
tion of a part of the earth for the new inhabitants, a
state of conscious innocence without shame, impW-
ing some course of Ufe, longer or shorter, to give the
representation any moral significance — the ordaining
a law indicating some course of Ufe according to it, a
divine intercourse and teaching, a probation, a tempt-
ation, and a fall into sin. All of this, at least down
to the making of Paradise, was on the sixth day, and
the rest in consecutive series with it. Now did thi£
chain of events, or the greater part of them, take
place in the afternoon of one solar day V It is not a
sufficient answer to say that God's almiglity power
might have caused such a rapid shifting of scene.
It is a question of style, of consistency, of descriptive
impression. It might have been so ; but then the
aspect given of causation, of series, of adaptation,
would be but a show, a seeming. It would be an
appearance of a causation without that consistent
nexus that makes it easily conceivable ; it would be
a seeming succession without that proportion of ante-
cedent and consequent which we find it difficult to
separate from it ; events, great events, growing out
of each other — so treated — and yet without any real
growth, or that proportional gradualness without
which growth has no true meaning. There would
seem to be a new formation, or a re-formation of the
animal races brought into the picture — or if it refers
to the old, a modification of them for the instruction
and discipUne of man. They are to be the means of
developing his powers of knowledge and of speech.
Through their unlikeness to himself and their unfit-
ness for rational human intercourse, there is awaken-
ed in him the desire for higher society. And then
that most mysterious trance-state of being, in which
there is vailed from him, as now from all science,
that ineffable transformation out of which comes the
duaUty of our human nature. The fact is told ue
according to the easiest conception, but it was a
trance-vision to Adam, and we have no reason to
suppose that his narrating descendant had the know-
ledge of it in any revelation more objective than was
given to his ancestor. Adam had longed for some one
like himself, irispired from above, and lifted out of
the surroundhig animality, yet sharing with him the
earthly nature. The language ascribed to him shows
the vehemence of his desire, the deferring of his
hope, and the patience of his waiting: Di'Dn rXT ,
diesTnal, thin now^ ipsa tandem — there is an intense
significance in this small Hebrew particle — come at
last, bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Three
times does he repeat this feminine PKI (see De-
litzsch, p. 161). Bone of my bone: — can we doubt
as to the origin of the peculiar symbolism in which
the narrative is clothed? His want was satisfied,
and the vivid picture of his dream becomes the lan-
guage, the only possible language, perhaps, of a di-
vine work which no merely human speech could ade-
quately set forth — one of the deep mysteries of Goo,
itself shadowing forth the stiU deeper mysteries of
the Incarnation and the Church.

Similar suggestions of time present tuemselves ii

CHAP. II. 4-26.

21

what is said of the planting of Paradise : And the
Lord God caused to grow, etc. Did the great trees
grow in the same time with the herb and the flower ?
Confine it all to a few hours and the difference is as
nothing; yet growth, without proportion according
to the natures or products grown, is in itself both
conceptionlesa to the sense and idealesa to the reason.
We may conceive it, however, from a picture, or a
vision, and such a mode of representation, therefore,
OS appearing in the style, is one of the strongest crit-
ical arguments for the vision-theory of the creative
revelation. It is perfectly consistent, too, for in the
subjective delineation time is given in perspective.
But the grouping shows that the great things repre-
sented could not have been thus, unless the picture
itself be but a phantasy, or phantasmagoria, not
supernatural or contranatural merely, but wholly un-
natural, according to any conceptions our human
faculties can form of time, succession, cause, and
effect. Great truths, great facts, ineffable truths, in-
effable facts, are doubtless set forth. We do not
abate one iota of their greatness, their wonderfulness,
by supposing such a mode of representation. It is
not an accommodation to a rude and early age, but
the best language for every age. How trifling the
conceit that our science could have furnished any
better ! Her field is induction, and, by this creeping
process, though she may travel far relatively, she can
never ascend to the great facta of origin that belong
to the supernatural plane. Her language will ever
be more or less incorrect; and, therefore, a divine
revelation cannot use it, since such use would be an
endorsement of its absolute verity. The simpler and
more universal language of the Scripture may be in-
adequate, as all language must be ; it may fall short ;
but it points in the right direction. Though giving
us only the great steps in the process, it secures
that essential faith in the transcendent divine worii-
ing, which science — our science, or the science of
ages hence — might only be in danger, to say the
least, of darkening. It saves us from those trifling
things commonly called reconcihationa of revelation
with science, and which the next science is almost
sure to unreconcile. It does so by placing the mind
on a wholly different plane, giving us simple though
grand conceptions as the vehicle of great ideas and
great facts of origin in themselves no more accessible
to the most cultivated than to the lowUest minds.
There is an awful sublimity in this Mosaic account of
the origin of the world and man, and that, too, whe-
ther we regard it as inspired Scripture or the grand-
eat picture ever conceived by human genius. To
those who cannot, or who do not, thus appreciate it,
it matters little what mode of interpretation is adopt-
ed— whether it be one of the so-called reconciliations,
or the crude dogmatism that cuUs itself literal because
it chooses to take on the narrowest scale a langiiage
BO suggestive of vast times and ineffable causaUties.
— T. L.]

DOCTBINAIi AND ETHICAL.

1. In respect to the opposition between this sec-
tion and the preceding, see the Exegetical and Cnt-
cal Kotes of the former. It must be very clear that
m the present section the chronological order stands
In the background, whilst, on the contrary, the sym-
bolical presents itself in a more significant degree.

2. The present section is distinguished by the
aame Jchovah-Elohim : The meaning is, that Jehovah,

the Covenant-God of His people, is also the God ol
all worlds, the Lord of all creatures, who made Adam
for His first Covenant-child, and appointed him Eis
vicegerent in this dominion. Adam is the princeijs,
and so the ideal prius of the creaturely world. This
point, of the Covenant of God with Adam, appears in
Cocceius as the foundation of the federal theology ,
With Schleiermacher, again, it is modified into the
representation of a religiousness overlying the con
trast of sin and mercy.

3. Nature presupposes man, if it would be pre
vented from running wild. Only in man, through
him, and with him, can it find its glorious transforma
tion. Therefore was man also, in his integrity, the
presupposing of nature in her integrity ; his reUgious
and moral destiny is the condition of her higher des-
tiny, his cultus the foundation of her culture. Iji
pure nature, moreover, are the nobler plants as well
as the nobler animals to be regarded as in a special
senae an appurtenance of man ; in a special measure,
therefore, are they conditioned in their being and
well-being, by his being and well-being. Whatever,
too, there might have been before man, it was still
as though it were not, so long as it found not in him
its cosmical destiny. It was all an enigma; the
solution was first to be found in man.

4. The moistening of the earth's soil before the
creation of man points to the share of the waters in
the creaturely formations (and susteuiince), especially
the human. Through the observation of this camt
Thales by his system.

5. The creation of man. It is rightly regarded
as an entirely new creative act," and, indeed, as the
very highest. And yet it is a falsely literal view of
the anthropomorphic and symbolical representation,
when in this act of God we are led to regard the
earthly nature as wholly passive. Eather does this
act, in its truest realization, presuppose the highest
excitation and effort of the earth — we may even say

* [Tliis is doubtless true of that decisive afit of God
(whether the inspiration, or the image, or both) that iu
a moment constituted the first man, and the species htymo^
which, a moment before, was not. Bui this does not ex-
clude the idea that the human physical was connected with
the previous nature, or natures, and was brought out of
them. That is, it was made from the earth in the widest
signification of the term. That it was not a mere plastic
shaping, or outward mechanical structure, is imphed in
what Lange says just below in resi^ect to the non-passivity
of the eai-tb. There are immense difficulties connected with
the idea of an outward Promethean image, a dead organiza-
tion which, although having the appearance, is really no
organization at all m the strict sense of the word, any more
than the marble statue or the waxen image. Wo one sup-
poses that the making of the human body was an immediate
making de nihilo. It was made from earth, and this earth
already had its nature according to its varieties of oarboi ,
ritrogen, etc., and these, as natures, connected with othei
natures, entered into the human body. If it is not a crea-
tion de nihilo, which is expressly contrary to the language
of the account, we roust suppose a connection with natuit
to a certain extent. What difficulty or danger, then, ir
giving to the phrase " from the earth," the widest sens(
consistent with the idea of man's having an earthly as wel.
as a heavenly origin? It is this latter idea, and the highei
psychology connected with it, that lumishes to the faith ita
shield against all mere theories of development that may
proceed, with weaker or stronger evidence, from a natural ■
izing science. From the one thus first inspired, and con-
stituted Vmo, came all humanity— ^7ie one hvmaniiy, as s
transmission of that one inspiration and that one spfritual
image (see Remarks, Introduction to the First Chapter of
Genesis, p. 156). Even on this view, however, the hiimai«
body did not precede the human soul, as Lange observes in
what follows ; since, whatever may have been the precedenl
causation, it was not a human body, any more than it was »
human soul, before that decisive man-creating, man-consti
tuting act which made the species, or the specific chaiaetu
of both.— T.L.I

212

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES

with Stcffens, its animation. The representation has
for its leading fundamental idea: Man the prime
thing of the earthly creation ; not that it can or
ought to be carried out into its philosophical conse-
quences, for then man must have been introduced
before the earth-soil, and the formation of his body
must liave been before the creation of his soul. On
this account we are not authorized to assign separate-
ly the formation of the body and of the soul to two
acts following each other in a temporal series — as
was held in some respects by the Gnostic Eatumi-
nus.

6. The anthropological, physiological, and psy-
chological ideas of the passage. Compare the writings
before cited: Von Roos, Zeller, Beck, Delitzsch,
Von Rudolf, and others. Before all things does the
passage affirm that man became an indissoluble, that
is, a creatively established, unity — a livinff soul pro-
ceeding out of the contrast, or the duality, of the dust
of the earth, on the one side, and the divine breath of
life on the other (na'CJ), and that these were the sub-
stances out of which he was formed. He is, in his
one total appearing, a living soul ; that is, the body
too, in this human constitution, is only a special
ground-form of the whole man, as the divine breath
of life, on its side, is the ground-principle of the
whole man. Spirit and body are joined together
with the soul. These three are mutually inseparable,
and they together make the individualized unity of
man. To this extent may we deny that man consists
alone of body and soul. He is always, and at any
moment, body, soul, and spirit ; though the outer
form of the body may, by death, be loosed from its
life, and the spirit, by sin, may sink into a latent
state (see 1 Cor. xv. 44; Lange's "Dogmatics," p.
1243). As man, in respect to his inner hfe, is not
divided into feeling^ inielligetice, and will, but is
present in each of these ground-forms as the entire
man, so also is he ever the entire man in respect to
his outer or concrete life ; as body he is related to his
earthly appearing, and to the sphere of such appear-
ing ; as spirit, in the relation of his principial unity
to his unitary ground, he is related to God and divine
things ; as soul, or essential form and life, he is re-
lated to the world of souls and the life of the whole
universe. Man is a one with himself: individuality
in his singleness, personality in his universalness,
subjectivity in the mode and way of mediating be-
tween his singleness and his universal relation.
And so far is the passage atomic, as it represents
man as becoming a living soul (monade) through the
highest and most intensive creative act of God.

In reference to the essential elements and rela-
tions of human life, however, it is predominantly
dichotomic, as other places of Holy Writ (Ecclesiastes
xii. 7 ; Matt. i. 28) distinctly represent.

Concerning the relation of the corporeity of man
to the earthly nature, compare ScnnBEET's "History
of the Soul," § 10. The constituents of the animal
body : Calcareous earth (bone), nitrogen, oxygen,
hydrogen, oxygen gas, iron (in the blood), sulphur,
phosphorus (in the nerves), silica (in the teeth), and,
•iombined with this, fluoric acid.

In respect to the spiritual nature of man as akin
tfr God, compare Gen. iii. 6 ; Matt. xxii. 82 ; Jer.
sxxi. 8; Luke xv. 11; John i. 49; Acts xvii. 28,
29; Rom. viii. 16; 2 Pet. i. 4; Rev. i. 6 ; ii. 17,
and other places. — Delitzsch disputes against the
supposition that there is in man an uncreated divine
'p. 144) ; for the word K^j""! , ch. i. 27, embraces,

he says, the essential being of the entire man. 0;
the man, certainly, as a whole, but is it so especially
of his spiritual nature? Is man, moreover, as at
eternal individual thought of God, by virtue of hie
election in Christ, a thought in some way created ?
We cannot say that God has created the thought ol
his love. The older theology was very much afraid
of the idea of emanation. If God imparted anything
to man from his own being, it meant either that God
must have given away some of His own being, or
that something still of His being could have sinned
in man. We must, by all means, avoid both repre-
sentations as we must generally do in respect to
every emanation-view. But does there follow from
this the pure creatureliness of the human spirit — that
is, of its God-hkeness (or that in it called divine, oi
which is supposed to have come from God) ? Or is
it only, as Dehtzsch says, the tpoti of the jrceC^a (the
breathiug of the Spirit) ? Still it is a iryevfia, a hu
man spirit. And certainly this needs the spirit of
God for its well-being — for its own hfe (see 1 Cor. ii
14; Jude 19). The mere existence of the human
soul does not fail from the fact of its unspiritualness
(the want of the higher spirituality, or its sensuahty).
Delitzsch touches upon the true relation when he
says, "a creative word, although of a divine being, is
not the Logos clothed with the eternal being of the
Father." Yet still does the decree concerning hu-
manity embrace in Christ the individual elect. Be-
tween the emanation-representations, on the one
side, and the pure creatureliness on the other, hes the
conception of the free impartation of life in the mys
tery of the quickening: life from life, light fron
Ught, spirit from spirit. Man may be begotten of
God by the seed of the new birth, which is the word
of God ; and when we take this as the basis of our
behef that he can receive the Moly Spirit, we cannot
deny that original state of man which corresponds
to it.

But the passage contains already the germ of a
trichotomy-body, soul, and spirit, which impliedly
pervades the Holy Scripture, and is most expressly
set forth 1 Thess. v. 23 ; Heb. iv. 12 (see Lange's
" Dogmatics," p. 307). A similar trichotomy, as is
well known, is found in the writings of the Platonists,
and so, too, in connection with biblical doctrines and
Platonic ideas, among the oldest church-fathers.
This continued, until through the heresy of Apolli-
naris, the trichotomy became suspected, and in the
following tune of the middle ages, gave place to the
mere popular dichotomy. In modern times, again,
in connection with a deeper study of psychology,
trichotomic views presented themselves. It must
herewith be remarked that the dichotomy, when
simply held, is no more in contradiction to the
trichotomy, than those dual places of Holy Scripture
in which only God and His Logos, or the Wisdom
or the Angel of the Lord, are named, contain a con-
tradiction of the trinity. The triad just as easily
holds together for a dual (soul and spirit being taken
as one) as for a monad. Or rather, the monad re-
solves itself over all, first into a duality, then into a
triad.

That the spirit is the principle and the form of
unity in man — ^his derivation from God, and his rela^
tion to God — is declared in Ecclesiastes xii. 7. It ia
God who has given the spirit. In like manner does
the same text of the Preacher say that the body a
the finishing and the form of appearing for man,
showing his descent from the earth, and his relatioE
to the earthly sphere. But that the soul is the/orm

CHAP. n. 4-25.

■^13

3/ being in man, the configuration and the form of
life, his descent from and his reciprocal relation to
Jhe whole world, is declared in the very expression
"living soul."

The Qiin naB5 (breath of lives), as the divine
principle of all life, imparted to man an individual
divine principle of life, and in consequence thereof it
became, in the whole, a living soul, and in the vitali-
Sy, or vitalizing, a conscious self-revealing soul.
Man, as related to the eternal and the divine, is
n/icW'; laar, as related to the universe, is soul;
iiafl, as related to the earth, or to any particular
world-sphere wherein he dwells, is body. Concerning
the relation of the psychological system of Delitzsch
0 the conception of Von Rudlofif, see " Notice of Re-
oarkable Writingi," in the German Periodical, edited
,y Von HoUenberg, No. 3, 1869.

For the various defective and marring statements
respecting the triune form of man's being, see
Lanob's "Dogmatics," p. 30'7. Gnosticism refuses
to regard the corporeity as belonging to the essen-
tial being of man (so, too, the Book of Wisdom, ch.
ix. 15). Hegelianism regards the soul as only the
band that connects body and spirit. Later psychol-
ogists and theologians (Heinroth, Hofiinann, and
others) have denied to man, in himself, a spirit-being ;
he has spirit, thsy say, only so far as the spirit of
God enlightens him. Beck speaks of a .spiritual
power, at least, as belonging to the human soul. It
must be held fast, however, that man could not re-
ceive the spirit of God if he was not himself a spirit-
ual being (" were not the eye adapted to the sun,"
etc.). It is, at all events, a supposition of the Scrip-
ture, that since the fall the spiritual nature is bound
In the natural man, and does not come to its actuali-
ty (see Jude ver. 10 ; Lange's " Dogmatics," p. 311).
In relation, however, to the body of man, we must
distinguish between his ffw^a, the organism, and his
flesh ffapl, the material merely, the filling out of his
appearance. In relation to his soul, we must distin-
guish between soul as the animal principle of life,
and as conscious form of being. In relation to his
spirit, we must distinguish between his spiritual
nature and the element of the spiritual in which the
jidividual spirit lives, and which enters into it.

7. For the doctrine of the divine image, see the
remarks on the first chapter. For what belongs
specially to the immortality of man, see the title
Literature as above given. We must distinguish,
however, a threefold conception of immortality: 1.
The paradisaical immortality of Adam; 2. the onto-
lugical immortality of human nature ; 3. the religious
ethical immortality which is shared by man through
his communion with God — the life in its deeper signif-
icance, or the eternal life. As to what concerns the
immortality of Adam, the Scripture supposes that he
could avoid death under the condition of contiimed
normal rectitude in the strength of his communion
with God, or that he might fall into death through

D abnormal conduct conformable to his connection
with the earth. But the Scripture does not suppose
that man could have remained immortal without ob-
jective conditionings for the eternal renewal of his
Ufe. These conditionings are embraced in the sym-
bol of the tree of life (see below). There is, too, the
further disclosure, that man, in the case of the con-
firmation of his innocence, must undergo a meta-
morphosis resembling death, and yet not death, in
order that he might pass out of his first physical

Jtate of existence, where there is yet a possibility of

his dying, into a second spiritual state of existene*
which is raised above the sphere of death. Thii
appears from the translation of Enoch, in cormectioi
with the long enduring of the Macrobii (the earlj
long-living antediluvian patriarchs), from the trans-
lation of Elias, and, above all, from the glorified form
of Christ after his resurrection. It appears, too,
from the passage, 2 Cor. v. 2, 3 (see Lange's " Dog-
matics," p. 318), and from the doctrine of the apos-
tles respecting the transformation of Christians who
should be living at the end of the world (1 Cor. xv.).
The form of death that proceeds from sin had op-
posed itself to this tendency of man to transforma-
tion— had changed and subverted it. In respect to
the various ecclesiastical views of the original immor-
tality, compare Winek : " Comparative Representa^
tion," p. 49. 2. The ontological immortality of man.
At the bottom of the wide-spread prejudgment that the
Mosaic books, as also the Old Testament generally in
its first periods, did not teach the doctrine of a per
sonal immortality, lie the following misunderstand
ings : 1, In various ways was the oatological supposi-
tion of the imperishable continuance of man which
pervades the whole Old Testament (namely, in the
doctrines of Sheol, of the Rephaim in Sheol, of the
conscious condition, and in the expressions for life,
in Sheol), confnunded with the doctrine of the ethical
eternal life. This has also occurred to one of the
latest writers on the subject before us (H. Schultz :
" The Presuppositions of the Christian Doctrine of
Immortality," Gottingen, 1861). As we must distin-
guish, however, between the conceptions of the
physical and the ethical life in the Scriptures (a hfe
without God no life, but death), and between the
conceptions of the pliysical and the ethical death (a
death without the sting of conscious guilt no death),
so also must we distinguish between the conceptions
of the physical and the ethical immortality. Although
the Scripture does not acknowledge the physical,
without the ethical, as the true immortality, still it
denotes it as continuous individual exhiierwe with the
two attributes of consciousness and imperishability
(Is. Ixvi. 24; Rev. xiv. 11). 2. The pathetic and
poetical expressions for the mournful condition in
Sheol have been regarded purely as dogmas, without
calling to mind that there are praises of the rest in
Sheol of a directly opposite character (as in Job iii.),
and that, in like manner, the dogma of the perfect
nothingness of the present worldly life may be de-
duced from many of the songs of the Church. 3.
The fact has been overlooked that the immortality
of the soul is just as distmctly a supposition of the
Old Testament as the existence of God, and that on
this account neither article is expressly taught, but
only appears in language on occasions which call it
out, and then wholly as something thus presupposed.
4. No distinction has been made between the first
germ-form which is pecuhar to this doctrine, as it is
to most others in the earlier books of the Old Testa-
ment, and its later development ; and, therefore, too,
has there been no distinction made between the rami-
fying ontological definitives (such as Sheol, Rephain,
appearings of the dead, awakenings of the dead,
questionmgs of the dead), the ethical definitives
(such as covenant with God, confidence in God) and
the synthetic, out of which the doctrine of the resur.
rection gradually came forth (such as the tree of life,
the translations of Enoch and Elijah, together with
the doctrine of the resurrection that prevailed in the
prophetic period). Still less has it been considered
how gradually Sheol came to be regarded as a placr

314

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

if life, how gradually the shades come to form two
Jiriaions, those that are enjoying the holy rest, and
those that are the subjects of penal suffering — how
gradually faith in the living God becomes faith in
that eternal life which consists in communion with
liim (Ps. xvi.), and how gradually the resurrection
somes to its most definite form (2 Mace. vii.). The
decisive word, as Christ interprets it, Matt. xxii. 32,
is the designation which God gives to Himself, Exod.
iii. 6. Its meaning is that the doctrine of covenants
made -with tJi£ pious by a pergonal God contains in
itself the supposition of their own personal iTnperisha-
hie nature. For an explanation of this point it must
be observed: 1. That the abode in Sheol is to be re-
garded primarily as the continuance of the death-doom
incurred by sin. Just as death, the wages of sin ac-
cording to Paul, or the birth of sin according to James,
begins in this world with sin (the inner death accord-
ing to John), with mortality and sickness, so does it
also continue on in the other world under the relative
ideas of nakedness, imprisonment, restlessness— in a
word, under the intensified form of a penal or disci-
plinary relation to a future redemption. Therefore
it is that even in the pious of the Old Testament, the
condition beyond the grave is refiected in this world-
consciousness, presenting itself in a form for the
most part gloomy, sad, trembUng, and terrific. 2. It
must be kept in mind that Moses had to establish
the theocratic belief of the Jews in direct contrast
with heathenism, and especially the heathenism of
the Egyptians, from the midst of whom they came,
and was therefore led to give the strongest and most
siguificant emphasis to the present life ; because the
Egyptian religion was most specifically a worship
having relation to the state beyond the grave — that
is, to death. 3. Add to this that it was in entire
correspondence with the disciplinary degrees by
which Israel was to be educated that Moses should
represent the retribution as being principally in this
world, and, indeed, as impending every moment, like
something that followed close upon every step of hu-
man conduct. In entire conformity to truth did he
direct the people in this first step of belief in retribu-
tion; for, in fact, retribution is an immediate (or
ever-impending) thing. Everywhere, however, the
hope of a future life gleams out of his doctrines and
his institutions. The promise of long life was the
outward hull of the promise of eternal life ; the
symbolic death-offering was the emblem of hopeful
resignation to God in death ; and how shall piety in
death find its reward otherwise than in the time be-
yond the grave? Above all, it was the covenant of
God that furnished the richest guaranty (Exod. iii.
6).

[Idea of a Futuke Life in the Old Testament.
— The doctrine of a future life is in the Old Testament
as well as in the New, but in a different manner. In
the latter it is for all who read, declared undeniedly,
if not dogmatically ; in the foimer it is for the devout
and believing. There is thrown over it a vail of holy
reserve, making it all the more impressive when the
truth is seen through it. But for this the Sadducee
had no eyes He could not find texts declaring it
preceptively as he found the law laid down for mar-
rying a brother's widow. He came to our Saviour
with his puzzle, and doubtless deemed it unanswera-
ble. The course taken by Christ, Matt. xxii. 29, is
very remarkable, and it is astonishing how little
weight it seems to have had with writers of the War-
burton school. He does not meet the caviller with
the texts we would have expected. He does not

cite such passages as Ps. xvii. 16 : "I shall be satie
fied when I awake in thy likeness;" or Ps. xvi.
" Thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol ; " or Ps. Ixxiii.
24 : " Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and
afterward receive me to glory;" or Is. xxvi. 19
where a resurrection seems to be spoken of; or Dan
xii. 2, where it is expressly declared. The Sadduce«
would probably have been prepared with some ex-
planations of these, such as are now offered by thfc
modem rationalist. Instead of them our Savioui
quotes one of the most common passages in the Old
Testament: lam the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and
of Jacob. The Sadducee had heard it read hundreds
of times in the synagogue, but saw nothing in it
about a future life. It may have been to him, in
other respects, a favorite passage ; for though called
infidels in modern times they were the strictest of
Jews, glorying strongly in their ancient patriarchal
descent. " I am the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob : " this they were famil-
iar with ; but Christ's appendix was as startling to
them as it was conclusive : He is not the God of tht
dead but of the living. God's covenant with man
proves His immortality. He does not deal thus with
beings of a day. He does not thus solemnly declare
Himself the God of things non-existent. Abraham,
and Isaac, and Jacob, are still present reaUties, not
Uving in their children, simply, but rather their chil-
dren living in them. The divine care of a chosen
people thus continued from generation to generation
impUes a continued being in the individuals that
compose it, and without which the whole series
would have no more spiritual value than any linked
succession in the animal or vegetable world. They
still " live unto Him."

Let the reader test this by endeavoring to fix in
hLj mind the idea that the Old Testament writers all
regarded themselves as beings destined soon to de-
part into nothingness — in other words, that they were
all sheer animal materialists. Let him carry along
this impression, and keep it constantly present iu
reading the Psalms, the Prophets, or even the Book
of Proverbs. What a discord will arise between it
and many of their vivid utterances, even though
there is nothing in them, dogmatically or didactively,
about a future life. Did men who believe in no
hereafter ever talk so ? " Whom have I in heaven
but Thee, and there is none in all the earth that I de-
sire beside Thee : Flesh and heart fail, but Thou art
the strength (the rock) of my soul : Thy favor is life :
Thy loving-kindness is more than life : My soul faints
for Thee, the living God : For with Thee is the foun-
tain of life, and in Thy light do we see light : Thou
art our dwelling-place in all generations : Doubtless
Thou art our Father even though Abraham be igno-
rant of us and Israel acknowledge us not ; Thou, Oh
Lord, art our Father and our Redeemer : Art Thou
nqt from everlasting, Jehovah, my God, my Holy
One? we shall not die." Or take that ofl^repeated
Hebrew oath : As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liv-
eth; what meaning in such a connection of terms?
How does all this lofty language immediately collapse
at the presence of the low materializing idea ! Even
the language of their despondency shows how far
they were from the satisfied animal or earthly state
of soul : Shall dust praise Thee ? Shall Thy loving
kindness be declared in the grave, or Thy righteous-
ness in the land of oblivion ? It was bidding farewell
to God, not to earth, it was losing the idea of the
everlasting covenant and its everlasting author, tl a)
imparted the deepest gloom to their seasons of seep

CHAP. n. 4-26.

21£

L.'ci8m. It was in just gucb travail of the spirit that
tie hope was born within them. This was the sub
joctive mode of its revelation; aud, thus regarded,
the very texts which the Sadducee, ancient or mod-
ern, would quote in favor of his denial, testify to a
iTue spirituaUty — to a state of soul most opposite to
his own. And this style of language is not ooniined
10 the devotional or prophetical Scriptures. It
gleams out in expressions interspersed among the
historical details of the Jewish home-life. What a
people, says Rabbi Tanehum (citing the words of
Abigail, 1 Sam. xxv. 29), where even the women
speak so sublimely, and beyond even the philosophers
of other nations, about souls bound up in the bundle
of life (or lives, Di">nn mis). See Pococke's
"Notes to Porta Mosis," p. 93. It may be very easy
for the rationalizing interpreter to put another face
on such a passage as this, but it may be only because
in his case, as in that of the Sadducee of old, there
is a vail upon his heart in the reading of the Old
Covenant.

Such an expanding spiritual sense (in distinction
from the merely fanciful or the cabalistical) is for
those who have eyes to see and ears to hear ; and,
thus regarded, it may be said that the future life of
the Old Testament, even with this vail thrown over
it, has far more of moral power than the Gresk
Hades, or any spirit-world mythology of other ancient ]
nations whom the rationalist would represent as sur-
passing the Jews in this respect. The latter were
doubtless far behind the Greeks in distinctness of
conception and locality ; but this was because God did
uot mean to leave His people to their fancies. He
gave them, and especially the pious among them, the
spirit of the doctrine, but so kept it in holy reserve
that they could not turn it mto fables. — T. L.]

8. From the circumstance of its not being said
that the woman was inspired by the breath of God,
Delitzsch is inclined to follow, with Tertullian, the
so-called traducian theory, or the generic propaga-
tion of the human soul. This argument, however,
de silentio, proves nothing ; since Adam, in relation
to Eve, also is the type of the creation of humanity.
Aud so we adhere to this : The body of man proceeds
from propagation (traducianism), the soul is created
(creationism), the spirit is pre-existent as the idea of
God.

9. Paradise. — See the article "Eden" in Winer,
and the literary catalogue there given. See also
Hbbzog's " Real-Encyclopedia." Paradise (Hebrew,
■|3 ; Septuagint, wapiSeia-os, that is, a walling or fenc-
ing round, a place enclosed as a garden), like all
facts in Genesis, especially of its earlier history, was,
on the one side, an actuality, on the other a symbol ;
and the latter, indeed, in a special degree. In favor
of its actuality there is, first, the fundamental thought :
there was a home of the human race ; secondly, the
territory of this home, the region in which the
Euphrates and the Tigris had their sources, or West-
ern Asia as appears probable from other reasons;
thirdly, the mention of the well-known rivers Phrat
(Euphi'ates) and ffiddekel (Tigris), together with other
Naatures. In favor of the clear symbolical significance
of Paradise there is the figure of the one stream that
ifterwards divided itself into four different streams
running out from thence into the world, as also the
iaclosure of the garden, and especially the two trees
with their wonderful significance. The theological
riews respecting Paradise embrace two extremes:
ifhilst some would regard it as extending over all the

earth (Ephraim the Syrian ; and a multitude of sucl
extravagant opinions as cited by Calmet : Comment
litter, in Oenesin, p. 81), others, on the other side
would reduce it to one common section so appropri
ated as to have a eommensurate influence upon the
first men. Between these lies the sound view of the
church, which supposes for the pure a pure sphere of
nature, for the care-needing a motherly bosom ot
nature, for the innocent a heavenly, peaceful, hol^
region, for the child-like a garden with its fruits (see
Lange's " Dogmatics," p. 396). The exegeticai
views respecting the passage divide themselves into
the historical, the allegorical, and the mythical. The
historical views, again, fall into two classes : those
that maintain the possibility of yet determining the
region of Paradise, and such as suppose the configu-
ration of the earth to have been so changed by the
flood that the place of union of the four rivers can-
not now be pouited out. Both assume a significant
change of the earth, especially since the faU of Adam,
or the beginning of the human race. The allegorical
views divide themselves into the Gnostic or the theo-
sophic-allegorical (Philo, Jacob Bohm, and others)
and into the mystic-allegorical (Swedeuborg and
others). The mythical views may be divided into
the predominantly theological or philosophical, or
the predominantly geographical. First Class: a.
Calvin, Huetius, Bochart, and others : Paradise, they
say, lay in the district in which the Euphrates and
the Tigris unite (Schat al Arab) ; the Pishon and the
Gihou are the two principal mouths of Schat al Arab.
b. Uopkinson : Paradise was the region of Babylon ;
the two canals of the Euphrates form half of the
number of the four rivers, c. Bask : The same
region probably, only let there be added to the twc
well-known streams the two subordinate streams of
the Schat al Arab, d. Harduin ; Galilee, c. Hasse :
Paradise lay in East Prussia. Second Class : Change
in the course of the rivers. Clericus, and others:
Paradise lay in Syria (Kohlreif and others : Damas-
cus). Third Glass: Philo: De Mundi Opijicio;
Jacob Bohm: Mysterium Magnum. Fourth Class:
See the article " Swedeuborg " in Hebzog's " Real-
Encyclopedia." Fifth Class: The mythico-theologi-
cal, or strictly mythological, view, which makes it
the story of the four world-rivers that come from the
hills of heaven, and wander over the earth (Von
Bohlen and others). Sixth Class: The mythico-
geographical. Sickler, Buttmann, Bertheau : " Geo-
graphical Views that form the Ground of the Descrip-
tion of the Situation of Paradise," Giittmgen, 1848.
Winer distinguishes a Uteral view (Hengstenberg,
Tiele, Baumgarten), a half-hteral, which attempts to
separate the distribution of the streams from the
matter of fact contamed (Less, Cramer, Werner, and
others), an allegorical (Von Gerstenberg), and a
hieroglyphical, not very distinguishable (J. G. Eosen-
miiller and others), p. 290, wherein he protests
against the conjectures of Hiillmann and Ballen-
stedt.

According to Verbrugge, Jahn, and others, the
one Paradise-stream may be understood of a region
abounding in streams. We suppose that the stream
has a moot special symbolical importance, and de-
notes, generally, the well-ground of the Paradise-
earth. With this, however, there is easily connected
the historical view of Reland and Cahnet. Accord-
ing to this, Pishon denotes the Phasis which rises in
the Moschian mountains, stands in connection with
the gold-land of Colchis so famed in antiquity (Colchii
— Chavila), and flows into the Black Sea ; Gihon is tiie

216

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Aras jr Araxea (the Phasis of Xenophon, n'^i , to
break forth = apdrToi), which likewise rises in Arme-
nia, and flows into the Caspian Sea. But Cush is the
and of the Kossaeans, which Strabo and Diodorus
place in the neighborhood of Media and the Caspian
Sea. According to this, Armenia would have been
the terr-.'ory of the ancient Paradise. Knobel also
had first presented the grounds (p. 28), which are
in favor of Armenia, out of which, moreover, the
postdiluvian men proceeded. On this account have
Belaud, Link, Von Lengerke, Kurtz, Bunsen, and
others, supposed it to be Armenia. It is objected,
however, to this : 1. That the names Havila and
Cush, in other places, belong to the South. The
name Havila, it may be said generally, is not geogra-
phicaUy determined; but the name Cush, together
with the Cushites, can just as well be extended from
the north to the south as that of the Normans (see
Kurtz : " History of the Old Testament," p. 59). 2.
No Armenian district can be summarily denoted as
the native land of gold, bdellium, and the onyx. In
regard to the gold, however, Colchis presents no diffi-
culty. Just as httle are the bdellium and the onyx
to be denied of this district, since it evidently has
something symbolical. Objection 3d : It is said that
the cherubim are not to be found in Armenia : but
where on the earth was the home of these ? And
then, too, must many indications point to a more
northern highland. But the places commonly cited
for this purpose, Ps. xlviii. 3 ; Is. xlviii. 13, prove
nothing, and Ezek. xxviii. 13 is a pure ideal painting.
Moreover, the analogies of the Albordi, the Medo-
Persian mountains of God, and the Indian mountains
Meru^ appear to be merely reflexes of the Paradise-
story ; and the same may be said of the Chinese
mountain-tract Kuenlun. In other respects the
analogies and combinations collected by Knobel are
commimications of great interest. Keil states a
reason why the Cyrus (now the Kur) should be put
in place of the Phasis (p. 42) ; it is the fact that the
rising of the Phasis lies beyond Armenia. Tliis rea-
son would be decisive, if we had to insist upon the
pure literalness of the origin of the Paradise rivers.
He holds, in hke manner, that the Gihon is the
Araxes : the sundering of the four streams he ex-
plains by changes in the earth's surface, yet not
alone through the flood (Note, p. 44). Finally, ac-
cording to Delitzsch, the Pison must relate to the
Indus and its river territory to India, whilst the
Gihon is the Nile (pp. 149, 620). Afterwards he
came to regard the combination of Bunsen as having
a good degree of probability (p. 150), and then he
represents the mutually opposing difiiculties by the
concluding alternative : We must either acknowledge
the incomprehensibility of the narration, or accom-
modate ourselves with the admission that the certain
knowledge of the four rivers has been lost iu the
disappearance of Paradise itself. — T/ie actual and
symbolical imporiaiice of Paradise. The garden in
Eden. Historical. Tlie Jieavenly earth-bloom which
surrounded the new-born man, who is to be regarded,
indeed, as full-grown, and yet childlike and inexpe-
rienced. The point of the earth's congeniality,
wherein the divine earth-culture is in unity with the
earthly nature — when the fruit-trees are of the noblest
qual'ty, the grain grows wild, the beasts attach them-
eelves to men iu the domestic state, whilst there is
lUotted to men an abundance of simple food (I'ruit
of trees, the nourishment of children) to be procured
by an easy labor of the body, and a thoughtful care
on the part of the mind. — Symbolical siynificance of

Paradise. The general correspondence between tht
pure, peaceful, serene, and blessed man, and the
pure, peaceful, serene, and blessed world of God , ot
the inward communion with God, and, corresponding
to it, the outward, sensible presence of God in the
surroundings of humanity. In its more special signif-
icance : 1. The heavenly disposition of the earth,
the rich paradisaical soil ; 2. the objective paradisai-
cal aspects of the earth, as the subjective in the con-
templation of children and of men attuned to a festal
Ufe ; 3. the promised land, the consecration of the
earth through the salvation ; 4. the kingdom of glory
above (Luke xxiii. 43 ; 2 Cor. xii. 4) ; 5. the earth
glorified for its union, at some future time, with the
heavens (2 Pet. iii. 13 ; Eev. xx.). — The vocation in
Paradise. Historical : The serene, free activity of
the child in contrast wiih the necessity and the
pains of labor proper. The true keeping of entrusted
good against a damage yet unforeseen, especially
through self-keeping in contrast with the later anxious
watching. Symbolical: The calling of the pious
and blessed, according to its positive and negative
sides. A holy oflice of labor, a holy office of defence,
and, through both, a holy ministry of instruction. —
2'he Paradise-rivers : 1. Historical (see above). 2.
SymboUc. The tour world-streams in their high
significance, as the streams of Ute and blessing that
flow conditionally from the paradisaical home of
man. — The trees in the garden. Historical: The
abundance that surrounded the first man still simple
and conformable to his childlike degree ; food both
lovely to the eye and ennobUng in its efficacy. Sym-
bolical: Tiie riches of the pious and their freedom
from want (Ps. xxiii.). — The two trees in the midst of
t/ie yardeu. Historical : Nature in its centre endowed
with a wonderful power of health, as also with intoxi-
cating gilts of dangerous efficacy, which, through an
enjoyment rash or immoderate (or, in general, having
only the form of nourishment), exert a destructive in-
fluence, and both ahke represented there by a cen-
tral vegetable formation, whether it be tree or bush.
Symbolical : The tree of life : The power of health
and life in nature, which, in connection with the
word of God, rises to a fouiitain of everlasting life in
Christ soteriologically, and to be the nourishment of
everlasting life in Christ sacramentaUy. — The tree of
knowledge of good and evil. Nature as the tree of
probation every way, namely in excessive, in dan-
gerous, and iu forbidden means of enjoyment. — The
paradisaical command. Historical: The warning,
inviting, and dissuading signs of God in the produc-
tions of nature themselves, and the transfoi-mation
of the signs into miraculous words for the ear through
the present spirit of God. The mention of all the
trees in the garden is in so far a command as the
arbitrary abstinence from permitted enjoyment has
for its consequence the inclination to forbidden en-
joyment. There is also a reminder in it that he has
no need of the forbidden enjoyment. Symbolical:
The revealed will of God, in general, not a constraint
nor an abridgment, but only a healthful barrier foi
the sake of freedom and happiness. — I'he beasts
brought before Adajfi in Paradise, Historical
Original sympathy between the animal and the humai
worlds. Symbolical : The destiny of man, to Icarii
to understand, through the gospel, the sighing of the
creature, or to have, in general, a right knowledge
of the animal-world and ot nature, and how rightly
to use them. — The naming of the beasts. Historical;
First exercise of the hmnau spirit — and especially of
speech. Symbolical: The rehgious and scientifio

CHAP. n. 4-2S.

2n

Jevelopment of man through nature. — Human speech.
Hintorical : Hereditary disposition taking root in the
very Ufe of the spirit and its plastic organization,
awakened through the most excited contemplations
of childhood — such as that of life in the beast.
Symbolical: Man's first prophecy of nature, a presage
of his destiny to know and predict perfectly the law
and gospel of nature. — The creation of woman.
HiiioHcal: The formation of the human pair falls in
the period of the physiological creation of the man.
Not after the manner of ready-made or at once com-
pleted being, but in the way of becoming, does the
one developing human form become perfected in the
contrast of one man and woman. Man, as a per-
sonality, is not conditioned through sexual comple-
tion or integration ; and man and wife are not, some-
how, only two halves which make one whole in a
personal sense, but perhaps in a social. The wife,
however, is just as much whole man as the man
himself. She proceeds not only from the substance
of the man, but also from his trance-vision in that
deathhke sleep into which he had been cast by God.
In respect to substance, as foi-med from one of man's
ribs, she comprehends less than Adam ; in respect to
form she is a creation of secondary power in the
region of paradise. God brings Eve to Adam. Mar-
riage is instituted by God, not only in respect to the
divine creation of its contrast, but also in respect to
the divine guidance of the individual choice. Man
must not anticipate the decision of God, but neither
is he to reject the destined one whom God brings
before him — the one who through a divine revela-
tion, as it were, and a divine consideration, is marked
out for him as his counterpart. — Adam's salutation
and blessing. Symbolical : The first of all high and
sacred songs of love. Marriage the principle of the
family state, superordinate to all other domestic rela-
tions. Marriage in contrast with the sins of sodomy
and fornication — in contrast with incest (leaving
father and mother, etc.) — in contrast with an arbitra-
ry and sinful taking and forsaking. (The paradisai-
cal indissolubility of marriage is conditioned upon its
paradisaical infallibility.) Duties to father and mo-
ther receive an emphasis from the fact that they are
measured by the law of love. The greatness and the
limit of the parental right. It extends to, but not
intOy the marriage state. — Jhe nakedness of the first
human beings. Symbolical: The childhke simplicity,
the freedom, beauty, and majesty of innocence.

[ExOHKSUS ON THE Paeadise Rivers. — The search
for the Gihon and the Pishon in the north is attended
with the greatest difficulties. Chief among them is
the necessity it involves of finding another Gush in
the same direction. The language of the writer gives
the impression of a territory of great comparative ex-
tent, and that could not easily be misunderstood by a
reader familiar with the geographical terms employed.
1313 Y'.it bD 33'iOn Xin : that is, the river that
goes round the whole land of Gush — clear round it —
ft wide and notable circuit. The sense of winding or
tneaudering through cannot be got from the verb,
ind the references to Is. xxiii. 16, and other places
IT'S ■3D,')".iS 130 , Ps. xlviii. 13 : Go round about
the city — round about Zion), do not support it. The
tncieut view that the Gihon was the Nile, and Pishon
ihe Indus, though having difficulties of another kind,
IS more near to what would seem to be the general
idea of the passage : four great rivers (waters rather)
prominent in the earth, and having their courses, in
lome way, connected with Eden. Even if the Nile

and the Indus are no^ the rivers, it is more easy u
see how they came to be anciently, and almost uni
versally, so regarded, than to find anything corre
spondiug to this graphic representation in the regioi
north of the Euphrates and the Hiddekel or Tigris.
One thing is clear on the very face of the account :
the writer himself had no difficulty, and thought of
none for the reader. He is certainly not speaking
of things supposed to be obhterated by the deluge,
but of places recognized, however vaguely, in the
knowledge of the day. To this assumed knowledge
the picture is presented, though with that inadequacy
of conception, and that generality or undefinednesa
of language, which necessarily marked the fir.^t
geographical notions of mankind. It was very much
as an early Greek writer would have done, in a simi-
lar case, who had nothing else to go by but the map
of Eratosthenes, or the still older one of Hecatseus.
This does not at all detract from the inspiration of
the account, whether we adopt the vision-theory, or
some more objective mode of raising the conceptions
in the narrator's mind. In either case such concep-
tions would be shaped by his supposed knowledge,
as this would also be the ground of presentation to
other minds. The picture which St. John had of the
Euphrates, in his apocalyptic vision, was doubtless
according to the geographical ideas, more or less
correct, which he had previously possessed of that
river. Geographical language has undergone a great
change. Everything now, and for a long time, has
been so precisely defined that we need to get out of
our modern conceptions to be in a condition to under-
stand satisfactorily the most ancient modes of divid-
ing and describing the earth. The nomenclature has
become greatly enlarged and varied. We have rivers,
lakes, seas (the Greeks in Homer's time called these
two last by one name, Ai/xyj)), oceans, friths, anns of
the sea, gulfs, bays, sounds, etc. In the earliest
times they were not fixed, and we cannot be always
certain, therefore, that » general name hke "inj , a
flood or flouting water, presented just that limited
conception in every case that we now invariably con-
nect with river, Jlumeji, Trorajabr, etc. Eor examples
of the wide sense of "lfl3, see such passages as Ps.
xciii. 3 : The floods lift up their voice, nlins , lift
up their dashing waves, CST; Ps. Ixvi. 6, it is join-
ed with D^ , and most obviously used of the Red
Sea ; see also Ps. Ixxxix. 26. So Hab. iii. 8, where
ni"in33 and 013 are spoken of in the same way;
comp. Is. xlviii. 18. We deduce, too, this wide
primitive sense from its employment in metaphors
where there is to be denoted width, enlargement,
fulness: Peace like a river, nnjD , Is. Ixvi. 12, Hke
a flood ; so Is. lis. 19, enemy come in hke a flood.
Beyond the floods of Cush, Is. xviii. 1 ; the same
expression, Zeph. iii. 10. See especially Jonah ii. 4:
"IJ3301 "iflJ , the flood went round me (the deep
sea) ; compare with this Homer's aiK^avov jieeSipa,
streams of ocean, Iliad xiv. 245. So it seems to ba
used, not so much of a river, in the limited sense, aa
of any great water, in such passages as Job xxii. 16,
Ps. xlvi. 5. In Ps. xxiv. 2 it denotes the floods of
chaos, the old Tehom rabbah, or " great deep," and
is put in direct parallelism with Qiai : For He hath
founded it upon the seas, and built it upon theflooda,
nnnJ bs . See the same word used in the same
way, Bzek. xxxi. 15.

Thus the nti5 , or great water, in the passage bo

ai8

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OP MOSES.

fore ns, Gen. ii. 10. In the Eden territory itself it
might have had the form of a lake — an idea, in fact,
which the whole aspect of the account greatly favors.
It was certainly not a spring or fountain-head to four
commencing streams, but rather a reservoir in which
all were joined, whether as flowing in or flowing out.
From thence they were parted, or began to be parted
(TiD"' , see remark on nbs^ and references, p. 202)
into lour D'^BSt . This is rendered heads in our ver-
sion, and so the Yulgate, in quatuor capita. But they
both mislead in their literalness ; the Hebrew U3N1
never having, like our word, the sense of fountain-
head or spring ; the Shemitic tongues called the re-
mote upper part of a stream a foot or & finger rather
than a head. It became four principal waters or
floods, four arms {brachia) or great branches. Two
of these were rivers within the modern limits of the
term, but very great rivers ; so that one comes after-
wards to be almost constantly called Ti"!3 with the
article as a proper name— the great river, the sea or
flood. See Gen. xv. 18 ; xxxi. 21 ; Num. xxii. 5 ;
Deut. i. 7; xi. 24; Josh. xxiv. 2, 3, 14, 16; 2 Sam.
X. 16 ; Neh. ii. 7 ; Is. vii. 20; xi. 15 ; xxvii. 12 and
others. From such a use as this, perhaps, came the
more common secondary or specific apphcation of "ifl5
to rivers proper. The other two, probably, presented
a different appearance. Beyond the bounds of the
Eden territory they may have become friths, or arms
of the sea, or two diverging shores of a great water
Boon losing sight of each other, yet each still keeping
the name "ijis as more applicable, in fact, to them
(if we may judge from its primary sense) than to the
streams on the north.

Such a view may not, at first, seem in harmony
with our preconceptions, but there are considerations
to be mentioned which, on closer examination, will
more and more divest it of any strange or forced
appearance. In the first place, two of these Q^inj
are determined, and we may regard them as furnish-
ing the necessary data for the determination of the
others according to some sense once clearly recog-
nized. They are waters in close and even immediate
connection with the Euphrates and the Tigris, not at
their obscure sources, or springs, where they could
not be recognized as D'^nns , but where they both
appear as parting from a common junction in the
Eden-land. The two well-known brimches are north
of this junction ; we must, therefore, look for the
others on the south, and the region first to be exam-
ined in our search for Eden is that in which the
Euphrates and the Tigris come together. This was
near the head of the Persian Gulf, where most of the
ancient authorities agreed in fixing it, and to which
place also there points a concurrence of Arabian and
Persian tradition. Here Calvin and Bochart find it.
But where, then, are the two southern Qi-inj , one
of which goes round the land of Havilah, the land of
gold (India, says the Jerusalem Targum), and the
other goes round the whole land of Cush, that is.
Southern Arabia (see Gen. x. 7 ; 1 Kings x. 1 ;
EoMKK : Odyss. i. 20) ? The branches of the Schat
al Arab, which completes the junction of the Eu-
phrates and the Tigris, fall altogether short of this
graphic description. We might regard this delta as
the remains of the ancient confluence in Eden, but it
will not answer for Pishon and Gihon. The key to
the difiiculty, we think, will suggest itaelf, if the
reader will keep in mind ia view here taken of

^nj , and carry it with him in a steady conteniplatioa
of all the waters that meet in this region of the
earth. An ancient map, suah as that of Ptolemy
or Strabo, or the still earlier one of Hecataeus, would
be best for this purpose ; but the simplest delineation
could hardly fail to awake the thought that in the
general contour of the system of waters presented by
these two mighty streams as they come down from
the north, and the two diverging seas, or shores of
seas, that, parting just below their junction, sweep
round the land of India on the one side, and Arabia
on the other, we have the data that determine for ua
the location of the ancient Eden-land. It suggests,
too, the origin of the general language, and of this
special naming. Knowledge has not yet introduced
geographical distinctions ; the internal wastes of seas
and their connections are unknown ; the pioneers or
travellers on either diverging shore simply recognize
them as two great waters, two mighty D^"in3 , and
they name them according to their most visible char-
actenstics and directions. Hence the earliest repre-
sentation, which is afterwards enlarged and becomes
a fixed tradition. One is the broad-sprea/ling Pishon,
trending far away to the eastern land of gold and
diamonds, the other is the deep-flowing Gihon (com-
pare the favorite epithet of Homer's " Ocean-River,"
^a^v^^oov 'SlK^avoio, Odyss. xi. 13; Jliad xiv. 311),
surging far round to the south and the west. Ob-
serve, too, the contrast they present to the other
names, the fertilizing Euphrates (n^B), and the inmfi-
darting Hiddekel or Tigris. The inland and mari-
time features could hardly have been distinguished
by more significant epithets.*

But such an opinion should be fortified by histor-
ical argument, and this, we think, is found in a fact
of Greek archaeology, having much interest for ita
own sake, but to which suflacient attention has not
been given in its bearing on the names, and the
primitive significance, of these nehanm. Homer
calls Oceanus a river. It had been so called, doubt-
less, long before his time. He connects with it, in-
deed, much wild mythology, but that does not affect
the fact, nor the interest, of such a naming. Whence
came it ? It is not a sufiBcient explanation to call it
poetical. All early conceivings of nature were poeti-
cal in this sense of vastness and wonder. The great
unknown of things was full of it, and the wonderful
was ever divine. Hence Homer's divine ether, divine
fire, divine sea [al^ipos ev Sii}^ — ^eaTrtSaej irvp — els
aAa Siai', Miad x\i. 365; xii. 177 ; Odyss. v. 261^
compare bs ■'•nnn , monies Dei, Ps. xxxvi. 7). But
Homer, though a poet, speaks here in the most mat-
ter-of-fact style. He believes in Oceanus as he be-
lieves in the Peneus and the Eurotas. Ulysses navi-
gates this ocean-river in a black ship ; he sails along
its one shore until he leaves it and enters the xvfia
doKitraris, the swell of the inland sea, Odyss. x. 639 ;
xi. 1. Homer's poetry makes him none the less a
good witness for the most ancient geographical ideas,
and to this purpose does the prosaic Strabo speak in
quoting him: "Homer," he says, 'not only calls the .
great ocean a river {irorafihv Kal iroTo;uoro l>6ov), but
gives the same name to a part of it ; otherwise he
would have (absurdly) represented Ulysses as going
out of the ocean into the ocean." See Strabo : lib.
i. 75 ; also lib. i. 8 ; ii. 3, 5 ; ii. 18, where he speaks
of the four great sinuses which were regarded as in-

* [The annexed figure would present the outline appeos-
ance of the supposed Eden-region, with its four great waten
or neharlm, as given by the modem maps i

CHAP. n. 4-2B.

21t

lets from the ocean-stream, the Caspian and the Pon-
tus on the north and the Persian and Arabian sinus
on the south. See, also, how he speaks in other
places of the Northern Oceanus, and its supposed
connections. It is worthy of note, too, how Homer's
frequent l>6os, and Strabo's use of it in his remarks
upon him, corresponds to the primary sense of the
Hebrew nns , as a full, majestic flowing rather than
k gliding or rapid running stream, like rivits or
amnis. It would take up too much space to cite
other passages from the Greek poets, Herodotus, etc.,
where similar language is used. One reference, how-
ever, may be made to Pindar : Pyth. Garm. iv. '250,

because in it this river Oceanus is directly connected
with the Persian Gulf. Jason is represented as re.
inrning " by the channels of Oceanus and the Ery
thrian or Eed Sea," by which name the Greeks de
nominated not the Egyptian but the Persian sinua.
JosEPHns names it in the same way. Ant. lib. l ch. I
3, where he says " the Euphrates and the Tigris gc
down into the Red Sea, whilst Gihon (Geon, as he
calls it) runs through Egypt, the Greeks calling it the
Nile." He seems to have regarded the Egyptian
river as in some way connected with the Scripture
Gihon on the unknown South.

This USU8 loquendi may be explained by suppos-
ing that the sons of Javan, Elisa and Tarshish, Kit-
tim and Rodanim, carried it with them from the old

N

(B

LAND or NARRATOR.

AFRICAN" CUSH

The maps of Ptolemy and of Eratostltenes make the Persian Gulf a lake, or nearly so, which might represent tta
Eden reservoir, or the one Tiahar^ afterwards become a marshy collection of waters of wider extent, like that which now
represents the doomed cities of the plain with their ancient Eden-like fertility. The representation of the old maps might
not have heon wholly due to imperfect knowledge. It might be accounted for by supposing changes no greater than arc

1 to have taRen place in the old Batavian region of the Zuyder Zee and the delta of the Bhine. Strabo conflrms th«
on the authority of Polycletus, who says that *' the Tigris, together with the Eulaeus and the Choaspes (on the Sast),

mown I

flow first into a lake and then into the sea "—and of Onesioritus who says that " the two rivers, the Euphrates and tn«
Tigris, empty ei? ntv Xiftvriv^" which properly means a salt-4ake or marsh. See Stbabo : Lib. xv. ch. iii. 4.

Cta almost any hypothesis it would seem impossible that the Eden-region could have been in the mountamous Aine-
llia. It is expressly said to have been D^p75 , and it is not at all easy to suppose a place for the narrator to which Alili»
nia would have been either east or north-east. — T. L.I

220

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

home-land in the east, and applied it in their pioneer-
ing among the friths and sounda of the Mediterranean.
The Egyptians, or sons of Ham, had it in the same
way ; and this makes simple and natural what other-
wise might seem forced or far-fetched, hi such an
Interpietation of the earliest geographical language.
This idea, too, of a great Oceanus river with its one
far-stretching continuity of shore winding round an
extensive portion of the earth, must have had its
origin in the east, and in that region of it where two
such vast shores met each other, and, at the same
time, some great inland water. It would never have
come from any aspect of things presented to the first
migrations in the Mediterranean with its many islands,
sinuses, fritlis, and sounds, ever breaking up such
continuity, and seldom affording a view in which
land does not show itself, however distantly, in some
direction. Hence it was that this part of the earth
got the name of "the isles of the sea," so frequent in
Scripture. As such, it became opposed to the conti-
nent or main eastern land of Asia ; the two together
making up the world, or orbis terrarum, and thus
presented in the parallelism of Ps. xcvii. 1 ;

Jehovah reigns, let the earth (the land) rejoice,
Let the many isles be glad.

If we suppose that the Phoenicians in their earliest
voyages carried with them this idea of the Ocean-
river, they must have had it from some more primi-
tive source, and this is the more easily understood if
we ad'ypt the tradition mentioned by Straho, lib. i.
ch. ii. 35, that the Phoenicians, in distinction from
the Sidonians, came to the Mediterranean from the
neighborhood of the Indian Ocean and the Persian
Gulf

The roving Greek imagination, as usual, carried
the thing farther than the no less vivid but more
sober Sliemitic. They prolonged the course of the
Ocean-river, not only round the Arabian, but also
the Western or African Ethiopia (see Hou. : Odyss.
I. 23 ; Iliad i. 423 ; Pmn. : Pyih. iv. 26 ; Herod, iv.
42), and so clear round Africa itself as they conceived
it to be. On the other hand, the eastern flood turned
north, and encompassed the boreal regions, and so
the idea became complete of a irornfiiis, or ^oos, that
encircled the earth, according to the Orphic or Ho-
meric description :

*Q.Kiav6s T€ irepi| ^v\ uSaffi yatav kKlff(Tu>v.

The idea appears in all the old representations of
the world down to the map of Ptolemy, and in this
point of view it is not extravagant to regard the
scriptural account of the Paradise-streams as the seed
from which it all grew. Once loosed from its sober
scriptural moorings and become a myth, there was
no limit to the fancy. It was transferred to every
great and unknown sea, and the legend of Jason, the
old ocean circumnavigator, arose from the desire ever
manifested by the Greeks to give to every world-idea
that came to them a national aspect. Hence it took
80 many traditional forms. Pindar, as we have seen,
makes him return home by the way of the Persian
Gulf and Jilthiopia ; Appollonius Rhodius brings him
back by the Ister, or Danube, and a branch, or break-
off, of the ocean-stream {inroppa>( 'aueavolo ; see
Argonautica iv. 283, 637), into the Ionian, and so,
round agMiji, into the dangerous Libyan Sea ; whilst
the writei of the other Argonautica (falsely ascribed
to Orpheus) gets him somehow into the boreal
regions, making him return by the German Ocean
»nd 'Upirq, the most ancient name for Ireland. See

also the treatise De Mundo, falsely ascribed to Ari»
totle (Aeist. \ Opera, Leip. iv. sect. 3d). So again.
Strabo tells us (lib. i. ch. ii. 10) that Homer trana
ferred some things from the Pontus, such as the
Symplagades and the Aaean isle of Circe, to the voyage
of Ulysses — that sea having been anciently regarded
as another Oceanus. It may be said, too, that when
the primitive idea began to float away into the
boundless and unknown, Cush went with it, pass-
ing over into Eastern Afnca, the land of the Habesse-

nians (Abyssinians), jLwu«itit ij6>li as the Judaico-

Arabic translator (Arabs Erpenianus) renders this
very name lUID in the place before us, Gen. ii. IS.
.(Ethiopia is afterwards carried still farther south and
west, and the name is sometimes given to what was
obscurely known of Western and Central Africa, or
the land of the Niger and Senegal. Thus it be-
comes a word for the remote and unknown regions
of the South,* as Tarshish is used for the distant
West. In this way, we think, it is employed Zepb.
iii. 10, and Is. xviii. 1, the land of the shadow of
wings, Dis;3 bsbs Vis (so the Syriac renders it,
) ai-.< ]1V ^« 1^?1), terra umbrte alarum, that is,
as Abulwalid explains it, whose wings or sides are
shaded (obscure or unknown) — the laud "'"insb IDJtt
\D1D , beyond the floods of Cush. The thought gives
force and vividness to the passage Ps. Ixviii. 32 :
Even Cush shall stretch forth (^inri, cause to run
swiftly or eagerly) her hands unto God. The two
lands of Cush, '" the one at the rising (the Arabian
Cush) and the other at the setting sun" (the African),
were distinguished in Homer's day, and it is not
difiicult to see how the African ^Ethiopians came
from the Arabian, or Sabasan, Cush, by crossing the
lower narrow part of the Red Sea (one of the wind-
ings of the Gihon), instead of being derived from the
Egyptians above, that is, from Mizraim, the younger
brother of Cush. In thus regarding the Red Sea as
a continuation of the Gihon, as in fact it was, if our
view be correct, we may understand how the NUe
may have become connected with the name, and
afterwards been taken for the Gihon itself.

The Indian Ocean in the most ancient times was
the widest extent of water known. It was, too,
nearer the primitive birth-place of man in the East,
and, therefore, known before the Mediterranean.
Even after men became acquainted with the latter,
it was, in comparison with the older water, but a
\ifivri, or a ^aKaaaa, an irregular broken mass o(
bays and islands instead of one long continuous flow.
Here, therefore, in this earlier region of the Indian
and Persian seas should we naturally look for the
origin of that name Okeanos which it is so difficult
to deduce from the Greek. This is what Diodorua
Siculus does. Lib. i. 19, in what he says of the jour-
ney of Osiris to India. The derivation of Okeanos
from wKvs vdia, as we find it in some of our lexicons,
is wholly untenable, since yaa denotes only the trick-

* Our English version of Is. xviii. 1 mars the passag
by its rendering of the interjection ^ir ""Woe to the land
etc." It should bo Ho, as in Is. Iv. 1, KB3 ^D ''■n :
**Ho, every one that thirsteth." Whe'.her it is a partick
of threatening, of lamentation, or of invitation, depends en-
tirely on the context. Here it is a call to the far-off : Ho,
to the land of the shadow of wings — the land of the expand-
ed wings — beyond the floods of Cush— beyond the Gihon, tha'
ancient river that went round the whole land of .4!lthlopia
Ho, to the remotest Cush I— T. Ii.j

CHAP. n. 4-25.

22

Acg flow of a fountain, and axis never enters into
»ny of the many epithets of ocean used by the poets,
which it could hardly have avoided doing had it be-
longed to the radical idea of the name. 'nK€av6s is
^a^u^puos, 0jAuKv/j.b>y, j8a^u5iV7)s, fCppoos^ etc., but
never uku^^uos. Besides, the u has every appearance
of a prefix, being either a privative (turned into a),
as Suidas holds to accommodate it to an absurd deri-
vati )n of his own, or, as is far more likely, the ar-
ticle lengthened — the kean, or keon. The etymology
which traces it to ogyges, ogen, aiyrjvos (if there ever
was such a word in Greek) has as little support in
any traceable significance, as in any tenable phonetic
ground. A word meaning ancient could never have
been a primitive name, although, inversely, such a
name as Okeanos, when its primitive significance
had been lost, might be used for the old and the un-
known. We may disregard, in the same way, what
is said of the Coptic oukame and the Arabic kanms.
The true explanation of this name will, we think,
suggest itself in a careful consideration of four
things: 1. The obvious fact that the w is a prefix, as
Saidas regards it, and that it must, therefore, be the
article ; 2. what Josephus says when he calls Gihon
ffuv, Geon, as mentioned in the scriptural descrip-
tion of this great encompassing water ; 3. the graphic
nature of the Scripture language as suggesting an
idea held and emotionally conceived by the writer
and his first readers; 4. the part of the world in
which, even according to Greek historians, the name
Okeanos had its origin. In the fight of these con-
siderations there is no extravagance in saying that

n-K€aj/-os is b Vi-bir — fi Tewr — & Kewy — 5 Keaj'.* In
tther words, it is the old full-flowing Gihon that was
connected with the Eden-territory, and whose long
winding shore went round that land of Cush in the
neighborhood of which the name was first found.
This is in perfect accordance with the usage of the

oot rt^S , or mj , wherever it occurs. It does not
denote turbulence (an angry river). That notion has
come from the effort to connect the Gihon with the
Araxes (Greek : aparTiS). It denotes, rather, force
stni fulness (see Job xxxvii. 8), like the $aS>u}l>oo\,
which is such a favorite epithet for 'fl/c6a^cis, and
hence stateliness, as in the Aramaic, where it is used
of a soldier or an army issuing forth to battle. So
Pishon, the spreading (redundans), the wide-flowing,
euprin-opos, from BIB , dispergere — a fluvio redun-
danie, Ges. ; comp. Hab. i. 8 ; MaL iii. 20 or iv. 2 ;
Jer. 1. 11. The image is wholly lost in the Phasis,
or any other stream in the mountains of Armenia,
where some have so earnestly sought to find it.

The difficulty of finding any other place for Eden
out the neighborhood of the Persian Gulf is shown
m the labored effort to transfer the famed Cush of
the Scriptures, or the "land beyond the fioods of
Cush " (the terra obumbrala, or " land of the shadow
of wings," Is. xviii. 1, with its expanding bounds), to

* [The Greeks never allow the A, either as aspirate or as
guttural, to stand in the middle or at the end of a word,
either native or derived. Such a word, therefore, as Gihon,
Kihon, or Kehan, would necessarily hecome Geon, as we
have it in .Tosephus, xewv, or Keav. Just so the Hebrew
cm "ij, Ge-hlnncm, Gehenna, becomes yiema; "SfJI^ ,
Johanan, lohan, becomes Iwav, *Iojavvri'i. In roots, too,
«lIiod to the Shemitio, they have k for y, as Hebrew : 533
•Greek: icvk—icvKCo}, (orXiVSu ; Hebrew: 3 J 3 J— Greek:
<v<)lo5. The article having become constant as a prefix in
•-iceai-os, and lengthened because of its emphasis, shows the
former particularity of the name, and at the same time its
celebrity : The Gihon, the Kehan, the iteai-, the Ocean-
riTor.- T. 1.)

the Caucasian tribe of the Cossseans (Ku<T(Ta7oi) bare
ly mentioned by Diodorus and Strabo along with th«
Mardi, the Uxu, the Elymaei, and other predatorj
hordes of like insignificance who inhabited the steril«
plains near the Caspian lake. If we studiously com
pare Is. xviii. 1 and Zeph. iii. 10 with Gen. ii. 13, thf
inference can hardly be avoided that i-nnsb lasu
'U'3 , ^^ beyond the floods of Cush," can mean noth-
ing more nor less than beyond the encompassing
Gihon, BID yis hj ns 33iDn insn, "the flood
or water that goes round the whole land of Cush."
In truth, what other floods or water can it mean!
Such a description would never have been lost, and
must be supposed to have been in the mind of every
subsequent writer, prophet, or historian, that refers
to a land so surrounded. A like studious contempla
tion will convince us that Ps. Ixviii. 32 ; Is. xviii. 1,
and Zeph. in. 10, are all one prophecy, the gathering
of God's chosen, His suppliant people, na •'nns
■I 313, as Zephaniah calls them, dispersed to the re-
motest regions of the earth — beyond the floods of
Cush, beyond the Gihon, even from the remoter
jEthiopia, just as " Tarshish and the isles," Ps. IxxiL
10, are used to indicate remoteness in the othei
direction.

It only remains to fortify what has been said by
adverting to the fact that this mode of speech (that
is, calling the sea a river, or a stream, and, inversely,
a great river a sea) remained in the Hebrew down to
its latest use as a living language. We may refer to
Is. xix. 5, where the Nile is called both D"' and inj
in the same verse ; Is. xxvii. 1, the leviathan or croc-
odile, C^a, in the se»- Is. xxi. 1, the burthen of
the desert of the sea, b«pposed to mean Babylon or
the Euphrates ; Job xli. 23, where the Nile is indi-
cated ; Nah. iii. 8, the same ; see also Ezek. xxxii. 2,
Zech. i. 11, and others, and compare Koran Surat

XX. 39, where, in the same manner, the Arabic iv^'
(c^n) is given as a name to the river, when it is said
that Moses was cast into the sea, and the sea cast
him, with the ark, upon the shore. See also Lnn. i>e
DiEU : Critica Sacra, 555, and Bochart : Mierozoi-
can, vol. ii. "789, where he cites Pliny as calling the
shore of the Nile not ripam, but litus, a name usual-
ly given to the shore of tlie sea. Compare, more-
over, the long note on the oceanic streams of West-
ern Asia in Rawlinson's Herodotus, Appendix, vol.
i. p. 446. The usage still exists in the Oriental lan-
guages. To this day ^X^Jt , the sea, is appfied in

Arabic not only to the Nile, bnt to any great _/?Mmen,
or wide- flowing water ; and they speak of the shore
of such a river as they would of the shore of the
sea. If the account in Genesis had been originally
given in the Arabic language, whether in its oldest
or latest forms, there can hardly be a doubt that ii
would have been expressed in similar terms. Tlie

word ■<\^ would have been alike applicable to the

great inland rivers and the two long winding oceanic
shores.

Nor is such usage so strange as it might at first
seem to our stricter occidental logic. Eigorousiy
defined as inland streams, our greatest and oni
smallest rivers have the same specific appellation.
To the eye, too, that views them merely as traced
upon the map, they all appear as single fines. Tc
the actual eight, however, and to the emotion, thi

822

GE2ST;SIS, or the first book of MOSES.

case is quite dififerent. These refuse the logic that
would place the Amazon and the Tweed in the same
category. Such mighty sea-like flowings as the St.
Lawrence and the Mississippi claim more aflBnity to
the Atlantic and the oceanic Gulf-stream than to the
canal-like Mohawk, or to the mountain-torrent of the
Housatonic. From the actual and the emotional,
thus regarded, arose this early language which is still
continued, in the East, in its appUcation to such
rivers as the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Nile. In
the same manner, in our North-American Indian
tongues, is the term "great water," like the Hebrew
bnan insn , used not only of an arm of the sea, or
of the great lakes, but even of such rivers as the
Ohio and the Missouri. Such a mode of speech is,
in fact, one of the striking evidences of the subjec-
tive truthfulness of this early scriptural account. It
represents an actual, though perhaps indefinite,
knowledge, and the emotional naming that grows
naturally out of it. It shows that it is not itself a
myth, though, doubtless, the seed of myths that
afterwards came out of it. Legends, historical or
geographical, are the result of a later process. They
do not belong to the most primitive ages, occupied,
as they must be, with the greatness and novelty of
the real as it lies before the sense. The mythical
succeeds. It betrays a semi- philosophizing spirit, a
disposition to create an ideal by carrying the actual
beyond its ascertaizied or supposed bounds, or to
make some primitive knowledge, or event, the repre-
sentative of a wide unknown. In this early story of
the Eden-streams there is the seed of the Egyptian
and the Greek oceanic legends. Its sober truthful
character, Uke that of the modest Hebrew chronology,
is shown by its matter-of-fact limitation, and its evi-
dent appeal to existing observation. The mythical
spirit would have carried the Pishon and the Gihon
not only round Havilah and the whole land of Gush,
but, as it afterwards did, round the whole earth
known or unknown. This Eden account, too, may
be regarded as the beginning of geography. We
need only trace the successive delineations of the
earth, from the earliest map of Hecatteus down to
that of Ptolemy and the modem charts of the world,
to have the thought suggested that their ever-widen-
ing scales were simply expansions from this primitive
central sketch. — T. L.]

HOMILETIOAI, AND PEACTICAl.

In relation to the whole section. — God's govern-
ment of men in the beginning.— .Hi* covenant with
Adam. 1 . His gift and blessings : a. The soil of the
earth prepared for man ; 6. the hand of God the in-
strument of his formation ; c. the breath of God, his
innermost life ; d. Paradise his home, the wide earth
his country ; e. the abundance of Paradise his food ;
/. the beasts his school for the study of form, and his
attendant service; pi. the wife his helper. 2. Thecom-
mands laid upon him in Paradise : a. To dress the gar-
den and to keep it ; b. to beware of the tree of know-
ledge of good and evil; e. to give names to the
beasts (that is, contemplate, recognize,* and distin-
guish 'he nature of things) ; d, to keep holy the soci-

*[Gen. ii. 19: To see what he wculd call them, ni&flJ
Kip"' rrs . As this is commoniy read and understood,
flTXlb , to see, is referred to God. It corresponds, how-
ever, bett ?r with the contoxt, and the view that Xange takes
of it, to refer it to A lam in the sense of judginff — the sight
of the mil, i — an easi .y derived secondary sense, appearmg in

ety of marriage. — The glory of God as displayed il
the first paradisaical world (His power, wisdom, good
ness, love). — The creation of man : 1. So grand tb*
preparation made for him (vers. 4-6) ; 2. so wonder
fully and richly grounded (ver. 1), so carefully es-
tablished (vers. 8-18), and so gloriously completed
(vers. 19-25). — The appearing of man upon the
earth as the revelation of its' destiny : 1. The presen-
tation of its fundamental idea, of its purport, iia
aim ; 2. the perfection of its .structure ; 3. the solving
of its enigma; 4. the consecration of its being;
5. the bond of its connection with heaven ; 6. the
beginning of its transformation from a state of pure
nature to a paradisaical spirit-world. — Man and
nature. Man: 1. The elevation of nature ; 2. the
exaltation of nature, and at the same time, 3. the
pupil of nature. — The first transformation of nature
through the entrance of the first man a prognostic
of its second transformation through the second
man, the one from heavtn (1 Cor. xv.). — The history
of Adam a history of the heaven and the earth. —
The reflected splendor of the glory of the first hu-
manity in the glory of Paradise. — The inward connec-
tion and reciprocity between man and nature : 1. His
innocence, its beauty and its peace ; 2. his fall, its
ruin or subjection to the " law of vanity ; " 3. his
resurrection, its hope of renewed glory. — The man
and his wife as the crowning work of creation. —
The bridal of Adam a presignal of the marriage
supper of the Lamb (Rev. xix. 7). — The old as well
as the new world prepared for a marriage chamber.

The Fint Section (vers. 4-6). — The earth waitmg
for man, a figure of the humanity waiting for the
God-M an.

The Second Section (ver. 7). — The creation of man.
1. The formation of man the work ot God's master-
hand; 2. the nature of man: akin to the earth and
akin to God, or at the same time earthly and divine ;
3. the character of man as a unit, a living soul. —
Han in his unity, in his duality, — in his threefold
nature. — The original human dust of the earth in the
splendor of heaven.

The Third Section (vers. 8-14).— Paradise.—
Paradise: 1. As a fact in the e»rth, the bloom of the
earth, the home of the first man ; 2. as an emblem,
of the paradisaical disposition of the earth, of its
paradisaical power, namely for children and in festal
contemplation, of its paradisaical prefiguration, as of
the new paradise in the other world and in this.

The Fourth Section (vers. 1 5-18). — The first man in
Paradise. His relation to the earth-world, to Paradise,
to the vegetable world, to the animal world, to Eve.
— The Paradise-life, moreover, not an unrestricted
state; 1. Limitation of action : the calling (to dress
and keep) ; 2. limitation of eiyoyment (not to eat of
the tree of knowledge of good and evil) ; 3. limitations
in the treatment of nature and especially of the
beasts (no enclosing) ; 4. limitations on human
society (regulation of marriage and domestic life). —
The restrictions upon life the measure and the de-
other places in the use of this common verh, and hecoming,
in fact, predominant in the Babbinical Hebrew. It is sim-
ply the transfer that takes place in the Greek ei6 -oiS (tc
«ee, to know), and perhjips in most languages : that Adam
might see (judge), what he would call them. It denotes an
intuition or an intuitive judgment— the first calling out of
his faculties in the observation oi things. It is no objection
to the other sense that it is anthropopathic, although it
would seem to represent something like curiosity on the part
of Deity. The view taken, however, which is equally cor-
rect, lexically and grammatically, makes it the beginnino
of the first development of languap.fl in the perception ol
some intuitive fitness between •aim&l and thinga named.-
, T. L.]

CHAV. II. 4-25.

283

relopment of freedom. The ground features of the
paradisaical life : heavenly innocence, festal work,
pure enjoyment, clear knowledge, quiet waiting (the
deep sleep), inward love and greeting, unconstrained
and childlike being. — Single verses and themes.
Ver. 4. The history of the heaven and the earth in
the history of man. — The rich significance of the
name Jehovah-Elohim : 1. Jehovah is Elohim ; 2.
Elohim is Jehovah (analogous to the New Testament
in respect to the name Jesus Christ, that is, Jesus is
Christ, Christ is Jesus). — Ver. 6. The world without
KLan a desert ; the world everywhere incomplete until
man comes (the child of the election). The first
dewy rain and its blessing a presignal for all times
(children yet believe that they grow from the rain). —
Ver. 7. The creation of man as, 1. a divine formmg ;
2. a divine inbreathing (so goes the ideal before the
life, art before the realization, the shadow or the
type before the truth). — The descent of man, his
earthly descent (Adam from adamah) ; his divine
descent (a soul from God's breath of Ufe). — The ori-
ginal harmony and unity of the earthly and heaveuly
nature of miin. How we ought to be on our guard
against those suspicions of matter, of the body, and
of the sense-nature, which claim to be profound, and
yet are not taught in the Scriptures. — Why the
church has always held dualism to be spiritually
dangerous. Man, in his being an exaltation of the
dust, a humility of the spirit. The nature of man a
type of his destiny : 1. To build the dust into form ;
2. to reveal the inspiration of God in his life. The
lowliness and the sublimity of the first man Adam
without father and mother, a foreshowing of the
wonderful descent of Christ. — Paradise (vers. 8-14,
see number 9 of the Doctrinal, etc.). Paradise at the
beginning of the world, and Paradise at the end (the
tree oflife in the beginning and the tree of life at
the enB, Rev. xxii.). — The rivers of Paradise, figures
of the spiritual hfe that, proceeding from Paradise,
spreads through the world. Gold, spices, and precious
stones according to their higher paradisaif al appoint-
ment, or the riches of the earth an emblem of
the higher heavenly riches. — The calling of Adam
(ver. 15) : In the first chapter he is appointed ruler
of the earth. This divides itself here into two as-
pects, 1 . to dress, 2. to keep. The calling of Adam
a type of our calling. The entrusted goods (spiritual
talents, outward goods of culture, spiritual goods) :
First to dress it, that is, to increase, ennoble ; second
to keep it, that is, to guard it against injury and loss.
—Ver. 16. In Adam's life, calling and enjoyment are
united ; therefore are they both paradisaical ; so in
a still higher degree are calling and enjoyment
united in the life of Jesus (John iv. 34).— Ver. 17.
The paradisaical freedom not without limitation.
Outward restraint educates to a free self-restraint.
As God binds Himself in His love to man, so also
should man bind himself in love to God and to obe-
dience. "For it is the self-limitation that first shows
the master." Freedom and limitation, right and duty,
inseparably united. The tree of probation, 1. a fact
(a hurtful enjoyment of nature, as explained from
God's spirit and word) ; 2. an emblem of all natural
enjoyment that is hurtful and destructive. Ac-
cording to God's will, the tree was primarily only a
tree of probation ; it first became a tree of tempt-
ation by the coming of the serpent. The threaten-
ng of death is indirectly a promise of imperishable
ife. Death is the wages of sin. — The animal world.
low the right treatment of these rests upon the
ight kna pledge and naming of them. Peace in the

paradiscical nature (all the ammals are brought be
fore Adum). — Ver. 18, etc. It is not good that max
should be alone. God's judgment respecting thd
unmarried state, 1. as universal, 2. as conditional. —
How all the riches of nature leave man still alone
in the failure of kindred society. Man alone, in the
midst of all the beasts, with all his knowledge. The
true helper of man, 1. As his image ; 2. as his coun-
terpart (his antithetical complement). — The marriage
of man, how grounded, 1. on the judgment of God;
2. on ttie solitary state of man ; 3. on bis deep sleep
(trance-vision, see Job iv. 13) ; 4. on the divine
creating of the woman out of the side of the man ;
6. on God's bringing Eve to him ; 6. on the love-greet-
ing of Adam ; 7. on its rich and noble destiny. —
Ver. 25. The clothing of innocence : 1. The purest,
2. the fairest, 3. the most substantial. The infinite
contrast between innocence and coarseness. The
nobility of marriage : communion of the spirit, the
consecration of the sexual association.

Starke (ver. 7): Out of the dust of the earth,
which by moistening with water is capable of an easy
moulding. How thoughtless the conduct of men, who
adorn their body made from earth and to earth again
returning, whilst losing all care of their immortal
souls ! — Ver. 15. Even in a state of innocence man
must work, and not go idle. 1. He must be ever ac-
tive like God ; 2. he must have joy in the work of his
hands, as God has (Gen. i. 31) ; 3. he must have op-
portunity to show, as God does, wisdom, power, and
goodness to the creatures committed to him — Ver.
17. This is the covenant which God eatabhshed with
Adam. On the one side was God, and on the other
side Adam, who in his own person represented the
whole human race. — See that thou dost immediately
choose the best way, and hold fast to the tree of life
which is Christ. Taste this fruit, so shalt thou be-
come well. — God the first lawgiver. — Ver. 20. Is the
question asked what language did Adam employ in
this transaction ? the most probable answer is that it
was the Hebrew. — Ver. 21. Since at the present day
a man has twelve ribs on each side, some have sup-
posed that Adam must originally have had thirteen
ribs on one side. It is, however, more probable that
God must have given him another in place of the
one he took away.

Ver. 22. Lothise : Therefore stands fast this con-
solation against all the teaching of the devil, namely,
that the marriage state is a divine state, that is, or-
dained of God Himself As Adam gave names to the
beasts, so also did he name his wife, and that, too, af-
ter himself : "manesx" (woman); on this ground is
the custom to be defended whereby a wife lays aside
the paternal name, and takes that of the husband. —
Ver. 24. Some would deduce from this merely a pro-
hibition of incest with father and mother. (!) Others
would derive from it a proof that in contracting mar-
riage children need not trouble themselves about the
approbation of their parents. As this, however, ia
clearly opposed both to divine and human com mands (it
is still more opposed to the divine command, we may
add, when parents force their children to a marriage)
so is it, on this account, the more strongly indicated
that the man as well as the wife, go forth from the fa-
ther's house and commence a family of their own. To
this we may add that with the vocation of marriage,
the childlike dependence must also cease, though the
fihal obligations of love, reverence, and care, do still
remain. Col. iii. 19 ; Eph. v. 25 ; Matt. xis. 4 ; 1
Cor. vii. 2.

BuRMANN : The rest of God in the week is a typ*

224

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

of the heavy week and labor of our Mediator Jesus
Christ, wlio in the hard toil of His soul was wearied
eren unto death for our salvation, and, finally, on
this seventh day, entered into his rest (Isaiah liii.
11 J. So are then here also created a new heaven
and earth, and creatures, namely, new men ; a new
light of the Gospel, new fruits of righteousness, new
water welling up to everlasting life. — Wherein does
Paradise agree with heaven ? — And, therefore, is the
family state established as the fountain-head and
origin of all human society.

SoHEonER: Moses makes the primeval history
of the microcosm follow the history of the macro-
cosm.— The hints already obscurely given here and
there in the first section (comp, ch. xxii. 21) in re-
lation to the fall, assume a more distinct form in
the second, as though it were designed as a prologue
to that world-historical tragedy which begins with
chapter iii. — The hypothesis of the so-called Pre-
Adaniites, that is, of men who lived before Adam, is
clearly and distinctly excluded by the remark at the
end of ver. 5, that before Adam there was no man
to till the ground. As a proof to the contrary there
is also 1 Cor. xv. 45, and Acts xvii. 26. — The body
of man appears, therefore, as a fine artistic structure
of God. — " Stand in awe, oh man ! for upon each of
thy consecrated members was the finger of God ! "
Herder. — As Isaiah says : Thou art our father,
Thou art our potter, and we are Thy clay (Is. Ixiv.).
Luther. — The spirit of life comes to the human
soul as a gift from God immediately received into
the human frame (oh. i. 26, 27). The soul of the
beast, at God's command, has its origin in that
breath of God which pervades the elements of nature
(ch. i. 2, 20, 24). — Only as inspired by God does
the soul live its true life, its human life ; only by
means of a vitalizing communion with the divine
spirit has it true independence, and a blessed con-
tinuance.— Vers. 8-16. The whole earth as "very
good" was created to be a garden of God. But the
Father, out of His abundant goodness to His human
child, plants in this garden a little garden more pecu-
liarly His own — a little Paradise in the greater, — God
planted : The image is grounded on that of a human
gardener (John xv. 1 ; Isaiah v.). — Elsewhere the
Scripture gives the name Paradise to the abode of the
blest, when we, perhaps, would say " to be in heaven "
(Luke xxiii. 43 ; 2 Cor. xii. 4 ; Rev. ii. 1). — A
garden : And what could have been a fairer place
for the planting of our race? "The schools of wis-
dom in the East are usually gardens, blooming places
by the side of rivers." Herder. " Moses expressly tells
us, how this garden was gloriously filled by the
Lord with fruit-trees of every kind, that the appetite
of man might have no excuse." Calvin. — " The de-
scription of the fruit of the trees : Captivating to the
sight and good for food, is not without its purpose ;
it shows that inclination and the proof of sense in
respect to food and drink should be guides to men."
Herder. — Among the trees of Paradise two enigmat-
ical names strike us. Both belong to the same place ;
both are found in the middle of the garden. — Ver. 17.
The God of the covenant is called Jehovah-Elohim.
A covenant requires two sides. — Dying, death, the
sense of these words he can only anticipate, accord-
ing as their contrast with the sense of the tree of
life grows more clear. At the morr ent of the fall be-
gan the death of man. Death waxes stronger with
us until it outgrows life, and conquers it. — Ver. 20.
In his nedded wife man receives what no help or
friendship, however fair it might be, could otherwise

have given him. — One heart and one soul. — M ir
gives names to the beasts. — As the son of God he
discerns his father's footsteps, that is, the divin*
ideas in the things created. — Vers. 21-26. The be-
coming many out of one. This is the way of God.

Roos : The sleep of Adam.

Rambach : God acts like a painter or a sculptor
who draws a curtain before him when he is working
upon an e.\cellent picture or an artistic statue.—
Adam's eyes are veiled that God's love may un'
veil itself. The old writers noted six examples in
the Scriptures where a miraculous work follows
sleep : 1. The case of Adam, 2. of Ellas (1 Kings xix.),
3. of Jonah (ch. i.), 4. of Christ (Matt, viii.), 5. of
Peter (Acts xii.), 6. of Eutyches (Acts xx.). " More-
over, the Son of God is become weak that He might
have His members strong." Calvin. (Eph. v. 25 ;
Col. iii. 19). — The wife is from a rib ; she is taken
from near man's heart. As in man there appears an
image of the Creator, so does the wife present an im-
age of His providence. The man was created vnth-
out ; the wife was created m( Paradise. Her place is
by the fireside and in the nursery, but nevertheless
most true it is that the world is ruled, in >i most
pecuUar manner, from the mother's bosom.

God builded. (Ver. 22.) "Designedly does
Moses use the expression to build, that he may teach
us how in the person of the wife the human race
finally becomes perfected ; whereas before it was
like to a building only begun. Others refer it to the
domestic economy, as though Moses meant to say,
that at that time the right ordering of the family
state became complete — a view which does not de-
viate much from the first interpretation." Calvin. —
" It is worthy of note that what Moses adds : and
brought her to him, is an elegant description of
the espousal, or the marriage presentation.. For
Adam does not rashly follow his liking, but waits for
God, who brings her to him ; as Christ also says :
what God hath joined let not man put asunder."
Luther. — Ver. 23. "Love here makes the first
poet, lawgiver, and prophet. It is the song of songs
proceediug from the mouth of Adam." Herder. —
Adam makes himself known to his wife, in that he
gives her a name in the very act of declaring her
origin. With their name the beasts become The
property of Adam ; with her name does the wife be
come his own (Is. xliii. 1 ; Ps. cxlvii. 4). He names
himself man ; the relation to woman causes man now
to become a man, in a peculiar sense. Through
marriage the circuits of human love are made wider
(Eph. V. 25 ; 1 Cor. vii. 3, 39 ; Matt. xix. 6, 9).—
In the Scriptures, idolatry and the denial of God are
called fornication and adultery. The hieroglyphs of
the anti-Mosaic law of marriage have been renewed
by Christ in their fuU splendor. .To the Gospel does
humanity owe the restoration of its original worth.
In our old German speech the word marriage is the
stem-word of all law, fidehty, order, religion, cov-
enant ; not so in the new. — Naked. In the nobler
class of men the bodily formation still reveals itseW
through its spirituality.

Lisco : 'The development of individuals, and of
the whole race, is grounded on society. 'The mo-
nastic solitariness is not the will of God (Eccl. iv. 9).
If man would reach his destiny, he needs help in the
sphere of the bodily as well as that of the spiritusL
The root of all other society is that marriage state,
established by God, out of which are evolved tha
three relations of the family, the church, and the
state ; in like manner, on account of their root (is i*

CHAP. n. 4-26.

^2e

merely on this account ?) are they divine institutiona.
All determinations of God have for their aim the
nighest good of man ; but how greatly, through sin,
are the blessings of communion, the advantages of
society, perverted into mischief ! This peace between
man and beast belongs also to the prophetic Para-
dise (Is. xi. 6). Before the fall nakedness was moral,
modest, chaste ; after the fall it becomes indecorous,
remembrance of the fall, an enkindling of sin.
Gerlach : In the Hebrew writings, the first man
.E called simply Adam, that is, man ; for man is just
as much the designation of the human race as it is
iDe proper name of the first man. In the first man
there was contained the whole human race, which on
that account is called children of Adam (sons of
man, or Adam (man) simply (just as it is with the
names Israel, Edora, Moab, Ammon). — Adam from
adamah. Nature must be ruled by one like herself, but
who, nevertheless, belongs to a higher order, even as
humanity has for its lord a God-Man. — The breath,
the condition of the bodily life, is an emblem of the
divine life which is breathed into man. — Just as
heaven and earth were originally created as a con-
trast whose two sides must more and more interpen-
etrate each other, so also in man is there the body
from the dust, and the spirit from God. — Man must
not be simply a living soul ; he must also have a life-
making spirit, even as the second Adam possessed
it, and all believers receive it from Christ (1 Cor. xv.
47). — As being from the dust, man belongs to the
earth, and, therefore, to corruptibiUty ; like the other
animals which die in respect to their individual being
and only live on as creations, he has a natural Ufe ;
IS far as that was concerned he could die, but
through the spirit derived from God was he related to
Him as an imperishable personality, and, therefore,
also could he keep from dying (there was given to
him the possibility not to die) ; for even the dust in
its relation to him, as also the earth itself, was cre-
ated for a higher life of glory. — Garden-work in a
nuld climate is the easiest and the most appropriate
for the childhood of humanity. In this may the act-
ive powers exercise themselves for the more severe
employments of agricultural labor. The oldest known
fruit-trees, the domestic animals, and the grain, were
the portion that remained to him out of this original
tune. — For the tree of knowledge, etc. To know good
and evil is the conscious freedom of the will (Is. vii.
16 ; 1 Cor. viii. 3). — No want (for he lived in abun-
dance), no enticement of the sense merely (for that
arose first after the fall (eh. iii. 6), could mislead
him to transgress the command, but only his self-ex-
altation, his striving after a false self-sufficiency and
independence. — In a way of childlike feeling does
Ludier regard the tree of knowledge (standing as it

15

did in the midst of the garden) as the church of the
yet innocent man. — " This tree of the knowledge of
good and evil has become Adam's altar and pulpit,
in which he ought to have learned the obedience ha
owed to God, to have known God's word and will,
and to have thanked Him for it ; and so, if Adam
had not faUen, this tree would have become like to a
common temple and cathedral." Therefore must wv
be on our guard against every view that would re-
present the tree as proceeding from the devil's king
dom, or as being hurtful in itself

Calwer Manual: The body from the dust of tie
earth, the spirit inbreathed by God : Thus man be-
longs to two worlds, the earth and heaven ; he is
akin to the least of all created things and to the
highest, the uncreated, from whose efilux is his spirit.
— The work in Paradise : There for them was their
desire and joy, which afterwards becomes a burden,
care, and toil. — The forbidden fruit. God only for-
bids us that which brings to us danger and hurt, and
that is often in the proportion of one to many things
allowed and right, and which is useful and healthful
to us. — The threatening of death. Not a sudden dy-
ing like an immediately accomplished fact, but, thou
wilt become subject to death ; it means, to become
mortal. With us, too, is death only the end of dying,
which last begins often long before. That the man
was created before the woman, and that, therefore, a
precedence is adjudged to hrai, is clear from 1 Tim.
ii. 18. — Ver. 19 : God the Creator is also man's first
schoolmaster. It is also indicated in this place that
before the fall the animal world had been more con-
fidiug and dependent on man than it is now, and
that it gladly yielded itself to his dominion ; whilst
now, in part, it stands to him in a hostile attitude
(Rom. viii. 19, 20). — Not all marriages are from God,
decided in heaven, but all can become sharers in its
blessings if they seek it,

BuNSEN: There follows now the representation
of the thought of creation, in connection with Para-
dise and the fall, in contrast with what precedes as
the work of creation in its chronological progress.
There man was necessarily the last thing, here he is
necessarily the first. For God as eternal reason can
only think Himself (or He must ever be essentially
His own thought), and, therefore, in creation He can
only think His image, the conscious finite spirit.
What lies between is the mediation of the eternal
with the finite. This second history of creation is
neither addition nor complement to the one preced-
ing ; it is not, to say the least, its repetition. It is
the figurative representation of creation as proceeding
outward from the central point of the everlasting
idea (the doctrine of the faU that follows "his [in
Bunsen] is Platonising and Gnostical).

226 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

SECOND PART.

THE GENESIS OF THE WORLD-HISTORY, OF THE TRIAL, OF THE SIN OF MAN, OF THB
JUDGMENT, OF DEATH, OF THE SALVATION-TRIUMPH, OF THE CONTRAST BETWEEN
A DIVINE AND A WORLDLY TENDENCY Df HUMANITY, LASTLY OF THE ITNJVE»
BAL CORRUPTION.

5 RST SECTION.

7% Lost Paradite.

Chaptir m. 1-24.

A. — The Temptation.

Ch. m. 1 Now the serpent' was more subtle [properly : alone subtle among all teasts] than all th«
beasts of the field which the Lord God had made ; and he said unto the woman, Yea,

2 hath God said. Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto

3 the serpent. We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. But of the fruit of the
tree "yhioli is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither

4 shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the wOman, Ye shall not sure-

5 ly die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be
opened and ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil.

B.— The Sin.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good' for food, and that it was pleasant
to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof
and did eat, and gave also to her husband [to partake with her] and he did eat.

0 The Guilt.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew' that they were aaked, and

8 they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the
voice of the Lord God walking* in the garden in the cooi of the day [the evening breeie] :
and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the
trees of the garden.

D. — The Jadgment ara the Fiomise

9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said umo hiin, '^jere an iiou?

10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked,

11 and I hid myself And he said. Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou

12 eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? And the
man said. The woma^ whom thou gavest unto me, she gave me of the tree and I did

13 eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done?
1 X And the woman said. The serpent beguiled me and I did eat. And the Lord God said

unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle,' and

above every beast of the field : upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all
16 the days of thy life : And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between

thy seed and her seed : it [vulgate: ipmte, etc.] shall bruise ° thy head, and thou shalt bruise
1 6 his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy concep

tion ; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children : a.nd thy desire' shall be to thy husband

CHAP. m. 1-24. 221

J 7 and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unt«
the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying
Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake [from its connection with ttee] ; ir

18 sorrow ahalt thou eat of it [get food from it] all the days of thy life.' Thorns also ard
thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field [instead of tlu

19 garden]. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread until thou return unto the ground
for out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

E. — The Hope and the Compassion.

20 And Adam [man fi-om the earth] called his wife's name Eve' [lite, life-giving] because she

21 was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also, and to his wife did the Lord God make

22 coats of skins and clothed them. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become
as one of us, to know good and evil ; and now lest" he put forth his hand, and take also
of the tree of life, and eat and live forever [as the everlasting man, according to the idea of the ever-
lasting Jew].

F. — The Merciful Decree of Punishment and Discipline.

23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth " [the intensive Piel form of the verh] from the garden

24 of Eden [the bUssful garden] to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove
out the man : and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims [cherubs] and
a flaming sword which turned every way [yet ever maintaining its place] to keep the way of

the tree of life [seraphim ; comp. Ps. oiv. i ; xviii. 10-15 j Is. vi. 2].

[^ Ver. 1. — TI3n3 . Primary sense : keen sight (secondary : inLuiti&n, dimniTig). Greek : SpoKtav (S4pKio) o0t? (oi/'Oficu).
''D w^Jt ; expressing great surprise : yea truly, can it be possible f Comp. Greek /itj ort with its simplicity and abrupt-
ness.—T. L.]

[^ Ver. 6. — rnxn rendered desirable: strictly a noun: a desire, a beauty, a lovely thing. — T. L.]

[' Ver. 7. — 13'T'I , and they kntw. Before it was the verb ilXI , to see; a. higher knowledge than that of sense —
con-science. — T. L.]

[* Ver. 8. — ^bnn?3 may refer to bip — the voice going. It would suit very well the interpretation which would make
niiT^ bip here a name for the thunder, as in Ps. xsix. 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 ; xlvi. 7 ; Ixviii. 34 ; Job xxxvii. 2. This la the
view of Aben Ezra, who cites Jer. xlvi. 22 ; Exod. xix. 19 (voice of the trumpet, going and waxing) as examples of T^n
joined with 51p . It is thus expressly applied to inanimate things, Gen. viii. 3 (the waters going, etc.), in other places to
the light, as Prov. iv. 18. Even in the Hithpael form it would suit the description of a long roll of thunder, which seems
to go all round the horizon, comp. Job xxxvii. 3. What follows can only be interpreted of an actual speaking, but ihjs
may have been the first thunder they ever heard, coming in black clouds, perhaps, towards the evening of their sinning
day, and it would have been very startling, even as it has been ever since to guilty consciences. Some of the Rabbis (see
Aben Ezra) would connect "ibnnia with Adam : He heard the voice as he was walking in the cool of the day ; but the
grammar is directly against this — T. I^.]

[<* Ver. 14. — n^DriwH bslD ; Lange rightly renders it : among all catUe. — T. L.]

I' Ver. 15. — ":SV\B^ ; for a discussion of this rare and dif&cult word, see the Exegetical and Critical, p. — . — T. L.]

[' Ver. 16.— "ir.p'UJn . The sense of this word is not libido, or sensual desire, like mKH , but want, dependence,
and, in this sense, a looking to or running after one (see the uses of the root plU)). Comp. Gen. iv. 7, where it cannot
nave the sense of libido. So in Cant. vii. 11 it does not mean carnal desire as Gesenius would render, but the willing con-
jugal dependence, or submission to the conjugal rule ; InplttJn "^bs , LXX. well renders it: airoffrpoi^q; Vulgate; sub
viri potestate eris. — T. L.]

[* Ver. 17.— T^^n ; for remarks on the plural form of the word for life in Hebrew, see Note, p. 163.— T. L.]

[' Ver. 21.— PTiin I ffamah. LXX. have translated the word by the Greek Zco^ : He called her Zoe, life; Vulgate;
Bem.—T. L.]

[10 Ver, 22. "iQ , !es(— only the particle without any verb. This silence, or aposiopesis, is very expressive ; compan

the similar Greek use of nij for an imperative of caution.— T. L.]

[11 Yer. 23. Jinn^UJ^*) . Lange regards the Piel form as intensive, to denote a violent sending forth, a thrusting out J

but there is no need of that, the Piel differing but little, if any, from the Kal, and being used for an ordinary sending.
The word following, U3n5^1 , may have that sense, but there is nothing in the context of harshness, or anything to canj
t bcf^nd the general idea of dismissal,— T. L.]

continues here also in the third ; since the subject ii
EXEGETICAL AND OEITICAL. the primeval history of Adam, as it is, at the same

time, the primitive history of man, or of humanity.

1. The comparatively stronger symbolical that The fact of the first temptation is the symbol of tvery

appeared in the representation of the primeval facts, human temptation ; the fact of the firs: fall ia ihj

snd vrbich we hare noted in the second chapter, symbol of every human transgression, the grea<

228

GENESIS, OR THE FIRSl BOOK OF MOSES.

mistake that lay in the first human sm is the symbol
of every eifect of sin.

2. Ver. 1. Now the serpent. — The tree of
knowledge, a part of the vegetable world, was made
by God the medium of probation ; from the animal
world proceeds the serpent as the instrument of the
tcttptation which God did not make. True it is,
that the serpent appears as the probable author of
this temptation, but such probability is weakened by
what is said ch. i. 25 and ii. 20. " It was (though
Richers denies it) a good creation of God, though
different, as originally created, from what it after-
(vard« became" (Delitzsch). Through this supposi-
tion, however, of another created quality, he is
brought dearer to the view of Richers. Does it ap-
pear as the mere instrument of a tempting spirit be-
longing to the other world, then must the decree of
judgment, as pronounced, have regard not so much
to it as to the spirit of sin, whose instrument and
allegorical symbol it had become. How it could be
such an instrument may be briefly explained by
its craftiness ; how it becomes an allegorical repre-
sentation of the Evil One is taught us afterwards in
the onmity that is proclaimed between the woman
and f'e serpent. According to Noek (Elym.-Symb.-
Mylh Real-Wbrterbuch\ "the serpent is just as
well the figure of health and renovation, as of death ;
since it every year changes its skin, and ejects, more-
over, its venom. This double peculiarity, and double
character, as a.ya^ohai^iav and KaKoZaiixwvy is indi-
cated not only in language, but also in myths, in
sculpture, and in modes of worship." In this rela-
tion, however, we must distinguish two diverging
views of the ancient peoples. To the Egyptian reve-
rence for the serpent stands in opposition the abhor-
rence for it among the Israelites (see the article
" Serpent " in the " BibUcal Dictionary for Christian
People"), Greeks, Persians, and Germans. Among
the Slavonians, too, does the serpent appear to have
been an object of religious fear ; and from them may
there have come modified views to the Germans, as from
the Egyptians to the Greeks. Concerning the species
of serpents mentioned in the Bible, see Winer. It
may not be without significance that Genesis (ch. iii.)
is in such distinct contrast with the Egyptian views,
not only in respect to the serpent, but also in respect
to the Egyptian cultus of death and the other world.
Dehtzsch thinks that the serpent could hardly, at
that time, have had such a name as cn3, since this
(from ttins, to hiss*) is derived from its present
constitution. In this way the original constitution
of the seductive serpent is regarded by him in a more
favorable Ught than the nature of the tree of proba-
tion. Knobel, on the contrary, is of opinion that
" the choice of the serpent was occasioned by the
Persian myth, then known to the Hebrews, which

* [So Gesenius — a sibilando. It is far more likely, how-
ever, to have had for its primary sense that from which
comes the secondary meaning of brass, or rather of bronze —
thining metal. This gives, as the primary, the idea of
splendor, glisteninff. The name may have bei-*n given to the
serpent from its glossy, shining appearance, or more likely
from the bright glistening of the eye. This would bring it
into analogy with the Greek SpaKuiv from Sepx — SepKOfj-at —
sharp piercing sight. There is the same derivation from the
rye ui the Greek SqSis, or from the general shining appear-
viC6(oi^if) as a strildng and beautiful though terrible object.
And to this correspond well the epithets which in the Greek
poets are. BO constantly joined with it, such as aioA.o?, iroi«i-
k6v<jaT0i, apyijtTT^s. The Latin serpevs is simply a generic
mnne —reptile. The first impressions of mankind in regard
to thn serpent were of the splendid and ten-ible kind— beau-
ty and awe.— T. L. I

makes the evil being Ahriman to be the tempter of
the first man (giving to him the form and designation
of the serpent), and represents him as the introduce!
of monstrous serpent forms." , Nevertheless, since in
his time (according to Knobel), the belief in a devil
was still foreign to the Hebrews, the author, h«
maintains, meant a real serpent, "as Josephus alao
rightly supposes (Antig. i. 1, 4), as well aa Aben
Ezra, Jarchi, Kimchi, and most of the later commeil'
tators." There is, however, not the shghtest reason
for deriving the primitive tradition, here given in it*
original Hebrew form, from any Persian myth, nor
in the second place, for aseribiug to the Hebrews
not only a dependence on such Persian myth, but
also an acknowledgment of its symbolical charactei
or demoniacal background without any reasons foi
S'»ch anticipation ; and, thirdly, is the alternative of
its being either an actual serpent, or the devil hm .
self, wholly untenable. — iVow the serpent wan more
•uhtle. The question arises whether the adjective
Wis here stands in connection with "a as express-
ing the comparative degree. At all events, the
wholly analogous passage, ver. 14 (reminding us of
this even by similarity of sound, b'sa IIIN — Dins
bJ3a) cannot mean: cursed more than every beast
of the field. Among the beasts, the serpent was just
a single example of cunning ; and so is it afterwards
said of the curse. " Wisdom is a native property of
the serpent (Matt. x. 16), on account of which the
Evil One chose it his instrument. Nevertheless,
the predicate c^ns is not given to it here in the good
sense of (ppSvijjios (Sept.), prudent, but in the bad
sense of irai/ovp-yos, callidus, crafty. For its wisdom
presents itself as the craft of the tempter in this re-
spect, that it applies itself to the weaker woman."
Keil. — And he said unto the woman. — The idea
that the wife had a wish to be independent, and, for
the sake of release, had withdrawn herself out of the
man's sight, as we find it in Milton, is original indeed,
but sets up, when closely examined, a beginning of
the fall before the fall itself — Tea, hath God said,
— The deluding ambiguity of his utterance is admira-
bly expressed by the particles ^3 qx . The word in
question denotes a questioning surprise, which may
have in view now a yes, and now a no, accordini' to
the connection. This is the first striking feature in
the beginning of the temptation. In the most cau-
tious manner there is shown the tendency to excite
doubt. Then the expression aims, at the same time,
to awaken mistrust, and to weaken the force of the
prohibition : Not eat of every tree of the gar-
den! But, finally, there is also intended the lower-
ing of behef through the bare use of the single name
Elohim. The demon that has taken possession of
the serpent cannot naturally recognize God as Jeho-
vah, the Covenant-God for men. Knobel thinks,
that the author left out the name Jehovah to avoid
profaning it. Keil interprets : In order to reach hia
aim must the tempter seek to transform the personal
living God into a universal numen divimim. But
would, then, the Elohim of ch. i. be merely on uni-
versal numen divinum? The assault is directed
against the paradisaical covenant of God with men ;
therefore it is that the serpent cannot utter the name
Jehovah.

3. Yers. 2, 3. And the woman said unto the
serpent. — That the serpent should address the
woman, and not the man, is explained from the cip.
cumatance that the woman is the weaker and the

CHAP. m. 1-24.

220

seducible (1 Pet. iii. 7). The text, however, sup-
poses that the woman knew the prohibition of God,
and in some way, indeed, through the man. Still,
jhe woman does not offer, in her defence, this medi-
iteness of her knowledge, as neither does Adam pre-
sent as an excuse that he saw that Eve did not die
from the eating of the fruit. The answer of both
appears to be wholly right, and to correct the serpent
she would seem to make the prohibition still stronger
by the addition : Neither shall ye touch it. And
yet by this very addition does her first wavering dis-
guise itself under the form of an overdoing obe-
dience. The first failure is her not observing the
point of the temptation, and the allowing herself to
to be drawn into an argument with the tempter ; the
second, that she makes the prohibition stronger than
it really is, and thus lets it appear that to her, too,
"the prohibition seems too strict" (Keil); the third
is, that she weakens the prohibition by reducing it
to the leaser caution : lest ye die, thus making the
motive to obedience to be predominantly the fear of
death. Or simply thus : She begins herself to doubt,
and to explain away the simple clear prohibition of
God, instead of turning away from the author of the
doubt. There is something, too, in the thought that
the woman does not denote God as her Covenant-
God. And yet many have regarded her first answer
as a sign of steadfastness in the beginning.

4. Vers. 4, 5. Ye shall not surely die This

bold step in the temptation seems to suppose a wav-
ering already observable in the woman ; although,
in truth, it may be noted, that, in spite of the perfect
readiness of answer, the temptation of our Lord,
Matt, iv., even advances in increasingly bolder forms.
Still those forms are properly co-ordinate, whilst here
the gradation is very strongly marked. Moreover,
Christ, as the perfect man, could allow Satan to come
out in all his boldness, whilst here the unprotected
woman can only find safety in an immediate turning
aivay.

5. And the serpent said. — The temptation
steps out from the area of cautious craft into that
of a reckless denial of the truth of God's prohibi-
tion, and a malicious suspicion of its object. Te
shall not die at all ; * thus is the truth of the threat-
ening stoutly denied ; that is, the doubt becomes un-
belief. The way, however, is not prepared for the
unbelief without first arousing a feeUng of distrust
in respect to God's love. His righteousness, and even
His power. Along with this, and entering with it,
there must be also a proud self-confidence; and a
wilful striving after a false independence. For the
transition from doubt to unbelief the way is spe-
cially openei. through a false security. The serpent
denies all evU consequences as arising from the for-
bidden enjoyment, whilst he promises, on the contra-
ry, the best and most glorious results from the same.
—For God doth know that in the day, etc. —
The imitation of the divine language contains a spe-
cies of mockery. Your eyes, says the voice of the
tempter, Instead of closing in death, will be, for the

* [Lange'B German translation of the passage ie stronger,
)r rather more peremptory, than our own : Mil nichlen wer-
dct iV des Todes sterben. Our Version, Te shall not surely
He., makes the rendering the same as it is in the prohibition,
and seems to have reference to the fulness or completeness
of the dying rather than to the certainty of it. The woman
iiad not repeated the wajds of the prohibition, and of the
I onalty, in its doubled or intensive Hebrew form, but Satan
repeats it in blasphemous mockery, as though he had heard
it in some other way. The-German does not seem to give
this. T. L.]

first time, truly opened. Here it is to be remarked
that the hour when unbelief is born is immediatelj
the birth-hour of superstition. The serpent would
have the woman believe, that on eating of that fruit
she would become wonderfully eiUightened, and, at
the same time, raised to a divine glory. And so, iu
like manner, is every sin a senseless and superstitioua
belief in the salutary effects of sin. The promise of
the tempter's voice is first regarded for its own sake
and then as a complaint against God. Against th
immediate deadly effect it sets the immediate plear
surable effect, whilst, at the same time, it represents
the condition of men hitherto as a lamentable one —
as an existence with closed eyes. Against the fear-
ful threatening : to die the death, it sets the opened
eyes, and the being like God, as a caricaturing, as it
were, of that promise which had appointed men tc
the image of God. 7'Ae eyes were opened— & biblical
expression which in the Old Testament frequently
denotes a high spiritual seeing, either as an enlight-
enment in respect to truth, or as the seeing of some
theophanic manifestation in prophetic vision (ch. xxi.
29; Num. xxii. 21). The knowledge, however, of
good and evil, as the words are employed by Satan,
must here denote not merely a condition of higher
intelUgence, but rather a state of perfect independ-
ence of God. They would then know of themselves
what was good and what was evil, and would no
longer need the divine direction. To the same effect
the assurance : for God doth know, etc. This must
mean ; He enviously seeks to keep back your happi-
ness ; and He is envious because He is weak in oppo-
sition to nature, because the fruit of the forbidden
tree will make you independent of Him, and because
He is tyrannical and without love in His dealings
with you. In this distorting of the divine image,
there is reflected the darkening of the divine con-
sciousness which the temptation tends to call out in
the woman, and actually does call out. In all this
it must be noted, that the temptation here is already
at work with those crafty lies (see 2 Thess. ii. 9)
which it has employed through the whole course of
the world's history — that is, with lies containing ele-
ments of the truth, but misplaced and distorted.
Already that first question of the serpent contains a
truth, so far as man ought to become conscious in
himself of the certainty and divine suitableness of
God's commands. The doubt, however, which tends
to life, is to be distinguished from that which tends
to death, by its design and direction. The tendency
of the devil is to scepticism. But in this bold assu-
rance of the serpent which immediately follows,
namely, that no evil effects, but only good, would
result from the eatmg, there lies the truth that the
outward death would not immediately succeed the
enjoyment of the forbidden fruit ; that with the con-
sciousness of guilt there comes in a conscious though
a disturbed distinction between good and evil, and
that the sinner has placed himself in a false inde-
pendence through his own self-wUfulness (comp. ch.
iii. 22). When we take it all together, however, it is
the appointment to the divine image which the spirit
of the tempter perverts into a caricature : Ye shall
be as gods, and into an anticipation of immediately
reaching their aim : "A satanic amphiboly, in which
truth and falsehood are united to a certain degree of
coincidence." Ziegler. Comp. Job viii. 44. Vary
dark is Kuobel's comprehension of this passage-
"In the account of the Jehovist," he says, "God
appears to be jealous of ambitious men (ver. 22 ; ch,
vl 3 ; xi. 16). This same view of the jealousy of tb«

aso

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

gods appears a]so among the Grecian writers, e. p;.,
Hebod. i. 32 ; iii. 40 ; vii. 10, 46 ; Padsan. ii. 33 1
iii. ; comp. Nagelsbach : ' Homeric Theology,' p.
33." *

6. Ver. 6. And when the woman saw. — There
is truly indicated by the words, according to Luther's
translation, the lustful looking of the woman; but
the expression presents, besides, the spiritual dis-
turbance that attended it. She beheld it now with
a glance made false by the germinating unbelief, or,
so to speak, enchanted by it. " The Satanic promise
drove the divine threatening out of her thought.
Now she beholds the tree with other eyes (ver. 6).
Three times is it said how charming the tree appeared
to her." "The words biDiunb ysn fam') (to be
desired, to make one wise) are taken by Hofmann
for a remark of the narrator." DeUtzsch rightly re-
jects this view. First, there is painted, in general,
the overpowering charm of the tree. It appears to
her as something from which it would be good to
eat ; that is, good for food. The charm has now,
too, its sensual side : The tree is, moreover, pleasant
to the eye. It appears also to have a special worth
in supplying a want ; it is to be desired to make one
wise. Tlie sensual desire and the demoniacal spirit-
ual interest (especially curiosity and pride) unite in
leading her to the faU. Tuch, Beck, Baumgarten,
and others, give to i'"'3'yr>'? the sense of making
wise : it appeared to her as a means for spiritual ad-
vancement. Delitzsch (as also Knobel) disputes this,
with the remark that it does not agree with the word
lanj (a thing to be desired). But why should there
not be supposed a charm in this property of making
wise? Herein is indicated not only the common
power which the charm of novelty has for our human
nature in general, but also its special influence on the
female nature. — She took of the fruit thereof
and did eat. — The decisive act of sin (James i. 15).
Knobel: The heart follows the eyes (Job xxxi. 7;
Ecclesiastes xi. 9). — And gave also unto her hus-
band.— The addition WHS is interpreted by Delitzsch
as denoting " an actual presence, instead of mere
association." We hold both suppositions to be
wrong. An actual presence of the husband standing
mute in the very scene of the temptation presents
great difficulty ; whilst the second view amounts to
nothing. If it is taken, however, as the representa-
tion of an eating together, then the language is an

* [Another example of the way in which this class of
commentators love to pervert things — making a hyst&ron
proteron, or a putting the later first, in their endeavor to
educe Bible ideas from Egyptians, Greeks, and Persians.
No one can carefully study this Greek maxim ft>^oyepov rb
Btlov (tfte divine is envious), which so frequently meets us in
the Greek poets and in Herodotus, without seeing in it a fall
from a higher and holier idea. The marks of human degen-
eracj' are upon it. It has become a supcrsiilious or fatalistic
fear of the gods as jealous of mere human prosperity ^er se.
High state, in their view, was dangerous, not because of
its leading to '* pride which God resisteth" for man's good,
but simply as threatening a reverse destiny (see Herodotus'
** Story ol Polycrates of Samos and King Amasie," Herod.
iii. 40). It was unlucky, and foreboded evil. There was in
it a consciousness of something very wrong in man, but how
different this mere jealousy of human prosperity from the
holy attribute of jealousy against human pride and sin
ascribed to God in the Bible I Herodotus, as he was more
oriental in his style and feeling than the fatalistic dramatic
poets, comes nearer the Scripture representation, or the
Scripture original, we may say, of the great truth thus dis-
torted, Especiallv is this the case la the speeches of Arta-
banus dissuadmg Xerxes fi'om hie expedition against Greece,
Lib. vii. 10, 5. He talks there of the jealous God (6 ©ebs
hOovriaai), and his bringing down of human pride, almost in
Ihe ityle of Isaiah.— T.Ii.1

abridgment ; after that she had eaten she gave it («
her husband to eat thereof after her, or to eat wki
her. In the very moments of temptation, as we matt
take the account, there comes in the perception oi
the fact, that she does not die from the eating ; and
so it is that the wife's power of persuasion, and
Adam's sympathy with her, are net made specially
prominent.

1. Vers. 1, 8. And the ejres of them both
were opened, and they knew that they were
naked. — In the relation between the antecedent here
and what follows there evidently lies a terrible irony.
The promise of Satan becomes half fnlfiUed, though,
indeed, in a different sense from what they had sup-
posed : Their eyes were opened ; they had attained
to a developed self-consciousness. But all that they
had reached in the first place was to become con-
scious of their nakedness as now an indecent expo-
sure. It is here in this first irony, as appearing in
the divine treatment of the consequences of sin, that
we get a clear view of that ironical aspect in the
divine penal righteousness which shows itself in the
Scripture, and in the whole history of the world (see
Ps. ii. 4 ; Acts iv. 24 ; Lange's " Dogmatics," p. 469).
Knobel would really regard the new knowledge as a
pure step of progress. " As a consequence of the
enjoyment they knew their nakedness, whereas be-
fore, like unconscious, unembarrassed children, they
had no thought of their nakedness, or of their per-
sonal contrasts. At once did they perceive that to
go naked was no longer proper for them. They had
attained, in consequence, to a moral insight. Shame
entered into men in near cotemporaneity with their
knowledge of right and wrong, good and evil ; it be-
longs to the very beginning of moral cognition and
development. This shame, in its lowest degree,
limits itself to the covering of the sexual nakedness."
The question here, however, is not respecting a moral
reform, but a religious deterioration. The reflection
upon their nakedness and its unseemUness becomes,
in the light of the symbolical representation, neces-
sarily known as the first form of the entering con-
sciousness of guilt. They have lost the unconscious
dominion of the spirit over the bodily and sensuous
appearance, and henceforth there enters into the
conscience the world-historical strife between the
spirit and the flesh — a strife whose prime cause lies
in the fact that the spirit came out of the communion
of the spirit of God, whose form consists in the fact
that the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and whose
effect (the feeling of hateful nakedness) is, indeed,
attended by a reaction of the shame-feeling, but
which can only manifest itself in the effort to cover,
in the most scanty way, the nakedness revealed. In
this part of the body the feeling of nakedness mani-
fests itself as a sense of exposure that needs covering,
not because that fruit poisoned the fountain of
human life, or, by means of an innate property,
unmediately effected a corruption of the body, so far
as propagation is concerned (Von Hofiinann, Baum-
garten), nor because, in consequence of the fall, a
physical change had taken place ; but simply because,
in the taking away by sin of the normal relation
between the soul and the body, the body ceases to be
any longer a pure instrument of the spirit wliih \a
united to God. "This part of the body is called
nins (e. g., ch. ix. 22) and niua (e. g , Lev. xv. 2 ;
comp. Exod. xxviii. 42), because nakedness anijlcih,
which shame bids men cover, culminate in them."
Delitzsch. In what follows, wherein he says thai
here the contrast between. the soiritual and the nat

CHAP. m. 1-24.

!i3.

znl, having lost its point of unity, is of the sharpest
kind, and that the beastlike in the human appearance
appears here most bestial, Delitzsch is approaching
agiiin the theosophic mode of view ; although it is
true that man, from his demoniacal striving after
something too great for him, falls back into a beastly
laxity of behavior, which, however, even here shame
contends against, and seeks to veil. As the death of
man, in its historical aspect, stands in counter-rela-
tion tc the human generations in their historical
aspect, so it would seem that whilst the first presenti-
ment of death, in the first human consciousness of
guilt, must give a shock to men, there would also be,
in connection with this foreboding of death, another
presentiment of a call to sexual propagation ; but
along with this, and in order to this, there would be
a feeling which would seek to veil it, with its acts
and organs, as by a sacred law. This modesty, or
bashfulness, of man, however, relates not merely to
natural generation, but also to the spiritual and the
churchly ; as though all origin demanded its covering
— its creative night. The commendation of the first
growths of intelligence in a man's soul produces a
feehng of blushing diffidence, and so, too, the church-
ly birth hath its reverent and modest veiling. When,
therefore, along with the presentiment of death, and
of the generic or sexual destiny (which, nevertheless,
we cannot make independent of man's historical
death), there comes in the feeling of shame in the
first men, so also, as a symbolic expression therefor,
there enters into them, along with the guilt, an inner
death, and the sense of the want of renovation. For
the refutation of Knobel's view, that by the fig-tree
here is not meant the usual fig-tree, but the plant
named pisang, or banana, see Dklitzsch and Kah.
See also more particularly, respecting the tree in
question, Knobel and Delitzsch. — And they
heard the voice Knobel, Keil, and Delitzsch ex-
plain the word bip here, not of the voice of the Lord,
but of the sound or rustling noise made by the Deity
as he walked ; and they compare it with Lev. xxvi.
33; Num. xvi. 34; 2 Sam. v. 24. By such an inter-
pretation is the symbolical element left entirely out
of view. For beings in their condition, this sound
of God walking must evidently have become a voice;
but besides this it is said, farther on, that God called
to Adam. At all events, the voice here becomes
first a call. " In the cool of (he day, that is, towards
evening, when a cooling breeze is wont to arise."
Keil. To this we may add: and when also there
comes to man a more quiet and contemplative frame
of soul. So Delitzsch remarks very aptly: "God
appears, because at that time men are in a state most
susceptible of serious impressions.* Every one ex-
periences, even to this day, the truth of what is nar-
rated. In the evening the dissipating impressions of
the day become weaker, there is stillness in the soul ;
more than at other times do we feel left to ourselves,
and then, too, there awake in us the sentiments of
Badness, of longing, of insulation, and of the love of
home. Thus with our first parents ; when evening
somes, the first intoxication of the satanic delusion
iubsides, stillness reigns within ; they feel themselves
isolated from the communion of God, parted from
their original home, whilst the darkness, as it comes
rushing in upon them, makes them feel that their
flmDr fight has gone out." Farther on Delitzsch
* [Compare Pi. dv. 34 : "My meditation of Him shall be
iweet, SIS'' "—literally, like the calm evening hour. So
the Greek poets called the night ev(j>p6irri—(he time of calm
lober thought.— T. L.]

maintains that God appeared to man as one man ap
pears to another, though this had not been the ori
ginal mode of the divine converse with him. Thf
theophanies had their beginning first after the fall ;
and according to his explanation, " God now for tht
first time holds converse with men in an outward
manner, corresponding to their materialization and
alienated state." On the other hand, Keil maintains,
" that God held converse with the first men in a visi-
ble form, as a father and educator of his children,
and that this was the original mode of the divine
revelation, not coming in for the first time after tli£
fall." In neither can we suppose that there is taught
a twofold incarnation of God, first in Paradise, and
then in Christ. In hke manner, too, must we regard
the question here as unanswered, in what respect the
theophanies (which were mediated in all cases through
vision-seeing states of soul) are to be distinguished
from real outward appearances in human form,
ilofmann would complete the knowledge of Paradise,
by taking as the appointed mode of revelation God'a
appearance to them as soaring on the cherubim.
Delitzsch, moreover, informs us (after Hofmann, per-
haps) that God, at this time, did not come down from
heaven, since he yet dwelt upon the earth. Mora
worthy of our confidence is the language of Keil :
" Men have separated themselves from God, but God
cannot and will not give them up." — And Adam
and his TOife hid themselves. — Clearly an expres-
sion of guilt-consciousness, as also, an indication, at
the same time, of the fall into sin, and of the decline
into a state of corruption. The particular character-
istics are these : consciousness of their transgression,
of its effect, of their spiritual and bodily nakedness,
of their separation from God— of a feeling of dis-
trustful, selfish, and servile fear, in the presence of
God, and of the loss of their spiritual purity, as ori-
ginating in their guilt, together with the false notion
that they can hide themselves from God. Moreover,
the regular consistency which appears in this prog-
ress of sin must not be overlooked. Through this
status corruptionis, the first common act of sin passes
over into a second. Taken symboUcally, this is the
history of every individual fall into sin. " They hid
themselves through modesty," says Knobel. With
all this, there is presented in the flight of the sinner
from God a feeling of exculpation ; yet stUl, again, it
is attainted with self-deception, with a want of truth
and humifity. — Amongst the trees. — In the deep-
est density and darkness of the garden, which now
becomes an emblem of the world, and of that worldly
enjoyment in which the siimer seeks to hide himself.
8. Vers. 9-19. Where art thou? — Knobel:
"Jehovah must now call for man, who, at other
times, was ever there." Dehtzseh : " It is clear, that
not for his own sake does God direct this inquiring
caU to man, but only for man's sake. God does in
truth seek them, not because they are gone from his
knowledge, but because they are lost from his com-
munion." It is a consequence of the very being of
God as a person, if he would not violently surprise
man with his omnipresence and his omniscience, that
he should freely assume the form of seeking him,
that is, of drawing nigh unto him gradually, in a way
of mercy ; since man must seek and find Him. The
Good Shepherd seeks and finds the lost sheep ; the
sinner must seek and find God ; the relation must
be an ethical covenant relation. Dehtzseh say.=i far-
ther: "This word, ns^x (where art thoi?) echoes
through the whole human world, and in each indi-
vidual man." That is, m a symbolical sense, tJ«

232

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

passage denotes every case of a sinner seeking his
diTine home. Delitzsch : " The heathen world feel-
ing after God {\^n\a(pa.i/, Acts xvii. 21) is the conse-
quence of this evening call, ri3*!< , and of the long-
ing for home that is thereby evoked. — I heard thy
woice-in the garden, — Knobel : " His slight cover-
ing is sufiScient as against the familiar wife, but not
as against the high and far-seeing Lord of the Gar-
den." ( ! ) The question may be asked, why God
called to Adam, though Eve had been first in sin ?
Without doubt is Eve included in the more universal
significance of the word Adam (man), yet still the
call is directed to the individual Adam. In a certain
sense, however, is this Adam, as the household lord
of the wife, answerable for her step, notwithstanding
that he himself is ensnared with her. The ethical
arraignment for the complaint against the wife pro-
ceeds through Adam. But thus appears also here
the additional indication that Adam is denoted as the
first author of the hiding, as Eve was first in the sin
itself. According to the mere laws of modesty
(Knobel) the wife should rather have appeared in the
foreground here. According to Keil, " when Adam
says that he hid himself for fear, on account of his
nakedness (thereby seeking to hide his sin behind its
consequences, and his disobedience behind his feeling
of shame), it is not a sign of special obduracy, but
may easily be taken psychologically ; as that, in fact,
the feeling of nakedness and shame were sooner pres-
ent to his consciousness than the transgression of the
divine command, and that lie felt the consequences of
sin more than he recognized the sin itself." Delitzsch
would amend this by adding : " although all that he
says is purely involuntary self-accusation." It is to
be observed that here appears the Jirnt mingling and
confusion of sin and of evil, thai is, that punishment
of sin ordained of God, and which is the pecidiar
characteristic of our redemption-needing humanity. —
Ver. 11. Who told thee that thou wast naked?
— Knobel : " From this behavior Jehovah recognised
at once what had happened." Hardly can any such
anthropomorphism be found in the sense of the text.
Keil says better : " It is for the sake of awaking this
recognition of sin that God speaks." The question,
however, concerns not merely the means by which
the recognition of sin may be brought out, but in a
special manner the methods through which its con-
fession may be educed. So also Delitzsch. " His ex-
planation, however, of the interrogative "'a as indi-
cating that a personal power was the final original
cause of the change that had passed upon man," is
far beyond the mark. For it is not the occasion of
sin that is referred to here, but the occasion of the
consciousness of nakedness. This, however, comes
not from without, but from within. There lies, more-
over, in the question that immediately follows : Hast
thou eaten of the tree 1 the explanation of the
meaning of the first. — Ver. 1 2. And the man said,
the ■woman whom thou gavest An acknowl-
edgment of sin by Adam, but not true and sincere.
The guilt proper is roUed upon the woman, and indi-
rectly upon God himself; iu which, however, there is
naturally expressed a general exculpation, only God
is put forward as the occasion of the calamity that
has arisen. The loss of love that comes out in this
interposing of the wife is, moreover, particularly de-
noted in this, that he grudges to call her Eva, or my
wife (see this form of grudging, Gen. xxxvii, 32 ; Job
iii. 20, where he says he* instead of God; Luke xv.

* [This does not appear in our translation, which, like

30; tMs thy son, John ix. 12; where is hef namc'iy
Jesus, etc.). " That woman by my side, she wh«
was given to me by God as a trusty counsellor, sht
gave me the fruit ; " in this form, again, is Eve in
part excused by in imputation to God. — Ver. 13.
And the Ijord God said unto the woman,
what is this that thou hast done ? * — God fol
lows up the transgression, even to the root — not the
psychological merely, but the historical root. — The
serpent beguiled me. — Although temptation is a
beguiling, yet here, in the gross delusions of the ser-
pent, and the wife's inclination to excuse herself, the
latter conception is the more obvious one. — Ver. 14.
To the serpent he said, because thou hast done
this. — It is no more said here, wherefore hast thou
done this > although the serpent is previously intro-
duced as speaking, and, therefore, as capable of
maintaining conversation. Therein lies the supposi-
tion, that the trial has now reached the fountain-head
of sin, the purely evil purpose (the demoniacal) hav-
ing no deeper ground, and requiring no further inves-
tigation. Accordingly, there follow now the fatal
dooms, according to the consequences of each par-
ticular evU act. The serpent receives his sentence
first ; thou art cursed. — The sense of '^-a (rendered
in the Enghsh translation above, or compaiJitively) is
clearly that of selection : among all cattle, oi "ut of
all cattle (Olerious, Tuch, Knobel). It does not
mean, therefore, cursed, that is, abhorred, by all cat-
tle (Gesenius, De Wette, et al.) or above all cattle,
that is, comparatively more cursed (Rosenmiiller et
al.). The sentence pronounced upon the serpent
proceeds in a threefold gradation. Its explanation
larings up, of itself, the question, whether the whole
sentence bears upon the serpent alone, or in connec-
tion with something else, or only in a symbolical
sense. Surely the general doom, cursed be thou
(singular) among all cattle, and among all beasts
(corresponding with the causality : subtle among all
lieasts, prominently), indicates a symboUcal back-
ground of the whole judgment. 1. Quidam, statuuni
maledictionem latam in serpentem solum (quia hie
confertur cum. aliis bestiis) non in diabolum, quia is
antea mulediclus erat. 2. Alii in diabolmn solum,
quia brutus serpens non pot^rat Juste puniri. 3. Alii
applica?U v. 14 ad serpentem, v. 15 in diabolum. At
vero tu et te idem sunt in uiroque versa. 4. Alii
existimani eam. in utrumque latam. Quam serUenr
tiain -verissimaui judico. Medus inPoli Commentar
ad h. I. The inconsistency that arises when we
would understand v. 14 of the serpent only, and
V. 15, on the contrary, of Satan, is very apparent

most other versions, ancient or modem, renders it in the

Eassive. It has arisen from a desire to avoid the apparent
arshness ; but it is strictly in the Hebrew of Job iii. 20 as
Lange gives it, and it shows his careful observance of every
thiag in the biblical text. It is chai aeteiistic of the temper
of mind in which Job is represented. He grudges to name
God, though there is no other subieut for the verb 'D'^ —
" why does he give light to the wretched ? " It is the lan-
guage of sullen complaint, afiuid or ashamed to name the
one complained of. So Adam here says : She gave it to me,
the woman gave it to me. The other examples correspond.
-X. L.]

* [Lange's translation here is: "Wherefore hast the
done this?" Our version, *' What hast thou done?" woul
seem, at first view, to be a more literal rendering of the He-
brew n'O , but that given in the Vulgate iquare hoc J'ecisti)
and by Luther, as well as by Lange, is more in accoi lance
with the spirit of the question, since il^ mav ^f taken
as a general as well as a particular iiiterrogatciy. Or it
m.ay be regarded as exclamatory : What a 'Mng ha\ j yo*
done! How could you do it I — 1 L.J

CHAP. 111. 1-24.

23a

The various diversities of interpretation are a conae-
ijuenee of a want of cleameaa in respect to the fun-
damental exegotical law, that here an historical fore-
ground is everywhere connected with a symbolical
background. Accordingly, both the historical and
the symbolical go together through all the three
dooms imposed upon the serpent ; it is in the third
act, however (the protevangel, as it is called), that
the symbolical becomes especially prominent, and
casts its light over the whole passage. — First judg-
ment doom : Upon thy belly shalt thou go j that
is, as the worm steals over the earth with its length
of body, " as a mean and despised crawler in the
dust (Deut. xzxii. 24; Micah vii. 17)." It is a fact
that the serpent did not originally have this inferior
mode of motion Yike the worm, and it is this circum-
stance partly, and partly the consideration that along
with his speaking the serpent presented to Eve the ap-
pearance of a trusty domestic animal, that appears to
have given occasion to the expression : among all
cattle, as a complement to which there is added :
among all the beasts of the field. And to this effect
is the remark of Knobel, that " for the time before
the curse, the author must have ascribed to the ser-
pent another kind of movement, and perh.aps another
form. It is reckoned here with the nnrij (cattle),
V. 1 with the HTCn rrr\ (or beasts of the field) "
Id respect to this, it must be noticed, that there has
also been maintained the supposition of his having
before gone erect (Luther, MUnster, Fag. Gerhard,
Osiander) and been possessed of bone (Joseph., Ant.
i. 1, 4 ; Ephraim, Jarchi, Merc). Delitzsch and Keil,
moreover, favor the view, that the serpent's form
and manner of motion were wholly transformed
(Delitzsch) or changed (Keil). Delitzsch : " As its
speaking was the first demoniacal miracle, so is this
transfonnation the first divine." Instead of that, we
hold that this exposition only works in favor of the
mythical interpretation (Knobel), since it mistakes
the symbolical of the expression; on which, beside,
it can only touch in the phrase to " eat the earth."
According to Delitzsch, " the eating of dust does not
denote the exclusive food of the serpent, but only the
involuntary consequence of its winding in the dust."
So, moreover, the expression, "On thy belly shalt
thou go," cannot denote that he was deprived of bone
and wing, but only the involuntary consequence of
the manifestation of the serpent's hostile attitude to
men, namely, that it should now wind about timor-
ously upon its belly, or go stealing about in the most
secret manner ; whereas, before this, it could, with
impunity, perform its meanderings before their eyes,
yea, even stand upright in some respects, and twine
itself round the trees. The older exegesis had some
excuse, since it did not always know how to separate
the conception of a biblical miracle wrought for
judgment, or deliverance, from a magical metamor-
phosis. 'The assumption, however, at the present
day, of such a metamorphosis, has to answer the
■luestion, whether through it the conception of a mir-
acle is not changed, as well as that of nature itself.
That, in fact, in consequence of the fall, and of their
changed attitude towards men, the forms of animals
can undergo monstrous changes, and have often Ipeen
Jius changed, though stUl remaining on the basis of
their generic organization, is shown in the case of
dogs who run wild ; but the exposition above men-
tionsU extends itself ilUmitably beyond any concep-
tion o' deterioration. As far as concerns the sym-
bolical side of t'le first sentence, it is clear that

before any wider relation (to Saiau), we must hold to
the specific appointment, that the tempting evil shal
no longer meander about the world, bold and free^
but, in correspondence with its earthly meanness, anc
bestial association, shall wind along the ground ir
the most sly, and sneaking, and secret manner, eat-
ing the dust of the earth, and feeding itself upon the
coarsest elements of life, or the very mould of death.
This sentence, then, in the next place, avails not only
agf^inst evil in general, but the Evil One himself. And
therewith is denoted, at the same time. The aecona
doom. Knobel: " According to the older represen-
tations, serpents licked the dust, and enjoyed it as
their food. (Compare Micah vii. 17 ; Isaiah Ixv. 25 ;
BocHART: Hieroz. iii. p. 245)." Here it is supposed
that Micah and Isaiah have merely taken Genesis too
hterally ; whereas Knobel interprets : " it is com-
pelled to swallow down the dust as it moves here anc'
there with its mouth upon the ground." As the sei
pent, the allegorical type of the temptation, is sen
tenced to have its mouth m the dust, so is the geniua
of the serpent condemned to feed on elements which
are a coarse prelude, or a nauseous after-game, of life.
— Third doom of the serpent ; the Protevangel. The
rationalistic interpret;ation, which is last defended by
Knobel, finds here denoted only the relation between
the se.'pent-nature and the human race. That is,
Genesis liere, in one of its most ethically significant
passages, flattens down into a mere physical anthro-
pological observation. It is true that the physical
here forms the point of departure. " Enmity shaU
exist between the serpent and the woman, and be-
tween the descendants of both. Man hates the ser-
pent as a creature in direct contrariety to himself,
persecutes and destroys it." (To this point the words
of Pjoautds ; Mercat. iv. 4, 21, aliqvem odisse ceque
atque angues.) It is also hostile to man, and bites
him when uncharmed. In Punt ; Nat. Hist. x. 96,
it is called immitissimum animalium genus. Com
pare also Ovin, Metamorph. xii. 804 : calcato immi
tior hydro. It appears, as matter of fact, to havt
been the creature of the primitive world that was the
most absolutely opposed to culture, and which, pro-
ceeding from the dragons of the earlier earth-periods,
found its way through the last catastrophes into the
newly prepared world, or had been organically meta-
morphosed— Uke " the den-inhabiting brood of the
old dragons," which, in a worse sense than any other
beast could have done it, render the earth uncom-
fortable, destined as it was to culture ; and therefort
is it devoted to destruction in the world into which
it had passed over. In connection with this fact, the
thought readily occurs, how very appropriate that the
natural relation between the serpent-brood and the
human race, destined ever, and here anew, to the
kingdom of God, should become a symbol of the re-
hgious ethical conflict between the evil and the good,
upon earth. In opposition to the rationalistic stands
tiie orthodox interpretation of our passage, which re-
fers it to Satan on the one side, and to Christ, the
personal Messiah, on the other. According to most
of the older interpreters, the seed of the woman de-
notes directly the Messiah. (See Hengstenberg :
"Christology of the Old Testament," i. p. 21.) In
respect to it, however, the Komish interpreters make
a very bold variation. They do this in correspond-
ence with the translation of the Vulgate : ipsa (in-
stead of ipse) conteret caput tuum, which is condemn-
ed, not only by the Hebrew text, and the Septuagiut,
but in the " Quest. Heb." of Hierontmtis, who wa«
himself the author of the Vulgate, as also by Petrui

234

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Chrysologus und Pope Leo the Great (see Calmet's
Comm. p. 120); whilst Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory
the Great, and others, have ranged themselves on the
side of the Vulgate. Calmet interprets : in cimdem
tensum (t amely, the right sense of the Hebrew text)
reddi poted vulgata ; nequealiterB. Virgo conterere va-
luit serpentem quam perfilium suum Jcsum Christum.
So also says Von Scheank in his " Commentary :" in
Hehrveo quidem habetur, ille ( Xin ) conteret caput
ilium : ergo seinen mulieris, i. e. Jesus ChriMus conte-
ret., sed res eodem redit : nam Tieque sanctissima Virgo
aliler quam partu suo^ i. e. 171 virtute Jesu Ckristi
jUii stti, caput serpentis contrivisse credenda est. Both
authors, indeed, gave these wrested interpretations
before the latest Papistical glorification of Mary, In
modem times has the interpretation which refers the
seed of the woman to the personal Messiah been de-
fended by Phihppi. In the primary sense, says De-
litzsch, it is only promised that Immanity shall win
this victory, for Xin (he) relates back to niES S'}1
(seed of the woman) ; as, however, the seed of the
serpent has its unity in Satan, so it may be fairly
conjectured that the conquering party, the seed of
the woman, has also a person for its unity — a con-
jecture which, as we readily concede to Philippi
("Treatise concerning the Protevangel in Kliefoth-
Meier's Church Periodical," 1855, pp. 519-548), is
the more obvious ; since in this second sentence the
pronoun Xin has for its object not the seed of the
serpent, but the serpent, and in it Satan himself. It
is, however, an incorrect opinion, that Sin has im-
mediately, and exclusively, a personal sense, and
that the organic process of the annunciation of re-
demption demands this. The conception of t<!in is
that of a circle, aud Jesus Christ, or, as the Targum
says. King Messiah, is evermore in the course of the
redemptive history the prominent centre of this cir-
cle. So Delitzsch says, too, that Christ is essentially
meant as the centre of humanity, or as the head of
humanity, especially of the redeemed, as Keil says.
We miss here the distinct exposition, whether the
prophecy directly apphes to Christ as a conscious an-
nouncement, or only impliedly, in as far as Christ is the
kernel aud the star of the woman's seed. Hengsten-
berg regards the place as more decidedly relating to
the collective posterity of the woman (" Christology,"
i. p. 22). " Truly hast thou inflicted a sore wound upon
the woman (such would be the import of the words
addressed to the serpent), and thou, with thy fellow-
Berpents, wilt continue to lie in ambush for her de-
scendants. Nevertheless, with all thy desire to hurt,
wilt thou be only able to inflict curable wounds upon
the human race, whilst, on the other hand, the pos-
terity of the woman shall at last triumph over thee,
and make thee feel thine utter impotency. This in-
terpretation is found, indeed, in the Targum of Jona-
than, and in the Jerusalem Targum, which, by the
seed of the woman, understand the Jews who in the
days of the Messiah shall vanquish Sammael.* Paul
Beems to proceed on this view, Romans xvi. 20,
where the promise is collectively referred to Christ.
More lattily has it found an acute advocate in Calvin,
and then in Herder." As the interpretation of the
whole Protevangel is specially conditioned on the

♦ (In the Targum, and by Maimonideb in bis More JVe-
wothim, Lib. ii. chap, yxx., Sammael is called the angel of

death, nm^l ^xb^ . Says Maimonidee : " He took the
ancient serpent for Ills vehicle, and seduced Eve.'* Else-
where he says, that he is no other than Satan, who caused
death to the world.— T. L.]

choice of expressions in detail, we apply ourselves tc
the analysis of the passage. As it is the third and
most important part of the doom, taken collectively,
so does it also divide itself again into three parte,
whose point of gravity may also be said to be in three
divisions. 1. Enmity between thee and the
woman, — In place of the false, ungodly, and man-
destroying peace between the serpent and the woman,
must there come in, between them, a good and salu
tary enmity, estabUshed by God. That the woman
may have a special abhorrence of the serpent, aftei
her experience of the deception which she chargef
back upon him, and that the falsehood of the ser
pent, which had all along before been enmity, should
now be unmasked, — this is the point of departure.
But, since this enmity, as occasioned by an ethical
event, must be itself substantially ethical — since the
serpent is denoted as permanently present ui his sei ■
pent-seed — since, finally, there is mention, at the end,
of one head of the same — so does the whole passage
have for its aim the ethical power of temptation,
which must have worked in some way through the
physical serpent, notwithstanding that a being mor-
ally evil is characterized, chap. iii. 1, and throughoul
the whole process of the temptation. The woman,
however, is set in opposition to the serpent, in the
first place, because she has been seduced by him,
but then, too, in order to set forth more prominently
the ethical character of the human enmity againsl
the serpent. We must take into view here the pre-
dominant susceptibility of the woman, which, in its
curiosity, had become a special susceptibility tc
temptation, but which now must become a predomi
naiit susceptibiUty for the divine appointment of en-
mity between them ; add to which that, in general,
man becomes master of evil only through a feminiii*
susceptibility for the assistance of God. 2. Be-
tween thy seed and her seed. — That is, the ap
pointment of this enmity shall work on permanently
through the generations that are to come ; the strife
shall never cease. And truly, it thus continues as a
war between the serpent-seed in its one totaUty, and
the woman's seed in its one totality. And now here
the symbolical sense presents itself much stronger ;
for in all the occasional conflicts between men and
serpents there is no universal and generic war be-
tween both. But this indicates « working of the
power of temptation as a unit against the unitary
moral power of the woman's seed in the conflict. In
general, it is a contrast between the mysterious pow-
er of evil from the other world, and the human race
altogether in this. Since, however, men alone can
belong to the genuine seed of the woman, as it car-
ries on the enmity of the woman against the serpent^
so it is clear, that from the opposite direction it must
be men that fall in with the society of the serpent's
seed (that is, the demons and their powers), or in
other words, become ethically children of the powei
of temptation. 3. It shall bruise.— Here now the
question arises : what is the meaning of that enigmat-
ic verb CjllU? The Septuagint translates ; avrSt aov
rripriaet Kc^aA^// Kal (rb Tnp-fjffeis aurov irrepvav ; the
Vulgate : ipsa conteret caput iuum et tu irmdic^e^'i^
calcaneo ejus. The Septuagint is consistent in having
the same expression (Trjprjrjei-t) in both cases, but i^,
is the one which, in view of the Alexandrian spirit-
ualism, is the weakest of them all. The Vulgate
chooses for both members of the sentence interpre.
tations of the same word that lie too far apart. This
is evidently done in order that, on the one side, the
ipsa (the she, or the Virgin in that translation) ma]

rHAP. m. 1-24.

234

exhibit the highest possible degree of heroism, whilst
on the other side, under the protecting veneration
of the monastic theology, she does not suifer the
least injury to her heeL The word ^W is interprets
ed in various ways : 1. terere, conterere. So the Syr-
iac, the Samaritan, and others (such as our German
and English versions). So also Clericus, Tuch, Baum-
garten, JRSdiger ; also, with special reference to Rom.
xvi. 20, Heugstenberg, Delitzsch, Keil. In any case,
it would be an epexegetical translation, if we would
find the expressions, to tread with the foot, and to
pierce, in one common conception, lying at the
ground of both. Moreover, this same word, as used
Psalm cxxxix. 11, and Job ix. I'J, cannot denote
either to tread, or to pierce. Just as little, on the
other side, can it mean inaidian, or inhiare, to assail
or pursue in a hostile manner — as Umbreit, Gese-
nius, and Knobel explain the word with reference to
its supposed afilnity with qsia. The middle con-
ception, which suits both places here, and which
commends itself as suitable to the two parallel pas-
sages. Job ix. and Psalm cxxxix., is to lay hold of,
seize, hit. Keil : '^ The same word is used In rela-
tion to the head and the heel, to indicate that the
enmity on both sides is aimed at the destruction of
the opponent — for which purpose by head and heel
are expressed majua and minun, or, as Calvin says,
mperius and irferius.* This contrast arises, indeed,
out of the very nature of the foes. The serpent who
crawls in the dust, if he would destroy man walking
in his uprightness, can only seize him by the heel ;
whereas, man can crush his head. But this dififer-
ence itself is already a consequence of the curse pro-
nounced upon the serpent, and its crawling in the
dust is a premonition that in the strife with man it
must, at last, succumb. Be it even that the bite of
the serpent in the heel is even deadly when its poi-
son penetrates throughout the whole body (Gen.
xlix. 17), yet it is not immediately mortal, nor incur-
able, liiie the crushing of the sei-pent's head. There

* [The general sense in this passage is plain, but there is
great difficulty iu fixing on the precise action intended by
the word C)TI3, in consetjuence of its occurring but three
times in the Hebrew Bible ; and one of these places, Ps.
fflr-giriT. 11, is most probably a wrong reading for "^SDliyi
(from T3ir), differing &om it very slightly, and exactly
Buiting the context. The sense of bruising will do, as used
of the storm, Job vs.. 17, but is quite alien to any effect of
darkness, as used Ps. cxxxix. The difficulty is shown by
the variety of special interpretations, though all agreeing in
the general thought. Onkelos has two different words for it :
"He shall be mindful ( 1'^D^ ) of what thou hast done to
tlimofoldctaldngmxi paraphrastically for beginniag), but
ihou Shalt be watchful (l^WD) for him in the end." Erom
:his probably, or from some older Targnm, came the LXX.
rendering. The Arabic translation, commonly called Arabs
BrpenianuSf made by an ancient and learned Jew, and <ren-
arally very accurate, also uses two words ; " He shall break
thy head, and thou shalt sting him on the heel," — as though
In the 2d clause he had read T3D"123n (long vowel) from "^1133
to bite ; and such also is the conjecture of Jarchi, who thinks
that the variation was made originally to render the expres-
sion memorable from such a suggested paronomasia, or re-
semblance in sound. Head and hetl are evidently used to
denote a strong contrast, but not the one, we think, pointed
out by Calvin and Lange. May it not rather denote that
the fight against sin and the serpent is to be a bold and
manly one! "He shall strike thee on the head." So Paul
Bays uirwTTia^fd, *' I strike under the eye," I knock my body
dowi. I fight fece to face. The biling the heel, on the other
hand, denotes the mean, insidious character of the devil's
Warfare, not only as carried on by the equivocatiug appe-
ates, but also as waged by infidels, and self-styled rational-
ists in all ages, who never meet Christianity in a frank and
manly way.— T. L.l

comes also into consideration : 1. The contrast : head
and heel. The life, hke the poison, of the serpent,
is in its head, and is destroyed with it. The heel of
man is the least vulnerable, whilst it is that part of
the body which is the most easily healed. 2. Ths
conscious, adaptive aiming of the woman's seed, tha
blind, brutal, and ill-directed assault of the serpent.
The seed of the woman seizes the power of evil in
its central life, in its principle ; the seed of the
serpent attacks the power of good in its most out-
ward and assailable appearance. 3. The very mo-
ment in which the serpent bites at the heel of tha
man, is the one in which the latter brings down the
crushing foot upon its head. It is, indeed, not with-
out significance, that the seed of the woman is pro-
sented in the singular, and in fact, in the last deci
sive moment, set in opposition, not to the seed of tha
serpent, but to the serpent himself — as is pointed
out by Heugstenberg and others. Here now must
we distinguish between the prophetical and the typi-
cal elements of prophecy — as also the prophecies
that are strictly verbal. The prophetic element is
present in the prophet's consciousness ; the typical
element is not, although it may be consciously pres-
ent to the spirit of revelation that guides him. - Out
text appears primarily, indeed, as the immediate
speech of God, the all-knowing, who sees beforehand
every thmg in the future ; but still, the measure of
consciousness in our prophecy can become determin-
ate to us only according to the presumable degree of
consciousness in the author of Genesis, or, still fur-
ther, in those who actually brought down the tra-
dition contained in chapter iii. In relation, there-
fore, to this human prophetical consciousness, and its
germinal state of development, must we distinguish
between the conscious prophecy of the word and the
unconscious prophecy of the typical expression. So
in Psalm xvi. the conscious prophecy says, through
my communion with God I shall possess immeasura-
ble joys of life ; the typical expression, however, is
fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ (Acts ii.). So
also says the prophet, Isaiah vii. ; the young prophet
wife shall, 1. conceive; 2. bear a son, whose name,
3. with joyful hope they shall call Immanuel. The
typical expression, however, is a prediction of Christ,
the son of the virgin. In this sense, also, does Paul
allow himself to interpret the singular, in thy seed,
as a typical prophecy of Christ. And we doubt not,
that here, too, the spirit of the type chose this ex-
pression, the seed of the woman, with an seonian con-
sciousness of its rich significance. If we go back,
however, to the conscious prophecy, so it may be safe
to say, that with the humanity iu general, on its light
side, there is also placed its core * — as it is with Ju-
dah (Gen. xUx. 10), and Israel (Hos. xi. 1). In truth,
the core, or heart, is ever embraced in concrete unity
with the hull, but to the biblical view is this gravi-
tation to the unity pecuhar from the very beginning.
On the other side, however, according to the New
Testament, and the patristic unveUing of its signifi-
cance, is the seed of the woman not exclusively to be
referred to the individuality of Christ. Christ, as the
Christ in the universal humanity, is here to be under-
stood ; especially in the second clause, at least, aa
also, therefore, in the third according to Paul (Rem.
xvi. 20).

There remains, finally, the question how the tempt'

* [This is an expression that Dr. Lange is fond of. Hf
seems to mean by it something representing humanity con-
cretely and centrally — or some aspect of human! ty ; as Judat
in the prophecy. Gen. xlix. 10. — T. L.1

236

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

ation of the first pair by the serpent is to be under-
stood. According to Knobel there is found in our
passage just as little reference to the devil as to the
Messiah (p. 48). Consequently would the whole pas-
sage become a mere physical myth. Von Bohlen
goes back to the kindred traditions of the ancients,
ind finds it of the deepest significance that in the
printed Samaritan text there is u;n3, liar, instead of
Ions , serpent. According to one of the Indian myths,
Krishna, in the form of the sun, contends with the
Evil One, in the form of serpent. In like manner in
Egypt, Typhou, whose name is interpreted by Ser-
pent, persecutes his brother Osiris, or the sun. Her-
cules possesses himself of the golden apple of the
Uesperides, which the Serpent guarded. According
to Bohlen, however, the nearest source of our nar-
rative, as of Paradise in general, lies in Iran.
Ahriman, according to the Zendavesta, in the form
of a serpent brought of his fruits to men, who were
of the pure creation of Ormuzd. And so, according
to him, as also according to Rosenmiiller, must the
author of our account have had that as a model be-
fore his eyes. And yet, somehow, we know not
how he distinguishes from it the simple sense of the
IsraeUtish narrator. The reference of Bohlen only
shows how our primitive tradition spreads itself in
the manifold adumbrations and transformations of
the most varied mythological systems, even as the
like holds true in respect to the cosmogony, the first
human pair. Paradise, and still further on in respect
to the flood. In opposition to all this stands the
traditional view of the Church, that under the ser-
pent as instrument and symbol our passage conscious-
ly intends the devil (see Hesgstenberg ; " Chris-
tology," p. 5; Dblitzsch, p. 168; Keil, p. 61). In
respect to this, there is no doubt that in the Holy
Scripture there lies before us a connected Une of tes-
timonies whose object is ever the same demoniac
tempting spirit — a line which, going out from the
serpent in the passage before us, reaches even to the
close of the New Testament in the Apocalypse, ch.
iii. 3, 9, 13 ; ch. xx. 2, 10. The identity is estab-
lished by the cited places of the Apocalypse, by 2
Cor. xi. 3 (compare ver. 14) by the Book of Wis-
dom ii. 23 ; with which again in connection stands
John viii. 44; though to this have been objected
certain weakening interpretations (Liicke, and others).
It is so also in Rom. xvi. 20. Here is every where
evident the relation of the fall to the serpent ac-
cording to its symbolical significance. In many
more ways, as in the Book of Wisdom u. 24 ; John
viii. 44 ; 2 Cor. xi. 3 ; Rom. xvi. 20, there appears
the identity of the tempting Spirit, which worked
through the serpent, with the figure of the devil as
he appears later in the Scripture. That, indeed, the
physical serpent could not have been meant, as the
tempter in our passage, shows itself from the dis-
tinct appearance of consciousness in respect to the
great separation between man and the animal world
(ch. ii. 19, 20), as it is rightly presented by Heugsteu-
berg ; it also appears from the collective declaration
that every creation of God was good (ch. i.), and
from the ethical features wliich in the third chapter
the serpent assumes as a maliciously subtle creature,
ft8 well as from the symbolical background which
ever shows itself stronger and stronger in the prim-
itive condemnatba. Next to the identity of the
tempting spirit behind the serpent and Satan, comes
now its continuity. Before all, in the Old Testament.
i'Srrf Suige of the idea : Indication of evil spirits,

and of one especially as an apostate, pre-eminently n
Azazel, Levit. xvi. 8 ; in symbols of the Evil One
Deut. xxxii. 17 ; in the Schedim (Septuagint, Sai.u^-
fia,, properly, master-gods), and the Seirim, Is. xiii
21. Second Stage: The appearance of Satan as th<
foe of man, as the tempter and accuser. Job i. and ii

1 Chron. xxi. 1. 77iird Stage: The designation oi
Satan as the enemy of God, as the fallen founder of
an evil dominion in opposition to the estabhshmeni
of the divine kingdom, Zech. iii. 1 ; Is. xxvii. 1 ; seP'
pents and dragon-forms as symbols of the reign of
Antichrist; Dan. vii., the beasts out of the sea. The
New Testament clearly introduces the doctrine of Sa
tan with a counterpart of the temptation of Adam iv
Paradise, when it represents the temptation of Christ
in the wilderness. Matt. iv. After this, in the per-
fecting the doctrine of Satan, there is, first, the men-
tion, Matt. xii. 43, of his connection as chief with
the mdividual evil spirits in the demoniacs. Then,
in the second stage, Satan is especially designated as
the foe of man (John viii. 44 ; Matt. xii. 29 ; xiii. 39 ;
Acts X. 38). In the third stage comes forth the fin-
ished form of the doctrine, when Satan is represented
as the enemy of God and Christ, and the prince of
the kingdom of darkness, making complete his reve-
lation, first in secret influences, then in pseudo-
Christian organs, and finally in one Antichristian
organ (John xii. 31 ; 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; Eph. vi. 12 ;

2 Thess. ii. 9, and the Revelation).

A chief question here, however, is this : whether
we are to suppose that in the passage before us there
is already indicated a developed consciousness in re-
spect to the nature of the devil. Since in the Old
Testament, the New Testament doctrines have not
yet come to their full development, and since the be-
ginnings of them on the first pages of Genesis meet
us throughout in a very dark, veiled, and germinal
form, so would it be a gross inorganic anomaly, if a
developed knowledge of the devil has to be supposed
in this place. Just such an anomaly, however, ap-
pears to be assumed by Dehtzsch, along with others,
when he says (p. 168): "The narrator keeps his po-
sition on the outer appearance of the event without
lifting the veil from the substance that lies behind.
He may well do this, since even the heathen sages
present an express though deformed notice of the
truth ; but the author throws a veil over it, because
the unfolding would not have been suitable for those
people of his time who were inclined to a heathenish
superstition, and to a heathenish intercourse with the
demon-world (still would there have arisen a super-
stition from it, even if the narrator had had the pur-
pose to stand purely by the literal serpent). It is a
didactic aim that determines the narrator to rest sat-
isfied with the objectivity of the outward event as it
becomes perceivable, and to be silent in regard to its
remoter ground." In maintaining this view, De-
litzsch himself refers (p. 625) to the Church fathers.
Keil presents a more striking ground for this " didac-
tic aim " of silence in respect to Satan, both here and
further on in the Old Testament ; " it had respect,"
he says, " to the inclination which men have to roll
the guilt from themselves upon the tempting spirit ;
it was to allow them no pretext." We may, how-
ever, just as well trust the spirit of the divine revela-
tion with a didactic aim in relation to the narrator,
as the narrator himself in relation to his readers ; and
it is in accordance with the divine mode of instruc-
tion, that revelation should unfold itself in exact cor-
respondence with the human state of development
The assumption of an objective levelopmont of cvi/

CHAPTER m. 1-24.

2»^

In the spin i-world has in it nothing irrational ; yet
llengstenberg rightly remarlia : " moreover, the posi-
tion held by most of those who deem themselves
compelled to regard the book of Job as originating
before the captivity, namely, that the Satan of that
book is not the Satan of the later Old Testament
books, but rather a good angel, only clothed with a
hateful office, is becoming more and more acknowl-
edged as correct ; so that we may wonder how Beck
(Lehrwiasenschaft, I. p. 249) can be impressed with
the supposed fact, and seek to adapt himself to it,
through the assumption that the aIiena,tion of a part
of the angels from God, and their kingdom of dark-
ness, develops Itself in a progressive unfolding."
Yet clearly is the commencement of the tempting
Bpirit, Gen. ili. 1, devilish enough. Moreover, must
we distinguish the conception of the development of
the demoniacal kingdom, from that of the develop-
ment of the demoniacal character. The measure of
the Iniowledge of demons, or demonology, which dis-
tinctly presents itself in our text, is the recognition
of an evil that stands back of the serpent, and of a
mahcious spirit of temptation which henceforth ever,
more and more, shall become acknowledged as the
crafty, lying foe of man (" and I will put enmity "),
but who betrays himself already as the foe of God
and the adversary of his counsels, as connected with
the human race. The more definite unveiling of this
last point, and its wider consequences, such as a
fallen angel-prince of a fallen angel-host, and of a
kingdom of darkness, belong to the later develop-
ment of the doctrine.

When, finally, the question is asked, in what man-
ner must we think of the worldng of this foe of man
as taking place through the serpent, we encounter
again the abstract opposition of the pure actuality as
against the supposition of a fact under the relations
of a vision. Next to such views as these : the devil
gpoke in the phantom shape of a serpent (Cyril of
Alexandria) ; the devil spoke through the serpent,
or made it speak by a diabolical agency (Delitzsch's
"First Demoniac Miracle"); the serpent is only an
allegory (Grotius; the representation of an old poem);
or, an outward eating by the serpent of the fruit of
the tree of knowledge, and a simultaneous whispering
hy Satan to the soul of Eve, happened together (Cler-
icus, Hetzel) — next to such as these we place the
view that Satan worked through a sympathetic influ-
ence upon the mind of Eve, and thereby maile the in-
determinate af ts of the serpent to become speaking
signs, to such a degree, that, in the excited visionary
temperament of the woman, they became transformed
into a dialectical process of speech and reply.

To conclude, it is especially to be borne in mind,
against the assertions of Delitzsch in respect to the
imposition of punishment upon the serpent (p. 179),
that every application of the idea of punishment to
beasts takes away its peculiar conception ; so much
90, that, even on the ground of the Old Testament
consciousness, can we boldly affirm that, from the
very fact of Jehovah's pronouncing a doom upon the
serpent, the meaning must be i )f something more than
a serpent. Rather, may we say, that the future of
the serpent-brood is announced in a way which un-
mistakably expresses the sentence of the man-hating
Bphit in a symbohcal form. Indeed, Delitzsch him-
self says: Not as though beasts were capable of
the imputation ; but none the less is there repeated
the mention of the infliction of punishment upon the
derpeut, and we can, therefore, read : the beast that
Ksve itself for this purpose, to lead astray to an un-

godly deed him who is called to be lord of the ani-
mal world, and his helpmeet, is also to bt punished
though in a different way. Delitzsch refers to Lev,
XX. 15: "It is truly an Old Testament law, that
contra-natural lust must be punished, not only in
man, but also in the beast with which it is practised;
and, in general, the beast is to be punished through
which a man has suffered any harm whatever in body
or soul (ch. ix. 6; Ex. xxi. 28; Dent. xiii. 15;
1 Sam. XV. 3)." In the passage from Leviticus, the
killing of the abused beast is denoted by Jin . Tha
notion that in this and the other places cited the de-
struction of the beast is ordered for the sake of the
man, or in company with the man, rests upon tha
idea of the personal elevation of man above the beast
in accordance with which it isrfhat, in the symboli
cal expression, a beast that has killed a man is like
wise put to death, and the beasts of multitudes of
men devoted to death are put to death with them.
It is, moreover, as a symbolical expression of anger
and abhorrence, as " when a father breaks in piecea
the sword with which his son has been slain." The
symbolical in those acts arises out of the contrast be-
tween the New Testament and the Old. The Petro-
brusians treated even the sign of the cross as a sign
of ignominy, because Christ had been put to death
on the cross. The Christian church, however, has
never acknowledged this view. Moses also, at one
time, established a type in the New Testament sense,
in the lifting up of the brazen serpent.

Yer. 16. Unto the woman he said. — The
sentence pronounced upon the woman contains a
painful modification and transformation of the
womanly calling, as farther on the sentence pro-
nounced upon Adam is a similar modification of the
manly, or, we may say generally, of the human
calling [since Adam embraces nt once the common
human nature] ; and so, accordingly, is the earlier
mode of life of the serpent; made to become a modifi-
cation of the sentence pronounced upon it. What
they do according to their nature, that must now
bring upon them the punishments that are in corre-
spondence with their natures. DeUtzsch distinguishes
a threefold retribution in the sentence upon the wo-
man. We follow him therein, only taking the mem-
bers in a different way. The punishment falls : 1,
Upon the relation of the womanly organism in and for
itself; 2. on the relation to her children ; and 3. on
the relation to her husband. 1. I will greatly
multiply thy sorrow. The expression -^jiaS3
^3Tini is generally taken as a hendyadis. "The
frequency of pregnancy can be no punishment."
The Samaritan translates : The burden that is con-
nected with pregnancy. And yet we are not
justified here in limiting the whole doom of the
womanly distress and sorrow directly to the state
of pregnancy. Still it may be more safe to say
with Delitzsch : Thy burden, and especially thy
pregnancy with its burden. The womanly calling
is an endless multiplicity of little troubles, and the
womanly destiny is loaded with the most manifold
sexual pains. The pains of a woman with child,
Jer. xxxi. 8. — 2. With sorrow. [Lange translates
it, inth difficulty, noth-l We maintain that tha
translation of DSS by trowble or pain is too weak.
It is the state of birth-travail, which is, all at the
same time, labor, pain, difficulty, and danger (se*
Is. xiii. 8 ; xxi. 3 ; Hos. xiii. 13 ; Micah iv. 9 ; Johc
xvi. 21). " Gravida et pariens,'" says an old proverb,
" est sicut cegroia et moriens." Delitzsch. The con

238

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

trast between the lightest (Exod. i. 19) and the
most difficult births, may help to give us an idea of
the contiast between the normal paradisaical way
of birth, and the birth-sorrows that have prevailed
in human history ; and this too without our having
to suppose, with Delitzsch, a change in " the
physiological constitution of the woman." Hence-
forth must the woman purchase the gain of children
with the danger of her life, — in a certain degree,
with spiritual readiness for death, and the sacrifice
of her life for that end. — 3. And thy desire shall
be to thy husband. This sentence obtains its
full significance in its embracing that which follows,
and in its contrast to it. It is, emphatically, that
her desire should be to the man as though she were
magically bound to Jfim. npllbn may denote tlie
longing of the woman's dependence upon man.
npTOn comes from p1ll5 , to run, run after, pursue,
want.* It is further emphatic that the man shall
rule over her in a strong way ; and finally that ahe,
in her bound and destined adherence to man, shall
find in him a strong and severe master. The
woman had specifically sinned, " not for the sake
of earthly enjoyment merely " (Delitzsch), but in
high-flown aspiring, as though she would emancipate
herself from man, get before him, and take him
under her guardianship. Her punishment, therefore,
must consist in this, that she must become subject
in the normal line of her sexual being, her con-
sciousness, adhesiveness, and dependence. " The
man can command in a lordly way, and the wife is
inwardly and outwardly compelled to obedience.
In consequence of sin thus arises that subjection of
the wife to the husband, bordering on slavery, that
was customary in the old world, as it still is in the
East, and which through the religion of revelation
becomes gradually more tolerable, until, at last, in
the increasing worth of the woman, it becomes
entirely evened " (Delitzsch). " Among the Hebrews
a wife was bought by the husband (? ch. xxxiv. 12;
Exod. xxii. 16 ; Ho9. iii. 3, 2), and was his possession
(female slave, ? ch. xx. 3 ; Deut. xxii. 22). He is
called her lord (ch. xviii. 12 ; Exod. xxi. 3), and he
can divorce her without much ceremony (Deut. xxiv.
1). This subordinate and depressed condition of
the wife the author (!) regards as the punishment of
sin." Knobel. — Ver. 17. And unto Adam he
said. — Sentence against Adam. In the case of
Adam (whose name here first appears as a proper
name) there is an indictment or declaration of his
guilt going before the sentence of condemnation.
His guilt culminates in this, that he had listened to
the voice of his wife who was placed under him,
and this, too, in direct opposition to that obedience
which he owed to the voice and the command of his
God. Instead of the protector and guide of his
wife, to guard her from the fall, or, after her fall, to
bring her back to God, he becomes, in his cowardly
renunciation of his dignity, subject with her to evil.
Mediately is this also a rebuke of his self-exculpa-
tion ; " the wife whom thou gavest unto me," as it
is also of the seductive voice of his wife, and her
obedience to the voice of the serpent. As, how-
ever, the woman is punished through the derange-
ment of the smaller subjective world of her womanly
calling, so is Adam punished through the disorder
of the greater objective world of his masculine

*(KnoT)ol has a gross sensual view ia respect to this
word, which its etymology and use do not warrant. See
Etymi logical Notes, p. m.—T. L.1

calling. The adamah (the soil of Eden) which,
with his wife, he was to carry forward, in a norma,
unfolding, to imperishable life and spiritual glory, ia
now cursed for his sake, and therewith changed ta
a position of hostility to him, and of power over
him. Like a sick, disordered woman, it becomes tl
him a capricious and hard stepmotherlike tutoresB,
swinging the rod over him with thorns and thistles.
Here, too, may we distinguish a threefold act in tha
one sentence. 1. The curse-state of the adamah,
and the harm endured by it for Adam's sake, out-
wardly, on its. surface, and in its peculiar adamitic
nature, even to its very life, — especially as the
endurance of unfruitfulness, decay, and impoverish-
ment, to such a degree that it can only afford to him
its food in a scanty manner. 2. The positive strife
which the curse-loaded adamah, with its thorns and
thistles, opposes to Adam's labor, and the resulting
failure and deterioration of its nourishing product :
the herb of the field. 3. The fruitless efforts of
man, in the sweat of his brow, to sustain his life in
perpetuity through his daily bread; since it has
become subject to the power of death, which now
impends as doom upon the very substance oi the
adiimah. — 1. Cursed be the ground- Knobel;
" Agriculture among the Hebrews was a divine
institution (Is. xxviii. 26), but at the same time a
heavy burden (Sirach vi. 19; vii. 15), that pressed
especially on servants (1 Sam. viii. 12; Is. Ixi. 6;
Zach. xiii 15), and presented the idea of punishmen*
when compared with the primitive golden age
Classic antiquity, too, assumed that in the goldep
age the earth brought forth spontaneously every
thing necessary for man, and that agriculture proper
came in first at a later period (e. g. Hesiod, Op. et
Dies, p. 118 f; Plato, Polilicus, p. 274 f; Virg.,
Oeorg. i. 27 ; Ovin, Met. i. 162; Mackob., Som. Scip.
u. 10). — 2. Cursed the earth for thy sake.
That is, in order to punish thy transgression through
it, shall she no more be blessed with fruitfulness,
but shall be unfruitful. Just so do the Prophets
detive the desolation and barrenness of the land
from a divine curse (Is. xxiv. 6 ; Jer. xxiii. lo). —
3. In sorrovr shalt thou eat of it. With pain-
ful labor shalt thou hereafter derive thy food from
it (comp. Is. i. 7 ; v. 17; xxxvi. 16; Jer. x.xiii. 10)."
Delitzsch takes it in a deeper sense : " Man had for
his grand vocation to guard the creation of God,
[all good from Paradise down, against the entrance
'of evil, and to be the medium of its gradual trans-
figuration. As a spirito-corporeal being, he was to
the material world as DIS to naiN, being placed
in a relation of essentially mutual adaptiveness and
casual reciprocity. Even from this it becomes clear,
how, in consequence of the fall, the material in
man, the direct opposite of this transforming power,
takes possession first of his corporeity, and then
propagates itself upon the surrounding material,
that is, the universal nature." It is, however, not
wholly correct to say that the doom of the curse ia
represented as going out from the nature of man
against the outer nature ; much rather, according to
the representation, does the curse of the adamah
come nigh to man, as a new divine ordering of
nature (comp. also Rom. viii 20). We must, there-
fore, distinguish those special deteriorations of
nature which in their ethical causality proceed
immediately from man, from that doom of God
which was pronounced collectively upon the adamitit
cosmos. In/ correspondence wtth the above idea,
Delitzsch continues : " This curse of sin consistt

CHAP. ni. 1-24.

23G

Brslly in this, that the soil of the earth, now far
from p'l-oduoing what man. needs with its original
ease and abundance, demands painful exertion, and
this often in vain." Keil makes the point still
sharper when he says that " Adam, in the act of lis-
tening to the voice of his serpent-befooled wife, had
renounced his superiority to the creature. On this
Bccount shall nature henceforth array herself against
him for his punishment. Through his transgression
of the divine command hath he set himself against
God ; therefore shall he, by falling under the power
of death, become conscious of the vanity of his
being." Since we have recognized the conception
of blessing (chap, i.) as the conception of an endless
fertility and multiplication, as an unceasing and
wonderful reproduction, so must we here regiird the
curse that comes in as the opposite, — even as it
appears from the divine explication itself. The
doom of unthriftiness, or of mysterious self-genera-
ting unfruitfulness, as pronounced upon the adamah,
unfolds itself unitedly in the ground-forms of deteri-
oration, sicHiness, perishability ; negatively in the
ground-forms of iTnpoverishment, disorder, malform-
atioti, and decay ; positively in the forma of crudity,
coarseness, deformity, and self-destraction. This
curse is the adjustment of a causal nexus between
sin and evil in its objective, physical, cosmical
appearance. As on the one side it is a mysterious
fatality, so, on the other side, as matter of contem-
plation and conception, is it an ethical consequence.
The first ground: the negative side, the spoiling
or disordering, presents itself in the first act. — 1.
With sorrow shalt thou eat, that is, derive thy
food (see Is. i. 7). — 2. Thorns and thistles.
"I'^IT* vlp terms tliat occur in connection only here
and in Hosea x. 8, where they are repeated from
this place ; the ancient mm became obsolete, being
of like significance with n"'!!)") "i"i«ai as used in
Isaiah." Keil. In their ground type, doubtless,
thorns and thistles must have already existed be-
fore ; but it is now the tendency of nature to favor
the ignoble forms rather than the noble, the lower
rather than the higher, the weed rather than the
herb. In place of the ennobling tendency which
would produce a fruit-tree or a rose-bush out of a
thorn-shrub, or that wonderful flower of the cactus
out of the thistle, there comes in a tendency to
wildness or degeneracy which transforms the herb
into a weed. The sickliness of nature: i falling
back upon its subordinate stages, as a punishment
of man for his contra-natural falling back into a
demoniacal, bestial behavior. Here now, along with
the thorns and thistles, there is, at the same time,
the positive opposition of nature to main. In place
of the garden-culture, there is introduced not agri-
culture simply, but an agriculture which is, at the
same time, a strife with a resisting nature, and in
place of the fruit of Paradise, is man now directed
to the fruit of the field. There stands, besides, the
burden cast upon the field as an expression for the
more universal deterioration of nature, — namely, in
the animal world (see the note from Calvin cited by
Keil, p. 61). In like manner the burden cast upon
file human agriculture stands for that which is im-
posed upon every branch of the human vocation.
—3. In the sweat of thy face. An emblematical
'ienoting of the daily toil and burden of labor, even
for the necessary daily bread. It shall not merely
be earned by the sweat of the face ; the sweat shall
stind V pon his brow even in his meal ; that is, he

shall have only a brief respite for recreation. Th«
face is the most pecuhar representative of the
human dignity. It may reflect the Ught of a hoi;
spiritual life ; on the contrary, like the dark, gloam
ing shadow of distress and care, must now the sweal
veil the countenance and moisten the bread of toil
Therefore is it well said, the sweat of the face. The
eating of bread denotes here, as throughout the
Scripture, the sustaining of life jenerally, or tha
assuaging its wants (Eccles. v. 16 • Amos vii. 12).
— Till thou return unto the ground. That man
must return unto the earth, that is, must die, is now
taken for granted, and therewith it is, at the same
time, expressed, that now from the power and rule
of immortality, he has fallen under the law and rule
of death. The appointment of the time : till thou
return unto the earth, says not merely that even
to the grave his life should be pain and labor (Ps.
xc. 10), but this moreover, that it shall be a fruitless
effort for the maintaining of his existence, until at
last he shall be wholly subdued by the overpowering
might of death. — For dust thou art. This is the
culminating point in the penal sentence, expressed
nevertheless in the form of a confirmation of what
precedes: not as a new or repeated doom; since
after the threatening (oh. ii. 17), it is understood of
course. The declaration here especially makes clear
the fact that death had already secretly conimenced
in life. Knobel affirms that " neither this passage,
nor the Old Testament in general, teaches that
death belongs solely to the punishment of sin."
What else is said in Psalm xc. ? The possibility,
indeed, that Adam might become dust again, that
is, that he might die, is made clear from this, that
he was taken from the earth ; but it does not there-
fore follow that before this time the necessity of
dying must have been imposed upon him. Moreover,
the terminus in death which is here appointed, must
clearly be regarded, not as primarily the limit of
misery, but as the culminating point of the neces-
sity ; notwithstanding a ghmpse of promise presents
itself, as well in this place as throughout the differ-
ent sentences. Knobel thus explains himself further
on: "He might have gained immortality through
the tree of life (ch. ii. 9), but only as something
lying above the plane of his nature, only as some
superior excellence of the heavenly powers, just a"
it was imparted to Enoch and Elijah." So that, evi ■■
according to Knobel, when through his guilt man
lost the tree of life, he thereby fell into death.
This is just the way the text presents it, as the nor-
mal destiny of man, that he should eat of the tree
of life, and not of the tree of death. It is a per-
version of relations, when out of the conditional
posse mori we would make a conditional posse vivere.
Keil. " The fact of man's not immediately coming
to an end after eating the forbidden fruit has not its
ground in this, that through the creation of the
woman, coming between the death-threatening and
the fall, the fountain of human Ufe was parted, and
that the life which in the beginning had been shut
up in the one Adam became divided, and thereby the
deadly effect of the fruit in them was Weakened and
rendered more mild (Hofmann, ' Prophecy and Ful-
filment,' I. p. 67; 'Scripture Proof,' I. p. 619). De
litzsch seeks some rational support for this poetical
fancy, but finds the true reason in the divine long-
suffering and grace, which gives space for repent-
ance, and so rules and orders even the sins of men
and their punishment as may best serve the realiza-
tion of his counsels in creating, and the glory oi hit

240

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

name." It must, nevertheless, before all things, be
maintained, that the text would have us recognize
the beginning of death, the root of death, the inward
ethical beginning of the same, as the matter of chief
moment.

9. Vers. 20-22. The hope and the composition.
A.nd Adam called his wife's name Eve. —
Throughout the prouunciation of doom, Adam had
kept his eye fixed upon the brightest spot, the word
of promise in respect to the seed of the woman, and
"rith this he consoles himself now against the per-
ceived announcement of death, in that he names his
wife havah. Just as his own generic name had
become a proper name (v. 17) in the declaration of
punishment, so now does he give his wife a proper
name after the promise as received not only in its
generic sense but also in its deeper significance.
"According to this, n.|n=iTn is either life, (u-n
(Sept.) = life-spring, or it is to be taken as abbre-
viated participle: the sustenance, that is, propagation
of life [for njTO from n3n=n»n (ch. xix. 32, 34),
which I prefer as being more significant than yvv-q
from yii'd) and femina from feo^ although essen-
tially of like significance. Syram. ^woytJi/os." De-
litzsch. Keil declares himself for the former accep-
tation, and against the latter. Knobel hints at an
expression for the wife: 2.'TT n^n, to quicken the
seed, that is, to propagate the race, and decides for
taking it as an adjective: quickeuer, life-giver,
propagatist, which also is nearer the truth than the
indeterminate and too extensive ^wi]. In the ex-
planatory addition of the narrator, there appears to
be indicated, along with the extensive promise of the
name : mother of all living^ also the intensive :
mother of life, as mediatrix of life in the higher '
sense. With great pertinency remarks Delitzsch :
" The promise purports truly a seed of the woman.
In the very face, therefore, of the death with which
he is threatened, the wife is for Adam the security
of both, as well for the continuance, as for the
victory, of his race ,; and it is, therefore, a laying
hold of the promise and of the grace in the midst
of wrath, and with a consciousness of death incurred ;
in a word, it is an act of feith that Adam names his
wife r^in, havah — Eve." In distinction from niiix
(woman) this is a proper name which as a memorial
of promised grace, as Melanchthon calls it, expresses
the peculiar siguificance of this first of wives for
humanity and its history.— For Adam and his
wife made coats of skins. — Knobel : " Clothes
of skins, that is, clothes from the skins of beasts,
which elsewhere, throughout antiquity, were used as
the earliest human clothing (DiOD. Sic. I. p. 43 ; ii.
38 ; Aerian Ind. vii. 2 ; Lucian. Amok. 34 ; Bundeh
16 in Kleok III. p. 85). In this the clothing makes
an advance corresponding to the increasing moral
knowledge." In the connection of events our pas-
sage is explained by the fact that along with the
word of death there is introduced the immolation of
the animal for the need of man. They are on the
point of being compelled to leave Paradise ; they
xieed now a stronger clothing for their entrance upon
int climate of the outer land. And finally, in place
cf the insufficient, easily fading, and easily destroyed
cohering of their nakedness, as practised in their
self-willed, servile shame, there must now be intro-
dnced, under the divine direction, a sufficient cover-
mg, adapted to a freer and more ingenuous modesty.
In this sense it is God who makes their clothing,
ilthoush it is done bv means of their own hands

It is an act of inspiration, of divme revelation and
guidance, out of which proceeds their becoming
clothed as though from themselves. According to
Hofmann, Drechsler, Delitzsch, this clothing would
appear to be a sacramental sign of grace, a type of
the death of Christ, and of the being clothed with
the holy righteousness of the God-man (Delitzsch,
p. 192). Ked disputes this, although firmly main-
taining that in this act of God there was laid the
ground of the sacrificial offering of beasts. Tba
idea of the sacrificial offering of animals pcintR
indeed to a vast remote ; here, at least, it is an
obvious expression to the effect that the restoration
of the human dignity, purity, and divine acceptable
ness, is not too dearly bought even by the shedding
of blood, and that it presupposes a suffering of
death. It becomes necessary, moreover, that, even
before his departure from Paradise, man should see,
in the spectacle of the bleeding beasts, how serious
his history has become. — Behold the man has
become like one of us. — " That is, a, being pos-
sessed of a similar atiribute, therefore like me, so
far as I belong to the class of higher spiritual

beings." (!) Knobel. — As one of ua According

to Delitzsch the language is communicative in rela-
tion to the included angels. We are inclined here
to be satisfied with the conception of the anthropo-
morphising pluralis majestatis. But in how far has
he so become ? Only in relation to the knowledge
of good and evil, says Keil. Again, says Knobel,
" it is the commencing moral recognition, which,
therefore, makes him like God." Says Chrysostom,
he speaks this, oveihi^wv auriy Kai t7?>/ &ifoLav avTov
Koi^iaidiii' (reproaching him and mocking liis folly).
Delitzsch might find something strange in such an
irony. Richers says strongly : " Irony against an
unfortunate, seduced soul ! Satan might cherish such
a disposition, not the Lord." The opinion proceeds,
in the first place, from a misunderstanding of the
irony, as also, in the second place, of the "poor
seduced " soul. According to Goschell's more cor-
rect and profounder representation, a divine irony is
everywhere the second stage in all divine acts of
punishment (Zerstreute Blatter, vol. i. p. 468).
As the serpent had lyingly promised : ye shall be as
god.'i, so is it clear tliat God cannot simply confirm
this by saying, his promise is established. When he
serves himself, therefore, with the same words, it
must be meant ironically. That, however, irony and
malicious sarcasm are two quite distinct things, we
may learn everywhere, and out of the Scriptures
themselves. In this way the expression becomes
more distinctly clear : he hag become one like us,
that is, as we become represented in different forms
and transformations. He is become like God ; true,
alas ! God pity him, he knows now in his guilt-
consciousness the difference between good and evil.
None the less, too, in this ironic word lies the recog
nition that he has broken through the limits of his
proper development, and prematurely obtruded upon
the consciousness of the spiritual realm. — And now
lest he put forth — We do not, with Delitzsch,
regard IS as denoting an anakolouthon, since this
is not necetDary according to Isaiah xxxviii. 18 ; Job
xxxii. 13 ; and since the assumption of auakoloutha
is only allowable in cases of necessity, — a view
which is specially applicable to the simple diction ol
Genesis.* Knobel : " Jehovah is concerned, lest

* [Anakoloutha f.nd other idiomatic expressions belong
to the simple as well as to the rhetorical or animated dic-
tion. They may therefore occm- in Oenesis as wu is ii

CHAP. III. 1-24.

24

they may be able to enjoy also the tree of life, and
thereby get to themselves the farther advantage of
a higher being (immortality)," — a wholly paganish
representation of Jehovah which we have no right
to lay as a burden upon the text. Keil says better :
"After he aad become the property of death through
sin, the fruit that produces immortality could only
redound to his destruction. For, in a state of sin,
Bndyingness* is not the C^h aldvLus (the eternal life
of the soul) which God has designed for men, but
endless pain, never-ceasing destruction (everlasting
destruction), which the Scripture calls the second
death (Rev. ii. 11 ; xx. 6, 14; xxi. 8). The banish-
ment from Paradise was, therefore, a punishment
having for its aim the salvation of man, — a banish-
ment which, indeed, exposes him to temporal death,
but shall be a protection']- to him against the ever-
lasting death." Nevertheless there is overlooked by
Keil the difficulty, that there appears to be meant
such a mere physical eating from the tree of life as
would produce a physical undyingness in contradic-
tion with the spiritual state. Clearly, though sym-
bolically, is there here expressed the possibility that
even sinners, through a mysterious power of health,
may attain to a, marvellous longevity. In the full
sense of the word, the paradisaical tree of life was
lost for man. " But the tree of life," says Delitzsoh,
" which takes away the death-power of the tree of
knowledge, is already sown in, and with, the pro-
claiming of the prot-evangel."

10. Vers. 23, 24. Therefore the Lord God

Bent him forth His new state has also a mission,

and before there is mention made of his being driven
out of Paradise, is his new tiisk laid before him. He
is sent forth quickly to cultivate the ground from
which he was taken, and as the earth had borne him,
60 must it now nourish him, and as he had his origin
his physical origin) from her, so must he now serve
ner, and, in the dust of the ground which he culti-
vates, have his birth and his future home ever before
Ms eyes. I'er crucem ad lucem is now the watch-
word.— And he drove out the man Eastward

of Eden God places the cherubim ; on the eait,

laaiali or Job. The objection of anthropomorphism is to
be disregarded. It is in just such forms of speech that the
Btrength of language is brought out. The ellipsis shows
that the thought is too great, or too strong, for the words.
There is more force in the simple particle '(S {.iRst^heware
2ejf) than in the fullest or most correctly guarde< i diction.
The cases cited, Isaiah xxxvi. 18, aud Job xxxii. 13, are of
the same kind, aud instead of beiug opposed to, confirm the
propriety of calling it an anakolouthon, or rather, an aposi-
OpeEiia, or expressive silence, here. — T. L.]

* r"We prefer this apparently uncouth Anglo-Saxon coin-
ing, lor Lange's unsterblichkeit, instead of the word immor-
lality, which, although etymologically the same, has, in
general, obtained too high and spiritual a sense to suit the
idea intended. This is especially the case in our English
ersion of such passages as 1 Cor. xv. 53, 54 ; 1 Tim. vi. 16 ;
*'here it is used for the Greek a.daLvao-ia.—T. L.]

t[In view of this position of Lange and Keil, the an-
hropomorphic expression of the divine solicitude by the
elliptical particle "jS becomes perfectly startling. It is as
though the thought of the awful consequences of one in
«nch a state of death eating of the tree of life, and thereby
making his ruin irreparable, or his death incurable, was so
Bverpowering as to hide for a moment iironi the divine mind
the consciousness of his perfect foreknowledge. As though
the thought had suddenlj^ occurred, and with it a sense of
foe awful danger— What if he should put forth his hand [
And now lest he put forth his hand in some rash moment
as he put it forth to the tree of knowledge I And then the
remedy promptly follows, that there may be no delay in
preventing a catastrophe that would have been greater than
the other, even as making it remediless. Take away the
Ulthropomor})hism3 from the Bible, aud a large share of
ta powiir is dcstriyed.— T. L.)

16

therefore, we must hold to have been the d^^parture
of man from Paradise. Nevertheless, they did not
leave the district Eden ; " Cain was the first who did
that (ch. iv. 16)." Knobel. First of all, then, is tu
be noted here, the distinction of a twofold guard of
Paradise : the cherubim and the flammg sword ; also,
that the meaning is not the cherubLu with the flam
ing sword in hand (Knobel), although there are places,
sometimes, in which the Hebrews use the connective
Vau (and) where we would expect the prepositi.in
with. In the interpretation of the cherubim, there is
to be first kept in view the Bible analogies, before
taking into account the mythological analogies.
When now the cherubim make their appearance,
further on, in the two golden cherub-forms which
hovered over the ark of the covenant (Ex. xxv. 18 ;
xxxvii. 7), and which also appear in the temple of
Solomon, only in greater proportions (1 Kings vi
23 ; viii. 6), though not fourfold (as is maintained by
Biblical Dictionary for Christian People) — we must
call to mind the command of God, Ex. xx. 4, so as
not to be led away by the idea that they are images
of some peculiar kind of heavenly angels, as Hof-
mann, Delitzsch, Niiglesbach, and Kurtz have sup-
posed, in opposition to Biihr, Hengstenberg, Haver-
nik, and others. How would the images of heavenly
angels figure here as guardians of the command :
" Thou Shalt not make to thyself any likeness of any-
thing that is in heaven above." These two ceremo-
nial cherub-forms were winged ; their wings hovered
over the ark of the covenant, and their faces, as they
stood opposite to each other, looked down upon the
covering of the ark, Ex. xxv. 20, or the mercy-seat,
whilst between them appeared the shekinah of Jeho-
vah's presence (Lev. xvi. 2; Num. vii. 89). Their
form is not more particularly described; like the
most holy place itself, they appear to have previously
belonged to the mysteries of the people. We have
here presented to us in worship the first unfolding
of the paradisaical form. Just as these cherubim
guarded Paradise, with the tree of life that was there-
in, and protected them from the approach of sinners,
so do the cherubim watch and guard the holy place
of God's personal presence, or of the appearing of
Jehovah, especially the mercy-seat, and the essential
unity of the law that was comprehended in it. The
sinner is parted from the tree of life. There is the
same meaning here ; he is separated from the behold-
ing of God, from the full enjoyment of his mercy, and
from the possession of the essential life of the law,
that is, the righteousness that avails with God. In
this sense are they called, Heb. ix. 5, cherubim of
glory, 5(i{i7s. The poetical and didactic references to
the cherubim, Ps. xviii. 1 1 ; Ixxx. 2 ; xoix. 1 ; civ. 4 ;
Is. xxxvii. 16, form the transition to the fully devel-
oped prophetic, apocalyptic symbohcal of the cheru-
bim, as we find it in Ezek. i. 10 ; x. 4 ; xli. 18 ; and
in Kev. iv. 6; v. 6-14; vi. 1-7; vii. 11; xiv. 3;
XV. 7 ; xix. 4. The passage, Ps. xviii. 10, 11, appears
to have the highest significance in respect to the sym-
bolical of the cherubim. Jehovah comes down the
heavens, it says — the dark cloud beneath his 'eet^
Next, 31"3"bs 33"l1i1, he rode upon a cherub. God
rides, therefore, upon the storm-driven thunder-cloud,
as upon his chariot. On this account, we hold that
that derivation of the word is the right one which
brings 3113 in closest connection with ^ST to ride,
and regards the word as formed by a metathesis of
letters* from 3!i3"1 = 3D"i chariot, team, and not

* (As far as etymology is concerned, Dr. Lange, we think,

242

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

from a>llp gui Deo propinguus eat, ei adsiat, nor as
the same with the ypiipei of the Persians, as very
generally held (see Gesenius' Lexicon). Since here,
at all events, the swift-moving thunder-clouds appear
BS the chariot of God, and very significantly, too, in
the singular, so also, the fact must not be over-
looked, that, in connection with this cherub, there is
mention of the wrath of God, of the consuming fire
that goeth out of his mouth, of the glowing flames
that burn before him, of the fire-flash, of the burning
coals, God's arrows, and finally, of the lightning. To
this we may add the passage, Ps. civ. 4, where it is
said, and in fact with special reference to the creative
history : Who maketh the winds his messengers, the
flames of fire his servants. Keeping this in view,
that the cherubim have their nature = symbols in
wind and cloud, and present themselves in connec-
tion with the flames of the Ughtning, we get light
upon the dark passage respecting the cherubim, Is.
vi. 1, as seen in the analogies of Scripture. That the
seraphim, which appear here in the train of Jehovah,
are likewise symbolical angel-forms, is evident from
their configuration itself, wherein they appear as en-
dowed with six wings, an arrangement which evi-
dently has a symbolical significance. That, more-
ever, they are not to be regarded in connection with
the serpents mentioned Numb. xxi. 6, appears from
the fact, that these have their nanae simply from the
burning poison. Neither can they (to say nothing
of the groundless identification of the name with
D^'lil} principes, nohiles) mean the burning, the skin-
inff, according to Kiuchi and others ; for tl^iu does
not mean to bum, to shine, but to scorch, to burn up,
cremare. comburere. When we consider that in ch. vi.
Isaiah does not set forth his general prophetic inau-
guration, but his special calling to denounce the ob-
duracy of the people, and to set before them the
judgments that must follow, we understand how it is
that he sees the appearance of Jehovah in the tem-
ple, and in the midst of the seraphim or burning an-
gels, whilst he feels the door-sills of the temple trem-
ble at their call, and beholds the house filled with
smoke. The meaning is, that in spirit he anticipates
the future burning of the temple as the infliction of
Jehovah's judgment. In Ps. Ixxx. 2, it is said : 0
shepherd of Israel, appear, thou that sittesf above
the cherubim, awake thy power. The cherubim,
therefore, are symbols of the actual putting forth of
the divine authority. To this corresponds, too, the
expression, Ps. xcix. 1 : He sitteth above the cheru-
bim, therefore does the world tremble. WhoUy in a
similar sense does Hezekiah, in his extreme neces-
sity, call upon Jehovah as the one who rules over all
kingdoms, when he addresses him as Jehovah Saba-

Is wrong here. Such a metathesis, although it seems simple,
would be contrary to clear phonetic principles. Had the gut-
tural come first, it would have lieen more plausible, but such
a syllable as "IT irak) would hardly pass into HD (kar) Be-
sides, the primary sense of ^D"l is not riding nor motion at
all, hutposiUon — superposiUon, from whence comes the other
idea, as secondary or implied. This is most clearly shown
in the same word in the Arabic and Syriac, although it quite
plainly appears also in the Hebrew. It is far more easy and
natural to derive the name m^D, not from anything in the
lorm or of&ce of the cherubim, but from their being remark-
able engraved figures, hence called pre-eminently the engrav-
inge. See the account of these representations in the tem-
ple of Solomon. This would biing them very naturally from
m D , the sense of which in the Syriac is, to plough, cut, en-
frave. It is then, clearly, the same root with the Greek
ypaip— grave— QRP, Lat. SCO Hi Bo). They are the re-
orarkable forms, figures, sculptures — engravings.— T. L.]

oth, the God of Israel, who sitteth above the cheru-
bim. In Ezekiel, the cheruuim are denoted in strong
symbolical, allegorical forms, no longer as angels,
but as ni'n , (d>a, living things (Luther: beasts)
Moreover, in Ezekiel x. there are again set forth in
coimection with the cherubim, the coals of fi^e that
are to be cast over the city. And, finally, in the tem-
ple of Ezekiel, do we find the cherubim again as the
key-note for the symbolical destruction of the tern
pie (ch. xh. 18). We have in Ezekiel the cheiubim
figures especially set forth in their full development
(man, the lion, the ox or bullock for sacrifice, and
the eagle), whilst in the Revelation they are recog-
nized as the ground-forms of the divine ruling in the
world, as symbolized in the four ground-form^ of the
creaturely hfe(3ee "Life of Jesus," i. p. 2Z4, Dogma-
tik, p. 608). If any one is disposed to regard these
as the ground- brms of the spiritual life in the world,
because the beasts bear up the throne of the divine
rule in the world, or because, according to the anal-
ogy of the Apocalypse, they pray unto God, there is
no objection to be made to it. But they are not thus
denoted as containing the idea of the highest crea-
turely life. Thus also here, in accordance with all
the related places of Scripture, must we firmly hold
fast the view that the cherubim are only symbolical
angel-forms ; as we must also distinguish the sera-
phim everywhere from personal angels ; although in
the manifestation of the cherubim, there was disclosed
to the first men a glimpse of the angel-world. As
symbolical forms, they must be here regarded as ap-
pointed to form a permanent post of watching, in
order to keep men from approaching Paradise, and
especially the tree of life. When we perceive the
fact that the cherubim everywhere form the accom-
panying guard and watch of the divine throne, we
are undei- the necessity of bringing Paradise also, and
especially the tree of Ufe, which they are appointed
to guard, in special relation to this throne. Thereby
may it be explained how Jacob says : " I have seen
God face to face, and my fife is preserved (Gen. xxxii.
SO), — also how the beholding of God especially brings
death, because it is through death that the highest
life is attained (Ex, xxxiii. ii) ; Ps. xvi. 11 ; xvii. 15 ;
1 John iii, 2 ; and the history of the visions. Is. vi. 5 ;
Dan. vii. 1.5; viii. 17; Rev. i. 17). The cloud and
pillar of fire which led the children of Israel through
the desert was also a sign of the presence of God, as
well as a dividing between the glory of God and sin-
ful men ; in other words, it was the guard that kept
off from the divine glory the profane entrance and
the profane look. For that reason, it seems to stand
in connection with the cherubim of the ritual sym-
bolic, as it is connected with the cherubim and sera-
phim of the rehgious symbolic, view.

The mythological analogies of the cherubim fig-
ures are, in fact, most striking. " On the mountains
north of India," says Knobel, '' or, in general, in the
region of the mountain and Eden of God, do the
ancients (e. g. Ktesias, Judea, xii ; Akrtan, Hiit.
Anim. iv. 27 ; compare also Philostkat., Vit. Apoll.
iii. 48) place thefabulous griffins, which they describe
as feathered beings with lions' claws, the wings and
beaks of eagles, flaming eyes, &c., — making them
the guardians of the gold that thei e abounds. Oth-
ers refer them to the higher North, to the Arimas-
pian country, describing them partly in a similai
manner, and setting them forth as watchers of .the
gold, e. g. Herod., iv. 13, 27; jEsoh., From. 8(i4
Padsan., &c. — Of these stories the author proliabll
had some knowledge, as also of the gold land d

CHAP. III. 1-2 1

243

HaTilab, which he mentions." Delitzsch cites besides
the Persian stories, according to which 99,999 Fer-
rers (that is, a countless number) keep watch over the
tree horn, which contains in itself the power of the
-esurrectlon. In regard to the connection between
ihe Bible tradition and this legend, Delitzsch regards
«s_ significant the comparison (Ezek. xxviii. 14) of the
king of Tyre to the protecting cherub with its out-
spread wings. This comparison, however, has its
ground simply in the fact that the history of the
king ol Tyre is presented in analogy with the history
of the fall in Eden. Delitzsch supposes that the ap-
pearance of the analogous legends which have come
down to us, has its origin in this, that humanity, as
It went forth in tribes, ever spreading farther and
farther asuud^.r. took along the representation of the
cherubs fron> the ancestral home, and continually
made mythological additions to it. It appears to us,
nevertheless, that the analogies of the griffin legends
are only apparent, since there is a great difference
between the idea of a lost tree of life, and that of
gold mines which may yet become the booty of man-
kind. The story of the tree horn may be very easily
coimected with the later Persian legends, which may
be referred back to the Hebrew traditions rather
than to any early and universal tradition of Paradise
— to say nothing of Knobel's opinion, that the He-
brew idea of the cherubim, so consistently maintained,
should be explained from the very indefinite form of
the Greek legend of the griffins. In our opinion, the
Btory of Prometheus has much more of an inner re-
lationship to the Paradise history. To conclude, as
Keil remarks on the chapter before us : " With the
banishment from the Garden of Eden, Paradise, as
far as men were concerned, disappeared from the
earth. God did not withdraw from the tree of fife
its supernatural power, neither did he lay waste the
garden before their eyes, but he guarded it against
their return, to indicate that it must be preserved and
permanently guarded to the time of the consumma-
tion, when sin should be destroyed through judg-
ment, death taken away by the conqueror of the ser-
pent (1 Cor. XV. 26), and the tree of life grow again
and bear fruit upon the new earth of the heavenly
Jerusalem (Rev. xx. 21)." This is clearly a right
symbolical understanding. And yet we must not
lose sight of the historical fact, that for sinful man
the central and collective power of health in nature,
as in a still higher sense the beholding of God, is,
through sin, and through the divine judgment, hid-
den and vanished, though not absolutely lost. The
individual man, hke the collective humanity, may in
many ways draw nigh to Paradise ; but he is ever
driven back as by a divine tempest and fiery judg-
ment to the outer field of labor, of conflict, and of
death. Not backwards must he look, but ever
onwards.

DOCTEINAI AND ETHICAI,.

1. Tfi£ meaning of the narrative of the lost
Paradise. Like the biblical histories everywhere,
and especially the primitive traditions of Genesis, it
is an histoiioal fact to be taken in a religious ideal,
that is, a symbolical form. It is just as little a mere
ullegory as the human race itself is a mere allegory.
It is just as little a pure, naked fact, as the speaking
of the serpent is a literal speaking, or as the tree
of life, in itself regarded, is a plant whose eating
imparted imperishable life. That sin began with the
beginning of the race, that the first sin had its origin

in a forbidden enjoyment of nature, and not in th»
Cainitic fratricide or similar crimes, that the origit
of human sin points back to the beginning of th(
human race, that the woman was ever more se
ducible than the man, that along with sin came ir.
the tendency to sin, consciousness of guilt, aliena
tion from God, and evil in general, — all these art
affirmations of the religious historical consciousnesu
which demand the historicalness of our tradition,
and would point back to some such fact, even though
it were not written in Genesis. It is then the actual
historical influences of our narration, in their world-
historical significance, which wholly distinguish it
from a myth. The symbolical understanding of the
history appears in this, that the universal existence
of sin, of the fall, and of the fall of every individual,
are reflected in it. Here come especially into con
sideration; 1. The various mythological analogie£
of the biblical tradition of the fall. 2. The various
exegetical understandings of the Jewish and the
Christian theology. 3. Modern interpretations.

1. In respect to the mythological analogies, com-
pare LiJCKEN, " The Traditions of the Human Race,"
p. 74 n., having the superscription : La chute de
VhoTnme degenere est le fondement de la tkeologie de
presque toufes les anciennes nations Voltaire,
Philos. de I'hist. In the first place, Lticken shows
why it is that the heathen legends respecting these
facts must present themselves as transformations.
Then follow, first the legends of the old Persians.
" According to the Zendavesta, or the sacred writ-
ings of the old Persians, the peoples of this race,
namely the old Medes, Persians, and Bactrians, as
well as all the Indogermanic peoples, had primarily
the doctrine of four ages of the world. In the first,
which lasted 8,000 years, the world was without evil,
and Ormuzd, the good principle, reigned alone; in
the second, Ahriman began the conflict with Or-
muzd ; in the third he divides with him the domin-
ion ; in the fourth he is apparently to gain the
victory, then to be subdued, after which is to follow
the burning of the world. To the universal legend,
how Ahriman brings death to Rajomord, the first
man, there is attached the special story of the fall
of the Meschia and the Meschiane (p. 81). So the
Indian legends also number four ages. The myth-
ical Indian tendency has presented the fall in mani-
fold myths, as well Brahminic as Buddhistic. Here-
upon follow the Chinese legends, the Grecian legends
(the Hesiodic ages of the world: the golden, the
silver, the brazen, the iron, the Titan legend, the
Prometheus legend, the Tantalus legend), then the
Romish legends (the ancient time of Saturn), the
Germanic legends (the gold thirst, the fall of Asen,
to which may be added the admittance of Lock into
the Asenbund, death of Baldur, and other similar
things), then .^Egyptian legends, as also those of th«
Negroes, of the polar nations, of the Iroquois, of
the Mexicans, &c., &c." In conclusion, there is a
treatise on the dominion of the demons, the origin
of sorcery and idolatry, concerning woman and her
place in heathendom, the restoration to pardon of
the first men. In a shorter method, Delitzsch gives
an account of the myths in relation to the fall, p.
169, Knobel, p. 40. — 2. Exegetical understanding
of the Jewish and the Christian theology. " It was
a universally prevailing opinion among the Jews
that Satan was active in the temptation of the first
men. This is found in Philo, and in the ' Book of
Wisdom,' ch. ii. 24 : ' through envy of the devil
came sin jnto the world.' In later J twisti writinp'

244

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Sammael, the head of the evil spirits, is called
''limpn liinsn , the old serpent, because he tempted
Eve in the form of a serpent, or irnj (the serpent)
alone (compare the places in Eisknmenger, ' Reve-
.ation of Judaism,' i. p. 822)." Hengstenbeeq,
" Christology," i. p. 7. It must nevertheless be ob-
Berved, that even among the Jews there bad already
come in a twofold conception of this history of the
temptation. Philo {De Mundi Opificio) saw in the
serpent an allegory of the evil lust (^Soft)). In the
Bame manner does Maimonides interpret the place
allegorically ; whilst Josephus understands the
speaking of the serpent as a proper speaking, and
other Jews again are inclined to see in the serpent
an apparent form merely of Satan himself Abar-
banel and others connect a directly seductive ad-
dress of Satan to the woman with the fact of his
winding himself about the tree, and tasting of its
fruit. Cyril of Alexandria supposes the serpent to
have been only an assumed outward appearance of
Satan, whilst Basil, Chrysostom, Augustine, and, in
general, the later fathers, regard Satan as having
served liimself of the serpent, and spoken through
him. The inclination of the Alexandrians to an
allegorizing interpretation continues in a progressive
measure, in the school of the Gnostics, namely,
among the Ophites (see MijLLER, " History of Cos-
mology," p. 190), and in like manner in the inter-
pretations of the later mystics and theosophists.
According to Grotius, Moses found the narration
before us in the form of an ancient poem. Clericus
is inclined to agree witli those who hold that the
serpent did not actually speak, but only eat of the
fruit before the eyes of Eve, and that with this was
connected the temptation of- Satan (as Abarbanel
maini.ains) ; but it appears to him that in re obscura
tutisfiima ingenua ignoi'aniitE confessio. Concerning
the modern views, an account is given by the author
of the article " Sin," in Herzog's "Real Encyclope-
die," as follows : The tempter is the devil (John
viii. 44 ; Rev. xii. 9 ; Book of Wisdom, ii. 24), who
used the serpent as his instrument (2 Cor. xi. S) ;
the serpent is, therefore, neither alone active as
such (T. Miiller, Schenkel), nor is he an incorpora-
tion of Satan (Gerhardt, Philippi), nor the mere
emblem of the cosmical principle (Martensen). The
influence of Satan upon men was by way of dialogue,
wherein the peculiar nature of the serpent was taken
advantage of and with which his alluring motions
may have cooperated (Hengstenberg, Thomasius,
Delitzsch, Ebrard), not a mere physical influence in
that the unrecognized voice of Satan like a vision-
reflection passed over upon the serpent (in which
case the speaking serpent would have been merely a
symbolical figure), nor something at the time unob-
served by the first formed men, but afterwards, in
the later recollections of the tradition, taken for
Satanic influence (Hofmann). The tree of knowledge
of good and evU is neither a poison-tree (Reinhard,
Doderlein, Morue) nor otherwise a tree of knowledge
of good and evil in such special sense that the
consequences of the enjoyment must have been an
intoxication, a disturbance of the pure equilibrium
in the harmony of the first man (Lange), nor a
mystical tree wliose fruit, for the one who enjoys it,
is the reception of evil into his being, and therewith
the knowledge of good and evU (Martensen), nor an
emblem of the world darkened to the perdition of
death, in its false influence upon man (Schenkel),
but — an ordinary tree, which had -te significance

only thrimgh the command of God." In this dry
idealless positivism must such an understandina
come to its stop. We must, however, distinguish
at present three or four principal views: 1. Tho
traditional, orthodox, popular representation, ac
cording to which the serpent, under the influence of
Satan, literally spoke, or Satan, in fact, in the
appearance of the serpent-form. 2. The Gnottic
allegorical, farther developed into the mythical
allegoric, and, in fact, at one time in a sense akin U)
Ophitism (the view of Hegel, according to Delitjsch,
p. 171), and again, in a more churchly and ethiiaj
sense. 3. The connection of the definite dialectical
speaking of Satan with corresponding motions of the
serpent, such as its eating the fruit. 4. An influence
of Satan, exemplified in acts of the serpent, inca-
pable of being farther defined, and thus becoming
a dialogue through the visionary or ecstatic condi-
tion of the woman. This is our view {Dogmatic^ p
439), for the understanding of which there must b<'
previously an insight into the essential nature of thii
visionary state of soul. In respect to the design
of our narration, there are, in like manner, various
views presented. According to Beegee (" Prao
tical introduction to the Old Testament, continued
from Augusti "), who is disposed to see here, not
the history of the first men generally, but only thai
of an ancestor of the Abrahamitic race (a hereditaiy
legend, in fact, of the family of Abraham, which pre-
supposes an already previous longer existence of
humanity ; Kains, Ackerbau, Stadtbau), the most
usual decision in respect to the aim of our narration
is that which regards it as containing a doctrine oj
the origin of evil. As a modification of this view,
however. Pott sets forth the proposition that its aim
is to represent the transition from the golden to the
silver age. For the old narrator this is much too
general a view. If he intended, which is the most
likely, something more than narrating merely for the
sake of thp story, — in other words, if he meant also
to teach us something along with it, then his purpose
could have been nothing else than to show how man
may have been led into transgression, and what
consequences it must have had (i. p. 55). According
to the Jerusalem Targum, Eichhorn, and Paulus,
the design of our narration was to paint the loss of
the golden age, whilst Von Bohlen, Hegel, Knobel,
and others, in exact accordance with the Gnostic
Ophites, would represent it as an advance (an ad-
vance, indeed, attended by calamities) from the state
of savage beastliness. The. representation clearly
presents itself as the religious symbolical primeval
history of humanity, holding the key of all history
that follows it, according to the contrast of the
fall and the resurrection, or of sin and death, as
also redemption and renovation, whilst it gives the
ground for the unveiling of the demon and angel-
world, as the appointed means for introducing the
deepest understanding of the history of the kingdom
of God. According to its most peculiar key-note,
it is a representation of the beginning of the king-
dom of grace. For a catalogue of the modern
literature in respect to the difierent interpretations
of the fall, see Beetschneidee, " Systematic Devel
opment," n. p. 520.

2. ITie Probation- Tree, the Probation a.^ lh»
Temptation. " The Rabbiris and Mohammedans un-
derstood by the probation-tree, the vine ; the Gre
clan church fathers understood it of the fig-tree;
the Latins, in the first place, of the apple. The tree
hom plays the same part in the Zendavesta. Thi

CHAP. HI. 1-24.

249

Hindoos epcak of a knowledge and creation tree,
the Tibetans of a sweet, wViitish herb, or marrow,
from the enjoyment of which originated the feeling
of shame, and the custom of wearing clothes." Von
Bohlen. We have elsewhere alluded to the analogy
betwesn the falling into sin of the second ancestor
Noah, vho became intoxicated by the fruit of the
vine, and in consequence thereof lay in his naked-
ness, and the falling into sin of the primitive ances-
tor who became aware of his nakedness after eating
of the forbidden fruit. This analogy does not justify
i:s iu concluding that it was the vine, but some other
fruit, perhaps, whose effect, for the first men, was
too strong, being of an intoxicating or disturbing
nature. If we do not find in that unknown fruit
some immanent ground of the divine command, it is
clear that we must adopt the idea of a purely arbi-
trary ordinance. Nature itself is, indeed, and in the
most general sense, a tree of probation for man ;
this pecuharity of it has always had its special types,
and there are yet various probation trees for different
nations — such as opium, hashisch, the coco plant,
etc. So Beyer, in his sermon on the History of the
Primitive World (p. 90), takes the contrast between
the tree of life and the tree of probation to consist
in this, that the first, although it had not the power
to make men ever healthy and young, possessed,
nevertheless, a healing and strengthening efficiency
(inalogous to similar medicine trees), whilst the pro-
bation-tree was, in these respects, the opposite. He
supposes it, indeed, without any ground, to have
been a poison-tree ; — without any ground, we say,
for the human race is not poisoned corporeally, but
distempered and disordered physically through an
ethical consequence of its effects. Besides this, the
probation-tree is distinguished from the serpent, as
the probation from the temptation. The probation
is from God, as the temptation is from the evil
one. The probation, along with the demand for
watchfulness, presents an alternative for the good.
The temptation increases the danger of the alterna-
tive with an instigation to the evil. The probation
has in view that man should be on his guard ; it is
intended to lay the ground of his normal develop-
ment. The temptation has in view the fall of man ;
its purpose is to entice him into an abnormal devel-
opment, or rather, entanglement. Since the time
that sin is in the world, has each probation also in
itself the force of a temptation, because there is
added to it the enticement to sin on the part of the
devil, the world, and one's own peculiar evil lusts. In
this sense of probation can it be said God tempted
Abraham. And just on this account is it that the sins
of a man already perpetrated become for him a tempt-
ation to future crimes ; therefore do we pray : Lead
us not into teniptatioa Moreover, the hereditary
sm is itself one greaj universal temptation, which
lies as a load upon the human race. From all this
it follows that the temptation which was added to
the first probation of man came not from God, nei-
ther from any physical creature, and just as Uttle
from anything within the soul of innocent man, but
solely from a malignant spirit. In this fact, how-
ever, lie two consequential inferences : the first that
there are spirits besides men endowed with reason (the
»agel -world), the second that in this spirit-world there
SBust have been already a fall preceding that of man.

3. The Serpent and Satan. The former has
hijea thus described : '' The serpent, a beast like to
uj embodied thunderbolt that has had its origin in
the deepest night, parti-colored, painted like fire, as

black and dark as n.ght, its eyes like glowing sparky
its tongue black, yet cloven like a flame, its jaws i
cliasm of the unknown, its teeth fountains of ^ enom,
the sound of its mouth a hiss. Add to this the
strange and wonderful motion, ever striving like a
flash to quiver, and like an arrow to flee, were it not
hindered by its bodily organization. It appearj
among the beasts like a condemned and fallen angel;
in the heathen world of false gods, it hath found,
and still finds, ever, awe and adoration ; its subtlety
has become a byword, its name a naming of Satan,
whilst the popular feeling, even now, as in all times
past, connects a curse and an exorcism with its ap-
pearance." F. A. Kehmmaoher, " Paragraphs for the
Holy History " (p. 65). In this splendid painting there
is left out the brutal clumsiness and obtuseness of the
serpent which stand in such remarkable contrast
with its mobility and its guite. (See R. Snell, " Phi-
losophical Observations of Nature," Dresden, 1839.)
MespectiTig th£ presence and the significance of poison
in nature. '* There are, in inorganic nnture, a class
of substances which destroy life, not through any
mechanical injury and rending, but rather by insinu-
ating themselves smoothly and gently into the or-
gans of the living thing ; — thus forcing their way in
with a subtle and malignant power, ttiey invade the
life in its most interior and invisible laboratories,
throwing into disorder all their functions, and there-
by bringing in sickness and most painful death.
And so, too, are there beasts that never attack their
foe with plain and open weapons, killing the organs
by mechanically breaking them up ; but, on the other
hand, with weapons concealed, underhand, sly-dart-
ing, and apparently weak, seem to inflict only a
slight injury upon their foe, and, in fact, to be only
playing with him, whilst, at the same time, through
this insignificant hurt introducing a horrible power
of destruction, ever inwardly growing, until finally
it breaks out in tormenting sickness, and ends in c
wretched death. These beings and products of na
ture which thus destroy life, not mediately through
an outer breaking of its parts and organs, but by a
hostile efiect upon the very life functions, and
which, consequently, must possess an enmity directly
aiming at the life itself, — we denote by the name of
poisonous^^ — " Schuljert has well remjirked, that
the poisonous beasts are beings that appear to be
placed ambiguously and doubtfully between two
otherwise quite distinct classes, each of which, in
their own sphere, present a distinct, perfect, and free
individuality. In such middle beings there neces-
sarily lies a striving for a higher form, though ever
cleaving to the lower. Thus shows itself in them,
often, an aberration from an otherwise sound natu-
ral tendency, whilst their very enjoyment is, for the
most part, attended with pain and disgust. On their
bodily side they exhibit a nature, ever, in some re-
spects, infirm and sickly, and never rightly attaining
to repose." — " It is not to be wondered at, there-
fore, that in the collected organism of nature, as well
as in individual creatures, there comes in, at the tran-
sition point, an infirm, ambiguous organization, inter-
penetrated by evil fluids, which are able to inocu-
late other creatures with the malady of their own
confusion and disorder. And this is nothing else
than poison. Since each poison is a sensible sub-
stance, or so presented, which has become an origi-
nal cause of disease." Under this point of view the
author now treats of arsenic, of mercury, of prussit
acid, of spiders, and of snakes. " All poisonous ani
mals carry with them a sluggish, and apparentb

246

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOCK OF MOSES.

loathing life. The most of them seldom or never
!et themselves in motion towavda the object of their
passion, although there is no failure in them, either
of strength or swiftness, when they let out upon
.heir prey. This strong contrast of sluggish rest and
ingry vehemence, produces upon us the impression
of some irreconcilable biformity in their nature.
They are lurking beasts, lying in the darkest and
most unclean recess. Along with this they seem
rjspecially to love the damp and mouldy place where
death riots. Thus, for example, do the rattlesnakes
love to lay themselves behind some foul stump,
whilst others seek the old mouldy wall, or the pile
of ruins, or the foul dusty comer. It is worth re-
marking that almost all of them have for the lower
organization of the belly a greatly disproportioned
extension, whilst, on the other hand, the breast and
heart, or the organs that correspond to these, are
shrivelled and contracted. In the most dangerous
and most poisonous among them, the last trace of
any interior breast formation has disappeared, whilst
they show not the least rudiments of any shoulder
hones. We see them dart with fury upon their
prey, then laboring under it with infinite pain and
distress, whilst for each gorging they pay with fee-
bleness and torpidity. In this condition they gaze
around them stupid and blear-eyed, whilst they suffer
themsels-es to be killed with sticks without making
any deft-nce." — " These giant serpents, the crocodiles
and the alligators, have generally, and in an extraor-
dinary degree, the look of a fonner world. They are
tlie Titans that, under the dominion of the new cre-
ated race of gods, are thrust down into the deep,
and into darkness, whence many a time still there
spits forth the fire of their rage. The croaking of
the frogs, the grunting of the toads, the shrill sharp
piping of the lizard, the hiss of the serpent, give
none of them any special conception of the emotions
of which they are the expression. The serpents are
without doubt the most wonderful, and, so to speak,
the most like fable, of any beings of the present cre-
ation." Next follows the depicting of the singular
contrasts in the nature of the serpent : its rude ele
mentary form and its fine, spiritual expression, its
subtle look, which never carries itself out in action,
its enchantment or fascination of its prey, and its
capability of becoming transported whilst itself in a
state of fascination and torpidity (p. 6V, etc.). (See
the above remarks and the article '* Serpent," by
WiNEE, Worterbuch filr das Christliche Volk. —
Satan. Between the two contradictory suppositions,
one of which is that our text recognizes only a tempt-
ation of the serpent, but not, at all, of any evil
spirit expressing itself through it, and the other, rep-
resenting it to contain a full knowledge of Satan,
lies the hypotbesB that corresponds to the idea of
an organic unfolding of biblical doctrine ; it is, that
we have here the first germ of the doctrine of Satan,
as we also have before us the first germ of a soteri-
ological Christology — that is, of a Christ of salva-
tion. Both germs are throughout placed in a re-
markable relation to each other ; the destroyer of
the serpent is announced in the seed of woman.
But the actual conscious knowledge, which is here
expressed in a symbolical form, consists in this, that
it represents the serpent as a malignant spirit, crafty,
lying, and rejoicing in mischief, who shows himself,
and will continue to show himself, the foe of man
and the foe of God. Concerning the farther devel-
opment of tht doctrine of Satan, see the exegetical
annotations.

4. The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness ai
antetype of the temptation of Adam in Paradise.

5. The Origin of Sin. Our text gives us the
ground of supposing, in the first place, a distinct ori-
gin of sin, in opposition to the system which would
make the origin of sin to happen concurrently with
the initial constitution of human nature itself. It
gives ns occasion to distinguish a threefold origin of
sin; 1. The cosmical-demonic ; 2. the physiological
genesis of sin ; 3. the Adamic-historical. 1. Evident-
ly is the first human sin to be referred back to a pre-
ceding demoniacal temptation ; therefore, also, to «
preceding demoniacal sin, and accordingly, too, to an
earlier fall in the spirit-world. Nevertheless, the
essential origin of sin is not thereby explained, for
there comes up the further question : how sin origin-
ated in the spirit-world ? According to the Apocry-
phal books, the essential root of sin is mainly pride,
67rfp7)0aj'ia, which is always an assuming of a false
god, that is, of idolatry. (This is expressed some-
what obscurely. Wisdom of Sirach, i. 15 : apxv Imep-
7i<pai'ias afiap-Tia. Book of Wisdom, xiv. 12; v. 27 ;
apxT] iropi-etas 4irit/ota etSctiAaiv. — ri yap ruv a.v(Mvvixtav
elSwAoiv ^pT](TK€ia iraprb^ apy-j) KaKov Kat alr'ia. Ka\
■jripas i(TTii>). According to this the first motive to
the leading astray, through temptation or seduction,
was envy (Book of Wisdom, ii. 24). With this agrees
also, 2. the psychological origin of sin as our text
brings it before us. It certainly does not commit
itself to the crude, elementary representation, that the
beginning of sin is to be explained from any over
balance of sensuality or materiality. The process of
sin's development proceeds from a spiritual self
disordering, wherein doubt, together with self-exalta-
tion, constitutes the ground-form which developk
itself into an enviously malignant pride, and unbe-
Uef, that it may become complete in superstition and
sensual concupiscence, in lawlessness and seduction.
Concerning the ground-form of sin, how it degener-
ates from the demoniacal into the bestial, from the
spiritual self-exaltation to the sensual self-degrada-
tion, see Lakge's Dogmatik, p. 43'7. But our text,
moreover, 3. would recognize the psychological com-
pletion of sin, regarded as the historical begiiming
of the same in the human world. This is proved by
the continuation of the first sin in the guilt-con-
sciousness of the first man, by his self-deception and
self-hardening, by his exculpations and his crimina-
tions. Most fully is it shown in the announcement
of the confiict between the seed of the serpent and
the seed of the woman, in the banishment of man
from Paradise, and in the fratricidal murder of Cain,
that follow so soon after. Confronted by the sim-
ple greatness and clearness of our tradition of the
genesis of sin, stand the most diversely varying
views, such as the doctrine of the pre-existent ghfjst-
ly fall into sin (Plato, Origen, Schelling, Steifens,
J. Miiller), of the pre-existent corporeal sinfulness
(Rationalism, R. Rothe), of the idealistic origin of
the conception of sin in the element of repentance
(Schleiermacher), or in th« element of the advancing
consciousness (Hegel), or of its monstrous cosmical
ground in nature (Martensen), — and others of a simi-
lar kind.

6. Sin, Sinfulness — Original Sin. Our history
tells us plainly that sin in its formal relation is, be-
fore all things, a transgression of the divine com-
mand ; whilst in its material relation it is a wounding
of the proper personal life, even unto death, and, in
consequence thereof, a hostile tuiT'ng away frou:
God, a self-entanglement in the love 1 1 self and ol

CHAPTER III. 1-24.

24'.

ihe world, as flowing from the abuse of the freedom
of the will to au apparent freedom which degenerates
Into bondage. That sin, after it becomes fixed, is
especially to be regarded as selfishness, is prominent-
ly taught by Zwingli ; see Fakrago, "Annotationum
in Genesin ex ore Zwingli,^'' p. 56 ; habemus nunc
prtsvaricaiionis fontem^ (piXavrlav videlicet, hoc est sui
ipsius amorem. The signs of the sinfulness (status
corruptionis) that come in with sin are clearly pre-
sented in our account. At its proper focus appears
(he consciousness of guilt, in which, at the same
time with alienation from God, there becomes fixed
the dependence on the sinful appetite. The essential
cause is the racuum that comes into the soul, the
failing of life in the spirit, the physically unbridled
and ungovemed behavior whereby the predominance
is given to the flesh over the power of the spirit.
Out of the permanence of a sinfulness which contra-
dicts the idea as well as the original nature of man,
there comes the necessary consequence of the doe-
trine of original sin, whose point of gravity, misap-
prehended by Pelagius, lies in the organic unity of
humanity, but whose limitation, moreover, misappre-
hended by Augustine, lies in the personal, voluntary,
human individuality. On the one side, humanity is
no more an atomistic pile of spirit, than it is capable
of being disintegrated atomistically into its isolated
sinnings. And so, again, on the other side, it is no
more a massa in the general, than it can be a massa
perditionis. The whole weight of the organic con-
nection, as it appears to have overwhelmed the born
Cretin (and yet not wholly so, since he is irrespon-
sible according to the measure of his imbecility), hath
revealed itself in the fact, that the burden of human
guilt has fallen on the sinless Jesus. The whole im-
portance of the individual freedom of choice is, in
like manner, to be recognized in the personal posi-
tion of the man in its various degrees of advance-
ment from the lowest step of the human gradation
even to the highest, that is, the holiness of Christ.
Within the organic coimection, which, with its his-
torical curse, winds round aU, there still remains
room for the contrast between good and evil (Book
of Wisdom, ch. x. 1), and for genealogies of blessing
as well as for repeated falls, or special genealogies
of the curse. This contrast connects itself with the
contrast of human conduct in guilt consciousness and
in shame. Shame and the consciousness of sin draw
men towards God, just as they also draw them from
him. On this it depends whether the man, through
the aid of the gratia prceveniena, should encourage
himself to follow the drawings of God, or in cowardly
flight from the divine penal righteousness should give
himself up to an unholy repulsion.

7. The First Judgment^ and, in the same time, the
Mrst Promise of Salvation. It must be observed,
that the first presented judgment of God remains
rhe type for all following judgments. The holy
Scripture does not separate in an abstract, dogmati-
cal manner, between the rule of the divine righteous-
ness and that of the divine love and mercy. The
judgments of God which avail for the separation of
the lost, are ever the purifying and the deliverance
of the elect. For the judgments of God are separa-
tions. Thus here, they separate between the seed
of the serpent and the seed of the woman. Farther
»n, there is a separation between the house of Noah
and the first lost race. StiU farther, and another
takes place between the heathen at the Babylonian
tower-building, and Abraham with his race, the heirs
of tnr blessing. Next it was between the imbeliev-

ing Israelites who fell in the desert, and the preservev
remnant which came into the possession of Canaan.
A similar crisis is made by the Assyriun and Baby
Ionian captivities. The highest and '.:e deepest crisii
is presented by the cross of Christ ; :'. Is the division
that takes place between the believing and the unbe-
lieving. The last is that which takes place at th«
end of the world ; it is the judgment that divides be-
tween the blessed and the damned. This, then, il
the ground-reason why the divine promises, and the
beginnings of salvation, break forth from the sen-
tences of judgment. Such is the case here in the
sentences pronounced on the guilt in Paradise. In
the very front stands the obscure yet mighty prom-
ise of the so-called protevangel. Moreover, the pro-
nunciation of judgment against the woman has like-
wise its blessing and its promise. With pain shalt
thou — bear children ; this curse has the New Testa-
ment changed into a blessing (1 Tim. ii. 15); and so
it is with her dependence upon man (Eph. v. 22).
The judgment pronounced on Adam burdened the
field with the curse of thorns and thistles ; but thorns
and thistles are the progenitors of the rose and of the
wonderful cactus-flower. The primitive sentence of
Adam to the hard labor of his life's calling is become
a blessing to the human race. The calling and the
labor become the ground-forms for the education of
man (Ps. xc. 10). And, finally, the return to earth
through deiith contains not only a judgment, but
also, in the judgment, the prospect of deliverance
from the sufferings of the earthly sojourn (2 Cor. v.
8 ; Philip, i. 28). The separation of man from the
tree of life, by means of the cherubim, prevented him
from looking backwards to the lost paradise ; it im •
pels him to look forward, and to aspire to the new
paradise and its trees of life (Rev. xxii. 2). The ban-
ishment from Paradise lays the foundation for the
religion of the future, or, as it has been called, the
theocratic faith in God of pious Jews (Heb. xi. 8),

The protevangel, moreover (see the Exegetical an-
notations), contains the germ of aU later M essianic
prophecies ; therefore is it so universal, so compre-
hensive, so dark, and yet so striking and distinct in
its fundamental features. As the ground outline o(
the future of salvation, it denotes : 1. The religious
ethical strife between good and evil in the world,
and the sensible presentation of this strife through
natural contrasts^the serpent, the woman. 2. The
concrete form of this strife and its gradual gene-
alogical unfoldings: the seed of the serpent, the
seed of the evil one, and the children of evil ; the
seed of the good and the children of salvation. 3.
The decision to be expected ; the wounding of the
woman's seed in the heel, that is, in his human
capability of suffering, and its connection with the
earth, the treading down, or the destruction, not of
the serpent's seed merely, but of the serpent him
self, and that too in his head, the very centre of hia
life. The whole is, therefore, the prediction of an
universal conflict for salvation, with the prospect of
victory. From this basis the promise proceeds in
ever-narrowing circles, until it passes over from the
general seed of the woman to the ideal seed, and
from that again draws out in ever-widening circles,
together with the self-unfolding promise of the king-
dom of God. Thereby, too, does the conception
of the promise assume an ever deeper and richei
form.

1. General promise of salvation.

u. The posterity of the woman : battle an*
victory, ch. iii. 15.

118

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

b. Noah and his race: rest and Sabbatli,
ch. v. 29.

C Shem and his tabernacle, Japhet and his
enlargement: the name of God and the
conquest of the world, ch. ix. 26, 27.

<l Abraham and his race : the race of bless-
ing, the promised land, the blessing of the
nations, ch. xii. 2, 1 ; xiii. 16, 16 ; xv. i ;
xvii. 2-6; xviii. 10; xxii. 15.

«. Isaac and his descendants, ch. xv. 4 ; xvii.
19 ; xxri. 3, 4.

/. Jacob. His blessing and his dominion
over his brother, ch. xxv. 23 ; xxvii. 29.

g. Judah and his sceptre : prince in war,
prince of peace, ch. xlix. 8.
S Typical promise of the Messiah: Israel and
the sacerdotal kingdom, Exod. xix. 6. The
star out of Jacob, Numb. xxiv. l"?.

a. The typical prophet, Deut. xviii. 6.

b. The typical Levite, Deut. xxxiii. 9-11.

c. The typical long, 2 Sam. vii. 12.

8. The transition from the typical to the idea!

promise of the Messiah in the Psalms.
4. Ideal promise of the Messiah.

The glorious appearing.

a. The ideal Messiah. Hosea, Joel, Amos.

b. The ideal Messiah as prophet, priest, and
king. Isaiah, Micah.

c. The ideal Messianic prophecy and the ideal
prophet. Jeremiali,

d. The ideal high priest. Ezekiel.

e. The ideal king. Daniel.

The conflict. The Christ and the Antichrist.
Apocalyptic forms in Obadiah, Nahum, Habakkuk,
Zephaniah, with isolated examples in all the proph-
ets, especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel.

The suifering and the triumphant Messiah, Isaiah
liii. ; Dan. ii. ; ch. vii. 9, 26, 26 ; Zach. ix .-xiv.

8. The earthly calling of the woman, and its sub-
jective form (see Exegetical armotations).

9. The earthly calling of the man, and its objec-
tive form (see Exegetical annotations).

10. The nature of the vanity to which the crea-
tion was made subject in hope for man's sake (Rom.
viii. 18 ; Lange's Miscellaneous Writings, i, p. 211 :
Pelagianism ; Delitzsch, p. 186). Here, however,
we must disregard the theosophic extravagances,
p. 18'7, for example, such sayings as that of Jacob
Bohme : " rage hath got the upper hand and made
war upon the government above." Here it may be
remarked, that we cannot, in a purely outward way,
as Dehtzsch and Hofmann have done, make a distinc-
tion between God's dwelhng in heaven and on earth
(Delitzsch, p. 177).

11. Death, in the light of Paradise, the end of
punishment ; in the light of the Gospel, the begin-
ning of redemption (1 Cor. xv. 66). It must be
remarked that the separate judgments upon the
womrun and the man are, at the same time, a com-
mon judgment upon both. Dehtzsch finds it worthy
of note that the divine sentence says nothing about
the immortality of the soul. " But the whole Scrip-
ture,'' he says, " knows nothing of any immortality
Eroun Jed in the nature of the soul" (p. 190), there-

fore their dona superaddita, gifts superadded, il
Paradise ! See to the contrary, Acts xvii. 28.

12. The banishment from Paradise was in a
special sense a sending forth to the cultivation of
the field (see the Exegetical explanations). The
divine clothing of the first man. The doctrine of
Gratia prcevenieiw (see Lange's "Dogmatics").
The clothing of man referred back to the divine
revelation and regulation. And yet we cannot, on
this account, say with Delitzsch, that " a pure deligh
in the beauty of the divine-formed human figure is
now no more possible ; that nakedness is full of sin
and tempting to sin." If this is so then all pure
interest in the human beauty has become impos-
sible.

15. The cherubim. See the Exegetical explana-
tions.

14. The disclosure of a spirit-world. With the
consciousness of guilt there is also disclosed to the
human consciousness thedemoniiic deep of its being
Man has entered the spirit- world, he has partaken of
its knowledge, and has now the first foreboding look
into the angel-world, and the world of fallen spirits
(" Dogmatics," p. 660). In tliis place, too, the Scrip-
ture opens up to us a glimpse of a spirit-world
created before man. Especially is there introduced
the doctrine of the angels, although we must not
regard the cherubim as personal primarily, but only
as symbolical angel-fbrms.

1 6. That with the judgment of God upon man,
that is, with the ceasing of the paradisaical covenant,
God's covenant of grace begins, is perceived with
especial clearness by Cocceius ; Sumina doctrinal de
foederc et tcstamento del, 1648. Correctly has Zwin-
gli laid stress upon the idea, that the promise of
salvation, as given to Adam and Eve, carries ns back
to the conclusion that even up to them there extend
ed a retroacting power of redemption.

16. The divine appearings in Paradise form the
point of commencement for all theophanies before
Christ, and, as such, are not to be identified with the
actual incarnation (or man-becoming) of God in
Christ. They are, however, to be regarded, perhaps,
as typical pre-representations of the same, and as
having had, therefore, in the idea of Christ, their
principle. Compare Keil, p. 65, where, however,
the vision-side of the theophanies does not appear
to be properly appreciated.

HOMILETICAl AND PEACTIOAI.

See the Uterature of which a catalogue is before
given, and the remarks. Doctrinal and Ethical.
Homilies on the whole section under the general
point of view : Paradise lost, or the fall, or the
origin of sin and evil, or the solemn beginning of
human history, or the origin of the earthly order of
things, or the first disclosure of a spirit-world and
the connection between the spirit-world and the
human, or, finally, the beginning of the kingdom of
grace, that is, the gospel. — The end of the paradisa-
ical covenant, the beginning of the covenant of
redemption. — The beginning of the revelation oi
preventing grace, or the gratia proeveniins. — Tht
first history of sin and judgment, iind, at the same
time, the first history of punishment and of com-
passion.— The call to humanity: onwards. 1. The
ideal progress (directed towards the image of God
in the obedience of life). 2. The false progress (yf
shall become as gods). 3. The health-bringing

CHAPTER m. 1-24.

24$)

progress (on the field and in death, yet still towards
the redemption). — Religion in its relations to the
world-time : 1. A very ancient reminiscence (knowl-
edge of the original destiny, and a knowledge of
sin back to the fall and beyond). 2. A religion of
the present as made clear in our history through
God's word. 3. A religion of the future in a special
sense, as consisting in the prospect of the future
salvation. — Particular sections and versea. Vers.
1-13 : The sin and the guilt. Vers. 1-fi : The fall :
o- the temptation of the serpent ; b. the sinful look-
ing of the wife ; c. the seduction of the man. — The
threefold origin of sin. — The serpent the instrument
and the form of the devil's temptation : 1. The
demoniac subtlety of the evil one in its beastly
grounding. 2. The tempting words; lying perver-
sions of the truth. — The probation and the tempta-
tion.— The murderer from the beginning (John viii.
44). — The elements of tlie temptation : lies, hate,
death, in contrast to truth, love, and life. — The
progress of sin's development from the first evil
doubt to the completed evil act. — The mongrel du-
plicity of sin as it perverts truth into lies : 1. The
question pious in form, yet so evil in the doubt
implied. 2. The element of truth and the lies in
the promise : ye shall be as gods. — How sin perverts
the human relations ; It makes out of the obedient
wife a directress of the husband, out of the helper a
temptress, out of marriage a fountain of mischief,
out of the man's call to watchfulness an easy cor-
ruptibility, out of Paradise itself a state of guilt. —
Sin as seen in the fall, or the mournful eifects of
the first sin: 1. The guilt and the guilt-conscious-
ness. 2. The divine judgment suspended over them
and the punishment inflicted. — The features of the
sinful tendency in the conduct of the first man after
the fall : evil terror, blinding loss of love, &o. — The
evil conscience and its fears. — The ground-feature
in the calamity of human sin : the mingling and
confusion of sin and evil, in that, 1. evil is made
to become sin, 2. sin becomes naked evil ; therefore
the redemption, that is, the separation between sin
and evil (cross). — The imperfect confession, which
is, nevertheless, through the grace of God, a turning
back towards spiritual health. How God's compas-
sion brings the first man to the knowledge and the
confession. — God's righteousness in his first judg-
ment : 1. The arraignment ; 2. the consequences
of the judgment-deed ; 3. the appointment of pun-
ishment according to the guilt ; 4. the division of
the one common Judgment into its separate sen-
tences.— The revelation of God's grace in his judg-
ment.— The first gospel : 1. The root of all the Old
Testament promises of salvation ; 2. of the New
Testament gospel itself; 3. of the history of the
kingdom of God, and of the announcements of the
end of the world. — The sorrows of the woman in
their connection with sin and sinfulness of the
woman. — The sorrows of the man in their connec-
tion with the sin and sinfulness of the man. — The
Buffering of one party, a suffering also of the other.
—How every human calling has its own special
burden, or its conflict with its own special curse. —
The blessing in the curse. — The humiliation of the
human race the pre-condition of its exaltation. —
The loss of Paradise a sending forth into the world.
— The divine preparation of man for his state of
sxile. — The looking back of man to Paradise, a
Oeholding of the cherubim and iif the flaming sword
of an indignant righteousness. — With the separation
from the outer tree of life the protevangel becomes

the germ of a new tree of life for them and thei.
race. — The prospect of the first man in tht futuri
according to its signification for us : 1. A piospecl
of immeasurable sorrow, and yet, 2. a prospect ol
an endless hope.

Starke : — Ver. 1 . Litther : So did the devil draw
and tear them from the word of God. As long aa
the word stood in their heart, so long was the Ufe
and the prospect of its continuance. — ^Ver. 3. Vul-
gate : Ne forte moriamini. Were this the true
sense of the words. Eve must have already treatea
the sentence of death as something most uncertain.
— Ver. 4. It was a great sin that Eve turned away
from God and his word, and listened to the devil ;
but it was a much greater that she fell in with the
devil, who gave God the lie, and as it were struck
at him with his fists. — Ver. 5. Satan tl.e first author
and predecessor of Antichrist, who is a disputing
adversary and exalteth himself above all that is
called God or worshipped (2 Thess. ii. 4 ; Dan. xi.
36). — Behold now, in the midst of the fair Paradise
there appears a cr.ifcy and poisonous serpent ! It
is here, it may be even by thy side. Be on thy
guard against it (Sirach xxi. 2). Unbelief and
doubt of God's word are the sins by which the devU
at first sought to cast men down (Matt. iv. 3)- Hast
thou already obiaiued the victory over the devil?
be not too secure. — The word of the Lord is truth,
but that of the devil is lies. — Lange : The conceits
of "opeued^yes," and of some strange wisdom, are
the snares whereby Satan especially scf'ks to stum-
ble the learned. — Ver 6. Lust of the flesh, lust of
the eye, pride. The garment of righteousness and
hoUness was put off. — The fig-leaves. It is not yet
proved that they were fig-leaves th.it Eve gave to
her husband. "The Hebrew word denotas twigs as
well as leaves. — Untimely curiosity brings commonly
great sorrow of heart. — God is not the cause of
man's fall. — The guile iind cozening of woman can
often entice the strongest men (Jud. xvi. 15). — Man
is ever se-king fig-leaves to bide his shame and
cover \ai sins, but they are ever visible to the all-
seeing eyes of God (1 Snm. xv. 15). — Ver. 8. The
interpreting " the voice of God," of the thunder. —
Parallel of the Garden of Adam and the Garden of
Christ: 1. Adam's sleep in Paradise and his gain,
the wife ; Christ's death-sleep in the garden of
Joseph, and its fruit in the resurrection, his bride
the church. 2. In Paradise Adam was bound with
the cords of the devil ; in Gethsemane Christ was
bound, to fiee the human race from their imprison-
ment. 3. In the garden of Eden sin began ; in
another garden was it buried in Christ's grave.—
Ver. 9. Luther ; Adam and Eve are ruined in them-
selves, they can no longer help themselves, they are
forsaken of all creatures ; the reason can form no
other judgment than that there is no help for them
in heaven and earth. Yet here, from this very ex-
ample, may we learn that God will help though we
may be forsaken of all creatures. And yet He gives
such help only for his Son's sake, whom even here
He has promised to send to the human race. — Ood
catted to Adam. Lange : A proof of the pre-emi-
nency of the male sex, and, therefore, also, of the
higher obligation which Adam had laid upon him,
not to follow his wife into evil, but rather to hold
her back. — Though God a long time winks at the
sinner, and keeps silence in respect to his sins, yet
at the right time does He let him hear his voice, and
seeks to awaken him out of his sleep. — Ver. 13. Sc
it ever goes; disobedience follows unbelief iL al

250

GENESIS, OR THE FIEST BOOK OF MOSES.

the faculties and members of men ; after this comes
concealment, exculpation, and, perhaps, apology for
sm ; finally, man complains of God and would make
him the cause of his sins. A frightened conscience
*ver mistakes itself the worst (Wisdom of Solomon
xvii. 12), Man never, God always, has the blame
(Jer. ii. 35). — Ver. 15. Ldther : Christ crushes the
serpent's head, that is, his kingdom of death, sin, and
hell ; the devil bites him in the heel, that is, he slays
and tortures him and his in the body (Rom. viii. 7).
Since the woman sinned fir.«t (1 Tim. ii. 14), so is
she also here named first, and first assured of the
gospel. Therefore here, also, to this proud and
mighty foe, and for his greatest ignominy and
shame, there is opposed, not Adam specially, al-
though he is not escluded, but, in preference, the
weaker vessel. Such a piercing of the heel is more
largely described Psalm xxii. ; Isaiah liii. Among
other places this first gospel is described in the ex.
Psalm ; also in la. xxvii. 1 ; John xiv. 30 ; Col. i.
13, 14 ; 1 Tim. ii. 6 ; 1 John hi. 8 ; Rev. xii. 4, B.—
Ver, 16. The experience here described was tliat of
Rachel, Thamar, the daugluer-in-law of Eli, and the
wife of Piiinehas (1 Sam. iv, 19, 20). [The question
whether Mary was bom without pain is one that does
not pertain to our salvation ; individuals may affirm
whilst otheis. deny it.] — Ver. 19. Since human
nature, through sin, is so frail and pei ishable, it is
a good and wise act of God, that he lets the separa-
tion of soul and body continue for so long a time,
even to the reuiuon and resurrection that is to
endure. — It is a great consolation for women in
child-bearing that their pains before, and during,
and after the birth, are laid upon them by God. He
who smites can also heal again (Col. iii. 18 ; 1 Pet.
iii. 1). Man, fear not deatli, but keep the thought,
rather, that it is ordained by tlie Lord of all flesh
(Siracli xli. 4).^Ver. 20. In view of the death in-
curred, the woman might rather have been called
the dead, and the mother of the dead. Her having
been called by Adam havah [Eve), the living and the
mother of the living, is grounded on the foregoing
promise of the Messiah (Mark iii. 3.5). — It is a con-
solation for the poor and the low, that God clothed
our first parents with skins. — As often as thou
puttest off thy garments, think on Jesus Christ's coat
of righteousness, and aspire that thou mayest be
clothed therewith (Is. Ixi. 10 ; Rev. iii. 17, 18 ; Rom.
xiii. 14). — [Adam is become like one of us ; here is
indicated his justification, the justiiia imputata.~\ —
Ver. 23. The punishment here declared was also
benevolently intended ; for though it is bitter to
man to obtain his food from the labor o£ the field,
Btill does this labor, while it supports him, contribute
to the promotion of his health, and to his avoidance
of many sins, such as those that proceed from idle-
ness.— Ver. 24. Paradise was an imege : 1. Of the
kingdom of grace ; 2. of the kingdom of glory.
The tree of life pre-eminently typifies Christ. — Com-
parisons between Adam and Christ. — Agriculture
U holy. — 0 man, what art thou ? Earth, and again
to become earth. Bethink thee oft and diligently
of this ; do shall every proud thought be gone.
The earthly joy has ceased, yet still we have a heav-
'enly.

Valer. Herbekger : Magnalia Dei : Ye shall
not die at all ; that was the fii'st lie in the world ;
the devil told it ; therefore Christ rightly calls him
a har and a murderer from the beginning (John viii.
44). — " I iras afraid." That wa.s the first lamenta-
tion in the world, and came from sin. — 0 how often

must )ve, poor men, now say with Eve, the serpen!
beguiled me !

Schroder: Every creature created for endless
perfectibility is also exposed to corruption (Job iv
18 ; XV. 14). Some would place the fall of angels iu
ch. i., between ver. 1 and ver. 2, since they suppose
an original creation in ver. 1, and, as a consequence
of the fall of the spirits in the same, would read in-
stead of the words, " the earth was waste," etc., ver
2, " the earth became waste." Others look for the
angel-fall in the intimation supposed to be conveyed
in the account of the second day's work by the omis-
sion of the words, " And God saw that it was good."
To others again, by reason of ch. i. 31, the time im-
mediately alter the completed world-creation seema
more suitable for this. And some fathers, again,
bring the fall of the evil angels into connection with
the temptation of man, meaning that the former hap-
pened by means of the latter (ch. iii. 14). God bears,
with inexpressible long-suffering, the devil and his
kingdom, because to him the good and right of the
development, even in its perversion, is a holy thing
The good is not to be forced. God's power and lovt
bears now the unfolding of the creaturely life, edu-
cates it freely and gradually. — Vers. 1-6. Hkrder:
Eve knew not yet that the subtlety of the serpent
was an evil subtlety ; it was to her only shrewdness
and cunning. She took the serpent for her tutor.
The serpent turns it all round, makes the prohibition
greater than the gifts, or allows her only to hear the
former. The sly attack of Satan is directed against
the spiritual citadel of the soul, against faith in God ;
since with faith obedience stands or falls. Matt. iv.
3 (Ps. Ixxviii. 19). The lusts follow after of them-
selves.— Vers. 6, 7. Luther : Unbelief is the primi-
tive cause and source of all sin, and whenever the
devil can succeed, either in getting away the word
from the heart, or in falsifying it, and thus bringing
the soul to unbelief, he can easily do in the end what
he pleases. Such subtlety and wickedness follow all
false teachers, who, under the appearance of good,
would pluck out the eyes of the people of God, blind-
ing them to his word, or painting before them another
god who has no existence. Whenever, therefore,
God's word is changed or falsified, then, as Moses
says in his song, do there come in new gods, which
our fathers never reverenced. He would have man
regard his service to God as servile bondage, in or-
der, by deluding him with the phantom of his own
proper sovereignty, to make him the slave of sin, and,
in this way, like himself This gives us a glimpse,
perhaps, of the cause of Satan's ruin. Through the
desire of sovereignty it may be that he himself he-
came a fallen being. — Rambach : The learned snap
at such doubts of God's word as the cat snaps at the
mouse, regarding them as most excellent dainties,
when, in fact, it is a feeding on death. Out of envy
must the prohibition have flowed ; thus would he
make God to be Satan (Wisdom of Solomon ii. 24),
and himself to be God. Satan's promise begins like
God's threatening: "in the day ye eat thereof," etc.
— Baco : Man allowed himself to fancy that the com-
mand and prohibition of God were not the rules of
good and evil, but that good and evil must have their
own principles and beginnings, and so he lusts after
a knowledge of these fancied principles, that he may
be no more dependent on God's revealed will, but
only on himself and his own proper light rather than
on God. Pride has overthrown itself (that is, Satan),
His words invite to a false self-sufiiciency, and to a
bold independence ; he preaches rebellion, his moa

CHAP. m. 1-24.

251

interior being. — Herder : Thoug'i here an apple liiy,
and the* the death, whilst in God's hands the bal-
ance hang suspended, as soon as it came to subtle,
casuistical reasoning, down weighed the apple ; the
light word die flew up, and in the apple Eve saw
nothing less than divinity. No tree in all the garden
round had a look so fair or bo desirable to the woman
as the one forbidden. Now is her unbelief decided.
— The same : To lust after. To have the soul over-
powered by the senses, to be allured or fascinated, to
be in a state of fluttering or throbbing agitation. No
longer in thy control ; they are beyond ; the soul is
off to the other side ; thou wilt, thou must away to
thy parted self, which dwells theie in the beloved
fruit. Wherefore, at first, an inward selfish turning
away of the soul from that divine conformity which
sustains its destination to a higher godlikeness.
Pride and self-sufficiency. Of this inner state the
origin appears as unbeUef in God's word, and, there-
by, as an erroneous or superstitious belief in an un-
known being. Desire follows the tickling of the
sense. The first female sinner becomes, after Sa-
tan's fashion, the first temptress. — Krdmmaohee : In
the first sin lie concealed the three cardinal sins, lust
of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride (that is, of un-
righteous coveting of possession, enjoyment, and
power. — (Concerning the time when the fall took
place, see p. 4'7).^Ver. 1. By experience, alas ! did
they become aware that what they had lost was the
good, that that into which they had fallen was the
evil. — They would have become lords, hke God, and
now they are no longer masters even of their own
bodies. Man fell towards evening. At this season,
in later times, the paschal lambs were slain as types
of Christ (Exod. xii. 16). Their hiding under the trees
in the garden stands parallel to their making them-
selves aprons. What the one was in the small, the
same was the other in the greater, account. The one
betrays their ignorance of the great power and depth
of sin, tlie other their lost knowledge of the omnipo-
tence and omniscience of God (Ps. cxxxix. ; Siraeh
xiv. 2 ; Book of Wisdom xvii. 10-18). Both are a
symbol and a sign of their faUing away, and, there-
with, of their shame. Both, moreover, are a symbol
and a sign of their divine original, and, therewith,
of a glimmering hope of redemption from the body
of death. Satan is not at all ashamed of himself ;
Satan does not hide himself before God. — Vers. 9-13.
The voice of God still reaches the sinner (Ps. cxxxix.
7-13). Adam and Eve show themselves in their
pure sin-nakedness. Dissatisfied with and unjust
towards his nearest friend and towards his God, —
they who before had been his joy and his desire, — so
does sinner complain of sinner, yea, of God himself,
on account of his free ordaining and his very kind-
ness (Lam. iii. 39 ; Ps. xviii. 27). — Luther : God
calls to Adam, since to him alone liad come the word
of God, on the sixth day, not to eat of the forbidden
fruit. As, therefore, he alone had heard the com-
mand of God, so is he the first summoned to judg-
ment. The most loving gifts of God (ch. ii. 18, 20)
become an occasion to the sinner, and are used as
weapons against the giver. Sin loosens all bands,
even the most excellent and the most holy. He calls
her no longer, my wife. — Vers. 14, 15. Luther : He
calls not upon the serpent; he asks him no questions
respecting wins that are past ; there is nothing of this
kind to bring him to repentance ; but he is condemned
on the spot. (It would appear from this, that a pre-
rious fall of Satan is already here supposed.) —
Kbudvacheb: After its work is finished, then is lust

divested of its garment of light, then does it appeat
in its true form of a sneaking, earth-eating worm,
ever crawling upon its belly. He shall be given up
(for that is the force of the language as applied tc
Satan) to the most extreme contempt, to the deepest
shame and degradation, and shall become, in all re-
spects, like a serpent, etc., until, at last, he is cast
into the fiery lake. There is a difference between the
fallen man and the fallen angel ; the former is lyingly
seduced, tie latter is the lying seducer; the one be-
comes evil from without ; the other is the author of
evil from himself. The fiend has struck us only on
the heel ; therefore shall his head be crushed: the
wounds which he inflicts are curable ; the wounds in-
fiicted on him must bring him unto death. — Vers,
16-19. The desire becomes a burden. Through
pain does lust revenge itself upon the senses ; and
yet, too, immediately on these pains there follows
great joy (John xvi. 21). With gentle force would
the wife rule and mislead the man to sin. There-
fore is she cast into subjection, into a state of con-
stant dependence upon the man. The field upon the
small scale is a speaking symbol of man's earthly
condition on the greater. Adam's transgression was
a breaking of the whole ten commandments taken
together (then follows the manner in which this is
deduced, p. 63). — Ver. 20. Here, as earlier, the wife
has her name from the man. In a similar manner
does the wife, at the present day, exchange the pater-
nal name for that of the man. — Luther : It is the
world, moreover, that in these signs of wretchedness
becomes mad and foolish ; for who can easily tell
how much of care and expense people incur on ac-
count of clothing ? Were the self-made and fig-leat
aprons a figure of our own righteousness, which ex-
poses more than it covers our nakedness, so are the
clothings made of skins the sjmabols of the right-
eousness which comes through the life, and suffer-
ings, and death of the Redeemer and Mediator (Is.
Ixi. 10 ; Rev. iii, 17, 18). A sharp contrast that be-
tween the first Adam who would, robber hke, demand
of God, and the second Adam, who thought it no
robbery to be like God (Phil, ii, 6), God now un-
dertakes the charge of the garden. EarMer it was
to be guarded by men ; now it is to be guarded
against them, — There came the day of salvation. It
opened again the door to the fair Paradise,

Gerlach ; The immediate consequence of the
fall is the awaking the feeling of shame, that is, the
consciousness that now the spirit, torn away from
God, can no more have power over the fiesh. In
this feeling of shame the awakened conscience now
clothes itself; it is the fear that would hide from God,
who now appears as an adversary. The devil, whose
corporeal appearance is not mentioned in the Script-
ure (and which, therefore, may be generally said to
be impossible), — what constrained him to speak
through the beast? It (that is, the serpent) took
advantage of man's divinely imparted consciousness,
that he was destined to a higher godfikeness, in
which he should attain to perfect security against
every temptation ; this was for the purpose of blind-
ing him by a deceptive appearance, giving him a
false glimpse of the glory of this godlikeness in the
freedom of choice (that is, an apparent freedom).
The origin of sin lies, therefore, not in the sensitiv
ity, as this history shows, but in the spiritual aspi-
ration after a false self-sufficiency, independent of
God,

Augustine : After they were fallen out of theij
lordly state, and the body had now received iiit«

252

GENESIS. OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

itsiilf a sickly and death-bearing concupiscence, even
then, in the midst of the _ .aishment, the rational
soul gave witness to its noble origin, and was ashamed
of its beastly incUnution. Still, behind this feeling
of shame, it evidently seeks to hide the guilt of dis-
obedience. The first sin shows itself immediately as
the mother of a new one. Instead of acknowledging
tuB guilt, Adam puts it upon the woman, yea, even
npon God himself, when he adds the words, " whom
thoTi gavest to me for a companion." The woman
carries it on in the same way of sinful exculpation.
At that time, the labor of the field afforded the sin-
gle example of man's outward calling upon the earth ;
on every condition, nevertheless, on every calling, on
every occupation of earth, is laid the curse, that is,
great necessity and tribulation, great vanity and dis-
appointment in the most painful toil. Since that
time, moreover, a great change has passed upon na-
ture. The death of the body is the visible emblem
and type of the everlasting destruction. It is the
dark curtain hung before the world beyond, and
which, to the unconverted sinner, covers nothing else
than hopeless misery.

Lisco, B. 1 : It is no less Satanic when Satan uses
language respecting God's word and revelation simi-
lar to that which is found in the Holy Scriptures. —
Sin from sin. — In place of wretched lies, man ought
to confess ; in place of sinful exculpation he ought the
more to seek forgiveness. — Calwek, Handbook :
Christ the serpent-crusher. Ver. 19 : Here, too,
again, are punishment and redemption. Ver. 20 :
Man clothed in the skins of slain beasts ; how solemn
BOW to him is death thus contemplated ! — As in ver.
5, the beginning of prophecy, so in ver. 21, the be-
ginning of sacrifice. — Comparison of the three first
ehapters in the Bible with the last. — Bunsen : [The

true tree of life is the knowledge of limitations, tha(
is, in the moral government of the natural world, etc.
And this tree would grow ever more in Paradise (?).
The limitation of the law (positive law) lay rather in
the tree of knowledge.] The nature-side of the
figure is the great historical event that laid waste
every territory of the earth, which had been pre-
viously blessed, and drove out the inhabitants to
wander forth to other lands. Every word must b"
taken as the indication of a great igneous phenome-
non in nature. Natural science has recognized in
those regions the effects of such an old volcanic
power, though falling in the historical time. The old
traditions of the Bactains, too, seem to speak of the
upheaving of the mountains, when they tell us that
the evil spirit of their fathers made the lovely cli-
mate almost if not wholly uninhabitable by reason
of the shuddering cold. — Michow (" The Primitive
History of the Human Race," 1858) : The fall.
We distinguish three degrees : I. The preparation j
2. the carrying out ; 3. the nearest effects. — Tadbk
("Sermon on Genesis," 1855): Marriage. 1. How it
was established in a state of innocence ; 2. what
changes it underwent in consequence of the fall ; 3.
how it is again restored by Christ. — How Adam is
the type and an antitype of Christ : 1. Wherein we
see the type ; 2. wherein the antitype. — The history
of the fall : 1. How exactly it represents the way sin
takes in all men ; 2. how it predicts, moreover, the
way that grace takes in us. — W. Hoffmann (" Voices
of the Watchmen in the Old Testament," 1856) :
The primitive word of the divine promise (ver. 15).
It brings us, 1. curse in the blessing ; 2. blessing in
the curse. [Curse in the blessing : it goes through-
out the outward and the inner strife. Blessing in
the curse : the restoration of Paradise.]

SECOND SECTION.

Cain and Abel. — The Cainites. — 7%e ungodly Worldllness of the First Civilization.

Chapter IV. 1-26.

1 And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived, and bare ' Cain [the gotten, or pos-
session], and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord [from, or with the God of the future, oi

2 Jehovah], And again" she bare his brother Abel [Habel, the perishaUe ; ban, vanishing breath

3 of life]. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the grotmd. And
in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought [offered] from the fruit of the ground

4 an offering [msia] unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his
flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect" [looked in mercy] unto Abel and

5 to his offering. But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was

6 very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou

7 wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well shalt thou not be

accepted? [Lange translates more correctly, lifting up of the countenance.] and if thou doest not

well, sin lieth at the door [like a ravenous beast for prey]. And unto thee shall be his desire

8 [sin's desire— sin personified], and thou shalt rule \bui thou shalt rule] over him. And Cain

talked ^ with Abel his brother [repeating God's words, hypocritically or mockingly to him. This is adapted
to lange's translation, Cain told it to his brother. See Exegetical notes] ; And it came tO pasS thai

9 when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brotlier, and slew him. And
the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not

CHAP. IV. 1-26. 253

10 am I my brother's keeper? And lie said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy

11 brother's blood' [properly, blood-drops, plural] crieth unto me from the ground. And now thou

art cursed from the earth Fwhicli had before been cursed, ch. iii. 17 ; Bunsen : away from this groundlj

k2 which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When
thou tillest the ground it shall not henceforth yield to thee her strength ; a fugitive and

a vagabond [ISI S3 , frightened and driven on, shunned and abhorred] shalt thou be in the earth.
S And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment [Lange renders it gnllt, which la certairly nearer tin

(4 Hebrew ijisj is greater than I can bear. Behold thou hast driven me out this day from

the face of Ihe earth [from the open, cleared, inhabited district of the earth] ; and from thj' faC6

shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth ; and it shall come

15 to pass that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto him, Tiiere-
fore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold. And the

16 Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out
from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod [exile] on the east of Eden.

17 And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and bare Enoch [Hanocb, the devoted, initiated],
and he builded a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch.

18 And unto Enoch was born Irad [city, -l is, TiiS, townsmaJ^ or, with elision of ones, prince of a city] :
and Irad begat Mehujael [FBrst and Gesenius : nnr, smitten of God ; questionable whether it is not
rather, purified, formed by God] : and Mahujael [Hebrew, Mahujiel] begat Methusael [man of God, great
man of God, ra, \0 for 111) X, and is] : and Methusael begat Lamech [strong young man;

19 Gesenius]. And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah

[ornament, decoration, elegant], and the name of the Other was Zillah [Gesenius: shadow; Puerst:

20 sounding, song, from bbs ; or player]. And Adah bare Jabal [Fuerst : rambler, wanderer, nomade, from

21 ba--] : he was the father of such as dwell in tents and of such as have cattle. And his
brother's name was Jubal [Fuerst: one triumphing, harper, from ba^]. He was the father of

22 all such as handle the harp and the organ. And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-Cain

[Gesenius : smith, mason, or lance-maker ; literally, brass of kain, that is, brass weapons], an instructor 01
every artificer' [tange more correctly: hammerer or polisher of all cutting instruments] in brass and

23 iron; and the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah [loveliness, the lovely]. And Lamech said
unto his wives :

Adah and Zillah hear my voice,
Ye wives of Lamech hearken unto my speech ;
For I have slain a man to my wounding ;
And a young man, to my hurt.

24 If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold,

Truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold [Bunsen : seven times seventy].

25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bare a son, and called his name Seth [taed,
compensation, settled], for God (Elohim), said she, hath appointed me another seed instead

26 of Abel whom Cain slew. And to Seth also was there born a son, and he called his

name EnOS [man, weak man, son of man]. Then began men to call upon [call out, proclaim] the
name of the Lord ' [the name Jehovah, in distinction from Elohim, though not aocordingto the fall conception
of the name. See Exod. vi .] .

l> Ver. 1.— For remarks on '{^p n5f5 andTN, see the Exegetical, and marginal note.— T. L.]
l' Ver. 2.— nib r|Om can only'mean a second bearing, and not the birth of a twin.— T. L.]
[» Ver. 4.— Siril would have been better rendered looked at, with b!< ; with "la or bSB, it has just the contrary
■enee, looked away /ram, Job vii. 19 et al. — T. L.]

[• Ter. 7.— n NiU ; the context and the contrast will hardly allow any other sense to this than that of acceptance, as
denoted by the lifting up the countenance ; see the Bxegetioal. Vulgate, recipies. 1 pp-ffln must refer to sin personified
B8 masculine by the participle V=-|. Comp. Gen. iii. 16, where the same word denotes subordination, that which is
ruled over ; only there it is applied to persons, whilst here it means the appetite or passion, represented as a wUd beast, in
■ubjection to the righteous will. — T. L.]

[' Ver. 8.— naxil. See the Exegetical. The best interpretation is that of Delitzsch and of somi. Jewish commonta-
tors, which makes the e'lliptical subject (or thing said) the very action that follows, and which the LXX. and Vulgate havi
supplied in words. It is not at all probable that they read any diiferent text.— i. L,.j

[' Ver. 10.-1 B'n, plural intensive; comp. Ps. v. 7, Dim lyiX , man of SiooSs, very bloody man, Ps. xxvl. 9 ; Iv. 24.
DipSS agrees granunatically with CiaT , and not with bip, voice, as would seem from our English Version. The most
-iteral, and, at the same time, the most impressive, rendering, would be obtained by taking bip as the nominative inde-
pendent, or exclamatory : The voice of thy brother's bloods! they cry ; or. Hark ! it is the voice of thy brother's blood-
how,~lhey are cryinginto me. The separation of the participle from the remoter subject gives it such a force, and makes
:Ms, thougt seemingly free, the most truly literal or emoti mal sense Rash, and Aben Ezra say Iheword ^ plural becasj
it denotes all Abel's possible posterity, this murdered with him. Other Jewish writers have drawn a stiU more imgulai

254

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

inference. Thus it is said in the Talmud, Sanhedrin fol. 37: *' Tlie plural here is to teach us that every one who destroTfl
R single life from Israel, there is a writing against him as though he had destroyed a world full of lives." Another Jewish
loiterpretation (see Kashi) says that the plural form represents the many wounds that Cain had given him, because he did
not know from what part of the body the soul or life (the blood) would go out ; all these bloody mouths crying out to God
" a tongue in every one." Comp. Shakespeare, Antony's speech over the dead body of Ceesar. See also the Exegetical,
and marginal note. — T. L.l

[' Ver. 22.— UJ"in means the smith himself; but this cannot make sense unless we adopt a different pointing from
the Masoretic, when it may read : a sharpener of everything { PS), a smith, or worker of brass, etc. — T. L.]

t" Ver. 26. — D'il33 ; see the Exegetical. They first began, or there was then a beginning of the invocation or formula

rt'in"'"C'iJ3 , &e5/iem3/c7ioM»aft. Comp. it with the Arabic invocation or formula awwf a-wmJ (6ismi7?aft). Acorrespondp
tag abbreviation in Hebrew would have been rtlbstTaiTS (with S elided il^VVZ ), bisltmeloali, or with the other divine
name, bishmeyahveh. It evidently refers to some solemn form of address, which perhaps came to be denoted by a single
abbreviated word, like this and other similar forms in the ancient sister language. — T. L.l

EXEGETICAL AND CMTICAl.

1. The propagation of the human race through
the formation of the family, is, in its beginning, laid
outside of Paradise, not because it was in contradic-
tion with the paradisaical destiny, but because it
had, from the beginning, an unparadisaical char-
acter (that is, not in harmony with the first life as
led in Paradise. — T. L.). Immediately, however,
even in the first Adamic generation, the human race
presents itself in the contrast of a godless and a
pious line, in proof that the sinful tendency propa-
gates itself along with the sin, whilst it shows at the
same time that not as an absolute corruption, or
fatalistic necessity, does it lay its burden upon the
race. This contrast, which seems broken up by the
fratricide of Cain, is restored again at the close of
our cliapter, by the birth and destination of Seth.
In regard to its chief content, however, the section
before us is a characterizing of the line of Cain. It
is marlied by a very rapid unfolding of primitive
culture, but throughout in a direction worldly and
ungodly, just as we find it afterwards among the
Hamites. The ideality of art, to which the Cainites
in their formative tendency have already advanced,
appears as a substitute for the ■'■eality of a religious-
ideal course of life, and becomes ministerial to sin
and to a malignant pride. Not without ground are
the decorative dress (the name Adah), the musical
skill (the name Ziliah) and beauty of the daughters
of Cain brought into view. For after the contrast
presented in chapter v. between the Sethites, who
advance in the pure direction of a godly life, and
the Cainites, who are ever sinking lower and lower
in an ungodly existence, there is shown, chapter vi.,
how an intercourse arises between them, and how
the Sethites, infatuated by the charms of the Cain-
Itish women, introduce a mingling of both lines,
and, thereby, » universal corruption. According to
Knobel the chapter must be regarded as the genea-
logical register of Adam, though this does not agree,
he says, with the genealogical register of the Elohist
(ch. ¥.), which names Seth as the first-bom (!) of
Adam. The ethnological table (ch. x.), he tells us,
can only embrace the Caucasian race, whilst the
Cainites can only be a legendary representation of
the East Asian tribes (p. 53), the author of which
thereby places himself in opposition to the later ac-
count, that represents all the descendants of Cain as
perishing in the flood. The traits of the Caiuitic
race, as presented by Knobel, belong not alone to
the East Asiatic people. They are ground-forms of
primitive worldliness in the human race. In respect
to the genealogical table of ch. iv. and v., Knobel
remarks " that the Cainitic table agrees tolerably
well with the Sethic " (p. 54). For the similarities
tnd differences of both tables, comp. Keil, p. 11.

These relations will be more distinctly .shown in the
interpretation of the names. Concerning the Jeho-
vistic peculiarities of language in this section, see
Knobel, p. 56.

2. Vers. 1 and 2. " Men are yet in Eden, but no
longer in the garden of Eden." Delitzsch. Pro-
creation a knowing. The moral character of sexual
intercourse. Love a personal knowing. The love
of marriage, in its consummation, a spiritual corpo-
real knowing. The expression is euphemistic. In
the Pentateuch only, in the supplementary correc-
tions of the original writing. The like in other
ancient languages. The name Cain is explained
directly from ^n'5p , the gotten.* The word rti^

* (Ver. 1. '^n'^3p. The sense of bearing (.parieits\
pro-creating, begetting, seems to be older in this word than
that of gelling, or i ossessing, and if so, it should guide us
in interpreting the language of this very ancient docu-
ment It is a case in which, if ever, words would be used
in their archaic signiftcance. It is, moreovei', much more
easy to see how the latter senses came from the former than
to trace them in the opposite diiection. There is the same
order in the Latin pario. Greek TiKTw. teko?, tokos, biriltj
offspring, gain iprimum parti maier fiJium — peperit divi^
Has). For decided examples of the elder generative sense
in the Hebrew word, see Deut. xxxii. 6, "lOp "l"*— X N"n,
thy father that begat thee, where it is used in parallelism
with "IIUS and "iDDID^, and in precisely the same con-
nection as n"I3^ and Tbbn^ in ver. 18 of the same chap-
ter. Compare also Gen. xiv. 10, 22, where it is used both
by Melchizedek and by Abraham, as an antique designation
of the Creator, more solemn and impressive than N^iS,
"El Slion, God most high, y-i^l Di'Stti MJip, Gen-
erator (Creator, ancient founder) of the heavens and the
earth.'' The LXX. there renders it ixTiae. and the Vulgate
creavit ; so interpreted also by Eashi and Maimonides. In
Ps. cxsxix. 13, ^nT^bs rT'Sp (rendered, thou hast pos~
sessed my reins), the context shows that it must have this
older and deeper sense ; since the reins denote the most
interior or fundamental being, and the words following
express, as far as language can, the supernatural creative
action, exclusively divine, and that supervenes in every
human quickening; "^SSDn, thou didst overshadow m«,
eireo-Ki'aaas fioL ; compare Lii^e i. 35. This is also the best
sense Prov. viii. 22, ^33p mn"^ , rendered, the Lord pos-
sessed me, — rather, begat me, as the irpwroToKoy, Col. i. 15.
To these passages we are justified in adding the one before
us, Gen. IV. 1. The idea of possession or acquisition, as
outward gain or property, does not suit. Eve had her mind
upon the seed of the woman. Gen. iii. 15, and nothing could
be more natural than that she should nave used this kind
of language. She cries out in her joy, T'p ^V^'^ip . Kdnithi
Eain. TeTOKa 76kov. or tcko^, genui genitum. or generationem,
I have borne the seed, a man, the Lord. She calls him a
man, TU'^S ; for the child as a distinctive name was as yet
unknown, and she saw only the image of tlie humanity
without regard to size or growth. Nothing could be more
subjectively truthful. It was a new waw^ and she connects
with it, as with her own being, a ^.reative or generative
process. So Rashi, regarding p N as equivalent to CS-' , para-
phrases the words : " When God created me and my man

CHAP. IV. 1-26.

U5S

may mean, to create, to briiig out, also to gain, to
atiain, which we prefer. — I have gotten a man
from the Lord. — The interpretation of Luther and
otners, including Philippi, namely, " the man, the
Lord,'" not only anticipates the unfolding of the
Messianic idea, but goes beyond it ; for the Messiah
is not JehoTah absolutely. And yet the explana-
tion : with the help of Jehovah (with his helpful
presence, Knobel), is too weak. So too the Vulgate
is incorrect : per Deum, or the interpretation of
Clericus : nx^ , from Jehovah, that is, in associa-
tion, in connection with Jehovah, I have gotten a
man. In this it remains remarkable, that in the
name itself, the more particular denotation is want-
ing. We may be allowed, therefore, to read : a man

/^123^X) he created us alone, or by himself, IT^b, but in
this we are sharers with him ; that is, we are pro-creators,"
and so she says '^n'^Sp. The new oifspring carries the
I^TSithe image or apexes which had been created in the
beginning ; and so Aben Eara says that *' Adam, when he
saw that he mast die, felt the need of keeping alive the
"(^13 , and therefore Eve uses this language." MaimDnides,
without denying this, somewhat modifies it by rendering
rs, as Onkelos does, by mn^ Clp, "before the Lord :
for when we die he shall stand in our place to worship his
creator," ^Xl"!!!, regarding Cain's birth as a creation,
though in a qualified sense. If tisp , then, is reroKe, genuil,
peperit, ']'^p is tokos, reKoy, genitus, partus. The derivation
which Gesenius seems to favor ( "pp, Zajicea, 2 Sam. xxi.
16), is utterly absurd. "What would make Eve think of
lances, or weapons of war, before there had been a human
birth on earth I besides, as thus u.sed, it is evidently a much
later word, from whatever source it may have comp. Ge-
senius himself regards nip as cognate with "pS, "-''^ i
hence there is no difiiculty in connecting it, not only with
the Arabic , , * D , but also the Greek and Latin yev, ffen.
If so, then Kain (Kin, Ken), is equal to yeVos etymologically
as well a"^ lexically. The particle ^^t is generally taken by
the Jewish grammarians as a preposition = with ( DS ), or
aa denoting the closest union between the verb and its ob-
ject, and in certain cases its subject ; though sometimes they
say it is equivalent to 0^5 , substance. This is the view of
Gesenius. Ifc has the force of a reflex pronoun express-
ing ipseity, or selfhood, as individuality,^ Q"''2'J3n nX ,
the very heavens themselves. A close examination always
shows some kind of emphasis, or some contrast, stronger
or weaker. Or at least it may be said it calls attention
to a thing in some way. The cases where it seems to be
used as a preposition, or where it is used to make the sepa-
rate objective pronouns, can be easily explained from this.

■^p nX tnn^ nx — it is placed here before both in

precisely the same way. This makes it harsh and diflB-
cult to give it the rendeiing with in the latter case, and
seems to shut us 7ip to the rendering : I have borne a man,
the very Jehovah, or, I have borne a man, the very God,
the very Jehovah. The supposition would not be extrava-
gant that in tliis earliest use of the name (earliest as
spoken) there is an emphasis in its future form, n^fT^ or
mn*' (yah-yeh or yah-vah), the one who shall be, as in
Exodus iii. 14 ; except that in the latter passage it is in
the first person, ninS IB-S mnx . The greataess of
Eve*s mistake in applying the expression to one who was
the typo of Antichrist rather than of the Redeemer, should
not so shock us as to affect the interpretation of the pas-
sage, now that the covenant God is revealed to us as a being
10 trunscendingly different. The limitation of Eve's knowl-
edge, and perhaps her waut of due distinction between the
divine and the human, only sets in a stronger light the
intensity of her hope, and the subjective truthfulness other
language. Had her reported words, at such a time, con-
tained no reference to the promised seed of the woman, the
rationalist would doubtless have used it as a proof that she
could have known nothing of any such prediction, and
that, therefore, Gen. iii. 15 and Gen. iv. 1 must have been
written by different authors, ignoring or contradicting each
ither - T. L.]

with Jehovah, that is, one who stsjids in conaectioD
with Jehovah ; yet it may be that the mode of gain
ing : gotten with Jehovah, characterizes the name
itself. The choice of the name Jehoviih denotes
here the God of the covenant. In the blessed con-
fidence of female hope, she would seem, with evi-
dent eagerness, to greet, ia the new-born, the prom-
ised woman's seed (ch. iii. 15), according to het
understanding of the word. Lameeh, too, although
on better grounds, expected something immensely
great from his son Noah. We must observe here
that the mother is indicated as the name-giver. In
the case of the second name, Abel (Habel), which
denotes a swiftly-disappearing breath of life, ot
vanity, or nothingness, nothing of tlie kind is said.
Yet in place of the great and hasty joy of hope,
there seems to have come a fearful motherly pre-
sentiment (Dehtzsch, p. 199). That they were
twins, as Kimchi holds, is a sense the text does not
favor. Abel as shepherd, especially of the smaller
cattle (IXS), is the type of the Israelitish patriarchs.
Cain, as the first-bom, takes the agricultural occupa-
tion to which his father was first appointed. The
oldest ground-forms, therefore, of the human calling,
which Adam united in himself, are divided between
his two sons in a normal way (Cain was, in a certain
sense, the heir by birth,' and the ground-proprietor).
It must be remarked, too, that agriculture, as the,
older form, does not appear as the younger in its
relation to cattle-breeding. " Both modes of livir^
belong to the earliest times of humanity, and, ac
cording to Varro and Dicsearchus in Porphyry, follovt
directly after the limes when men lived upon the
self-growing fruits of the earth." Knobel. " In the
choice of different callings by the two brothers, we
seek in vain for any indication of a difference in
moral disposition." So Keil maintains, against Hof-
mann, that agriculture was a, consequence of the
cursing of the ground. Delitzsch, however, together
with Hofmann, is inclmed to the opinion that in the
brothers' choice of different calhngs there was al-
ready expressed the different directions of their
minds, — that Abel's calling was directed to the
covering of the sinful nakedness by the skins of
beasts (Hofmann), and therefore Abel was a shep-
herd (!). Delitzsch, too, would have it that Abel
took the small domestic cattle, only for the sake of
their skins, and, to some extent, for their milk,
though this was a kind of food which had not been
used in Paradise. It would follow, then, that if Abel
slew the beasts for the sake of their skins, and,
moreover, offered to God in sacrifice only the fat
parts of the firstlings, it must have been that ht
suffered the flesh in general of the slaughtered
animals to become offensive and go to corruption.
It would follow, too, that the huinan sacerdotal par-
taking of the sacrificial offering, which later became
the custom in most cases, had not yet taken place ;
not to say that the supposition of the enjoyment of
animal food having been first granted. Gen. ix. .3, is
wholly incorrect.

3. Vers. S-8. The first offerings. The differ
ence between the offering pleasing to God, and tha
to which he has not respect. The envy cf a brother
the divine warning, and the brotlier's murder. The
fratricide in its connection with the offering, a typo

of all religious wars. The expression O'^n'" yp'O
denotes the passing of a definite and considerabls
time (Knobel ; after the beginning of their respectiv<
occupations), and indicates also a harvest-season

256

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

yet to take U, for the end of the year, as is done by
De Wette, Van Bohlen, and others, is giving it too
definite a sense. — It came to pass that Cain
brought of the fruits of the ground, nnja (from
rm ; Arabic : to make a present, " the most general
name of the offering, as also "a")!^-" Di4itz<ch).
Fruits belonged to the oldest offerings. Though no
altar is mentioned, as also in eh. viii. 20, it is never-
theless to be supposed. In the offering of Abel it
is prominently stated that he brought of the first-
bom of his herds (ri^i;3), but it is not said of
Cain that his offerings were first fruits — D^"ia3^.
There is added, moreover, in respect to Abel, the
word: "inabnal (and of the fat thereof). Knobel
explains this as meaning, from their fat; Keil, on
the contrary, understands it of the fat pieces, tliat
is, of the fattest of the firstlings. The ground taken
by some, that it was because no sacrificiiil feasts had
been instituted, or because men had not yet eaten
of flesh, is pure hypothesis. It shows rather that
we must not think here of the animal offerings of
Leviticus. Here arise two questions: 1. By what
was it made known that God looked to the offering
of Abel, — that is, with gracious complacency ? Many
commentators say th-it Jehovah f-et on fire the offer-
ing of Abil by fire from heaven, according to
Leviticus ix. 24; Jud. vi. 21 (Theodotion, Hierony-
mus, &c.). Delitzsch : the look of .lehovah was a
fiire-glance that set on fire the oftlring. Keil, how-
ever, reminds us how it is said, tliat to Abel himself,
as well as to his offering, the look of Jehovah was
directed. Knobel assumes, w ith Scliumann, that it
suits better to tliink of a personal appearance of
Jehovah at the time of the offeiing, with which, too,
corresponds bettei" the dealing \^ith Cain that fol-
lows. The safest way is to stand by the fact simply,
that God graciously accepted the offering of Abel;
but as in later times the acceptance was outwardly
actualized by the miraculous saciificial flame, so
here, it suits best to think on some such mode of
acceptance, though not on the " fiery glance" alone.
2. Wherein lay the ground of this distinction?
Knobel: " The gift of Abel was of more value than
the small offering of Cain. In all sacrificial laws
the offerings of animals have the chief place." So
also the Emperor Julian, according to Cyril of Alex-
andria (Delitzsch, p. 200). According to Hofmann
(" Scripture Proof," i. p. 584), Cain, when he brought
his offering of the fruits of his agriculture, thanked
God only " for the prolongation of this present life,
for the support of which he had been so laboriously
striving : whereas Abel in offering the best animals
of his herd, thanked God for the forgiveness of his
sins, of which the continued sign was the clothing that
had been given of God." For this too advanced
symbolic of the clothing skins, there is no Scripture
ground, and rightly says Eelitzsch ; the thought of
expiation connects itself not with the skins, but with
the blood (see also Keil's Polemic, — against Hof-
mann, p. 66). Yet Delitzsch contradicts himself
when he says, with Gregory the Great: omne quod
datur Deo ex dnntis mevte pejisatur, and then adds;
" the unbloody offering of Cain, as such, was only
the expression of a grateful present, or, taken in its
deepest significance, a consecrated offering of self ;
but man needs, before all things, the expiation of
his death-deserving sins, and for this the blood ob-
tained through the slaying of the victims serves as
B symbol." It is, however, just as much anticipating
(0 identifj the blood-offering with *be specific expia-

tion offering, as it is to give directly to t' e kving
faith in God's pure promise the identical charactei
of faith in the specific mode of atonement. The
Epistle to the Hebrews lays the whole weight of the
satisfaction expressed in Abel's offering upon hia
faith (ch. xi. 4). Abel appears here as the proper
mediator of the institution of the faith-offering for
the world. As the doctrine of creation is introduced
to the world through the faith of the primitive
humanity, so in a similar manner did Abel bring
into the world the belief in the symbohcal propitia-
tory offering in its universal form ; as after him
Enoch was the occasion of introducing the belief of
the immortal life, and so on. Keil, too, contends
agitinst the view that through the slaying of an ani-
mal Abel already made known the avowal that his
sins deserved death. And yet it is a fact that a dif-
ference in the state of heart of the two brothers is
indicated in the appearance of their offerings. Keil
finds, as a sign of this difference, that Abel's thanks
come from the depths of his heart, whilst Cain's
offering is only to make terms with God in the
choice of his gifts. Delitzsch regards it as emphatic
that Abel offered the firstlings of his herds, and,
moreover, the fattest parts of them, whilst Cain's
offering was no offering of first fruits. This differ-
ence appears to be indicated, in fact, as a difference
in relation to the earliness, the joyfulness, and fresh-
ness of the offerings. After the course of some
time, it means, Cain offered something from the
fruits of the ground. But immediately afterwards it
is said expressly: Ahel had oSered (H'^ZTi , preterite,
Htn'Oi) ; and farther it is made prominent that he
brought of the firstlings, the fattest and best. These
outward differences in regard to the time of the
offerings, and the offerings themselves, have indeed
no significance in themselves considered, but only as
expressing the difference between a free and joyful
faith in the offering, and a legal, reluctant state of
heart. It has too the look as though Cain had
brought his offering in a self-willed way, and for
himself alone, — that is, he brought it to his own
altar, separated, in an unbrotherly spirit, from that
of Abel. — And Cain was very -wroth. — Literally,
he was greatly incensed (inflamed). ("ISX denotes the
distended nostril. — T. L.). The wrath was a fire in
his soul (Jer. xv. 14 ; xvii. 4). — And his counte.
nance fell. — "Cain hung down his head, and looked
upon the earth. This is the posture of one darkly
brooding (Jer. iii. 12 ; Job xxix. 24), and prevails to
this day in the East as a sign of evil plottings " (Burk-
HARHT, " Arabian Proverbs," p. 248). — And the
Lord said unto Cain. — This presupposes a certam
measure o^ susceptibility for divine revelation ; as
does also his previous offering, though done in his
own way. Jehovah, in a warning manner, calls his
attention to the symptom of his wicked thoughts, —
his brooding posture. — If thou doest well, &c. —
The explanation of Arnheim and Bunsen : Whether
thou bringest fair gifts or not, sin lurks at the door,
&c., does not take the word nsiB in its nearest con-
nection, namely, in contrast with the falling of the
countenance, as the lifting it up in freedom and
serenity. Should we take PNi^ for tho lifting up
(the acceptance) of the offering, still would its betler
and nearer sense lie in the idea that good behavior
is the right offering. And yet on account of the
contrast, the lifting up of the countenance would
seem to be the meaning most obviously suggested.
We need not to be reminded that along with good

CHAP. IV. 1-26.

25T

behavior there is also meant an inward state, yet the
expression tells us that that inward state will also

actualize itself in the right way ^Ver. 8. And

Cain talked vrith Abel. — Knobel represents these
words as a crux interpretum. Rosenmiiller and
others interpret it : he talked with Abel, that is, he
had a paroxysm or fit of goodness and spoke again
peaceably with his brother. It is against this that
the use of ias< for "iB^ cannot be authenticated by
Bure examples. Therefore Hieronymus, Aben Ezra,
and others, interpret it : he told it (namely, what
Jehovah had said to him) to his brother. On the
contrary, Knobel remarks : it does not seem exactly
consistent that the still envious Cain should thus
relate his own admonition. Here, however, the
question arises whether we are required to take
IBSil in that manner. The sense of this may be
that Cain simply preached to his brother in a mock-
ing manner the added apothegm, sin lieth at the
door. In a similar manner, to say the least, did
Ahab preach to Elias, Caiaphas to our Lord Christ,
Cajetan to Luther, &c. The Samaritan text has the
addition: JTl'ian nsb: (let us go into the field). It
has been acknowledged by the Septuagint, the Vul-
gate, and certain individual critics. But even an-
cient testimonies show it to have been an interpola-
tion.* Knobel, together with Bottcher, has recourse
to a conjecture that the reading should be msili
(he watched), instead of ^as< . Delitzsch, again,
supposes that the narration hastens beyond the
oratio directa, or the direct address, and gives im-
mediately its carrying out in place of the thing said,
that is, he regards the invitation, " let us go into the
field," as implied or understood in the act. In a
iimilar way, Keil. We turn back to the above
uterpretation with the remark that the narrator had
QO need to state precisely that Cain preserved the
penal words of God as solely for himself, if he meant
to tell us that out of this warning admonition Cain
had made a hypocritical address to his brother. —
Oain rose up against Abel his brother. — The
words " his brother," how many times repeated !
The sin of the fall has advanced quickly to that of
fratricide. The divinely charged envy in the sin of
Kve, wherein there is reflected an analogue of the
envy of man against God, is here again advanced
from envy of a brother to hatred, then from hatred
to a vile obduracy against the warning words of God,
and so on, even to fratricide.. Therein, too, it is
evident that the tempter of man is a murderer of
man. Yet still this is not in the sense as though
John viii. 44 had reference only to this fact. In the
sense of this latter passage, Satan was the murderer
of Cain, — a thing, however, which manifests itself in
the murder of Abel. The fact here narrated will
form a connected unity with that of Gen. iii. The
working of Satan in Gen. iii. comes fully out in the
fact narrated in Gen. iv. " Cain is the first man who
lets sin rule over him ; he is iK ruv irovripod (of the
evil one), 1 John iii. 12." Delitzsch.

4. Vers. 9-16. The Judgment of Oain. Where

r* It is not in the Syriao, which closely follows the
Hebrew, and there is no reference to it in the Targums.
It looks more like something added (supposed to be neces-
sary to explain lO.X^) than like something left out. The
feet of its being in the Samaritan Pentateuch, therefore,
Instead of showing the superior antiquity and correctness
of that as compared with- the Hebrew letter, only proves
'fes later date as copying the interpolations of the Septua-
gmt See the conclusive argument of Gesenius as against
the claims of this Samaritan Pentateuch.— T. L.]

17

is Abel thy brother ?— The divine arrai^raem
analogous to the arraignment of Adam and Eve Bui
Cain evades every acknowledgment. He lies, and
denies in an impudent maimer ; then coiies boldN
out with the scornful expression : Am I my bro-
ther's keeper ? " What a fearful advance from the
resort and exculpation of our first parents after the
fall, so full of shame and anguish, to this shamoleaa
lying; this brutaUty, so void of love and feeling I"
Delitzsch. Irreligionsness, together with an inhuman
want of feeling, stand out in continually increasing,
reciprocal action. Upon thiis impudent denial fol-
lows the accusation and the judgment. The streaaj
of his brother's blood are represented as his accusera,
and the earth itself must bear witness against him.
— What hast thou done ? — So we read, since wa
take the sense of that which follows to be : A voice
hast thou made, etc. "The deed belongs to those
crimes that cry to Heaven (ch. xviii, 20; xix. 13;
Exod. iii. 9). Therefore does Abel's blood cry up to
Heaven that God, the lord and judge, may punish
the murderer. All blood shed unrighteously must
be avenged (oh. ix. 5); according to the ancient view
it cries to God continually, until vengeance take*
place. Hence the prayer, that the earth may not
drink in the blood shed upon it, in order that it may
not thereby be made invisible and inaudible (Is. xxvi
21; Ezek. xxiv. 7; Job xvi. 18)." Knobel. Com
pare Ps. cxvi. 15; Heb. xi. 4; Rev. vi. 9. Calvin:
Ostendit De-uSj se de factis hominurn eognoscere ut-
cunque nullus queratiir vel accusei ; deinde sihi magis
caram esse hominurn vitam, quam ui sanguinem in-
noxium impune effundi sinat; tertio, curam &ih%
piorum esse non solum quamd'm vivunt, sed etiam
post mortem. The blood as the living flow of the
life, and the phenomenal basis of the soul (primarily
as basis of the nerve-life) has a voice which is as the
living echo of the blood-clad soul itself. It is the
symbol of the soul crying for its right (to live), and
in this way affects immediately the human feeUng.* —

* [" Crying for its right to Jive.'* The feeling here earliest
manifested, and the idea of demanded retribution that growa
out of it, pervades antiquity ; but as esiiibifced in the Greek
tragic poetry it becomes almost terrific. Compare numerouji
passages in the Eumenides of ^schyltjs ; also the Chcephorm,
398:

dXA.-! vdfJLOi fxev <f»ovias <TTay6va<;
^u/Ae'ca? es neSov aAAo ■npotjaiTGiv
alfJ-a.. BOA" yap ^01761- EPINNYS •
irapa. T(ov irporepov ^6ifj.ivttiv o.Te}V
kripav kirayovaav ett' ar-Q.
There is a law that blood once poured on earth
By murderous hands demands that other hlood
Be shed in retribution. From the slain
Erynnys calls aloud for venp;eance still,
Till death in justice meet be paid for death.
In another passage there is a similar reference to a very wt
oient law, or mythus, which the poet styles rpiyipiav, from
its exceeding antiquity. Jo. 310 :

'AvTC Se TT\TfyT}<; ^ovia^ tfiovlav
TrAij-yiif Tiveroj ■ SpdaavTL waOelv
TPirEPfiN MY0O2 Ta5e <})(ovel.
For blood must blood be shed. A law by age
Thrice holy on the murderer' g^giiilty head
This righteous doom demands.
Here again, as has been before remarked, it is not diffi-
cult to dpcidq which is the original and which is the copy,
^schylns drew from the pi imitive feeling and the primitaTi
idea, but how greatly had it become deformed. How pure,
how holy, how merciful even, is this 'jcriptural presentation
of the first murderer and his doom, as compared with the
fierce revenge (as distinguished from vengeance, or pure rotri-
bution) together with the fatalism that appears ia the (3Te-
cian Drama, and in the still harsher pictures of othei
mythologies.

The allusion to the blood of Abel, Heb. xii. 24, has bees
supposed to intimate the blood of Abel's sacrifice (see Ja
COBUS, p. 138), but the moie direct parallelism is with th<

%aii

GENESIS, OK THE FIEST flOCE OF MOSES.

And now art thou cursed, etc. — The words follow-
ing (nalxn 'ja) are explained in different ways :

1. My curse shall smite tiiee from this land; that
is, here shall be its execution (Aben Ezra, Kimclii,
•nd others ; Enobel, Keil, more or less definitely).

2. Cursed away from the district ; that is, driven forth
by the curse (Rosenmiiller, Tuch, Gerlach, DeUtzsch).
8. As in the history of the first judgment there
■ppear two cursings, it is proper to look back to
tbem. There is the serpent cursed directly as Cain
is here. But the earth, too, is cursed for Adam's
■ake. Since now here, in the curse of Cain, the
earth is again mentioned, the obvious interpretation
becomes : thou thyself shalt be cursed in a much
severer degree than the earth. The earth, which
through Adam's natural sin has become to a certain
extent partaker of his guilt, shall appear innocent in
presence of thine unnatural crime ; yea, it becomes
thy judge. — Which hath opened her mouth. —
This is the moving reason for the form of the pre-
ceding penal sentence. So DeUtzsch interprets :
the ground has drunk innocent blood, and so is
made a participant in the sin of murder (Is. xxvi.
21 ; Numb. xxxv. 31). Keil disputes this, and on
good grounds. " It is because the earth has been
compelled to drink the innocent blood which has
been shed that, therefore, it opposes itself to the
murderer, and refuses to yield its strength (nis its
fruits or crops. Job xxxi. 40) to his cultivation ; so
that it returns him no produce, just as the land of
Canaan is said to have spit out the Canaanites, on
account of the abominable crimes with which they
bad utterly defiled it (Levit. xviii. 28)." It is clear

voice here spoken of aa crying from the earth. The words
cp«iTTova Ka\ouvTi (Heb. xii. 24) are best rendered speaketh
stronger, loudea, taking KpeiTTova. adverbially with its pri-
mary sense of strength, superiority (from Kparoy) ; and this
is confimied by the Hebraism in irapa, for '^'>2 , or 73 com-
parative. Tbe blood of Chxlst cries louder for mercy than
Abel's did for vengeance.

The Scripture calls thy' blood the life, and so it comes to
be used for 113 S3 or >^u;(v, Had it meant (as it is no extrav-
agance to suppose it di^ laean) that Abel's soul was crying,
this would have been t^e most ancient mode of saying it ;
as there is no evidence that in that earliest expenence of
mankind, death, though an awfully strange and fearful
event, was regarded as a cessation or discontinuance of
being. They could not have had anything like our modem
notion of death either in its hyper-spiritu Uism or in its ma-
terialism. There was still a personality, a se'ihood, in the
body and in the blood. Abe! wa« not wholU jone ; he still
lived in his blood, lived, at least, unto God,' /ho is not the
God ot the dead but of the living (Matt. xxii. 32),

The use of the blood for the life or soul (as life) may help
ns to understand better Rev. vi, 9, as having some connec-
tion with this passage. John saw under the altar (flvfrttumj-
piov) the souls (rds \jjvxaq) of those that had been slain
(iv'tta.ytj.evuiv') ; and they were crying out for retribution :
How long, 0 Lord, holy and true I It is difficult to take i/fux**
in this vision as denoting spirits redeemed who have entered
intD rest. If, however, it is something more than a personi-
/ication, that is, if we are to regard the ifivxal here as real
' ersonal beings, then it is not irrational to take the same
iew of the blood, life, ^yxh of Abel, as a true personal ex-
istence for whom God still cared, and to suppose that such
was the view taken by the ancient author. A mere personi-
fication is inconsistent with the simplicity of this earliest
thinking and feeling, however this kind of language may
fall to that in a later time, when poetry (if we will call it
poetry^ becomes predominantly rhetorical. If such an idea
IB forbidden in the Apocalyptic picture, much more is it alien
to the first ; and there can hardly be a doubt that the two
passages are connected and mutually suggestive. Was Abel's
6onl among those that were under the altar T The idea is
seen In the imagery that follows : " there were given unto
(hem white robes." This white robe is in striking contrast
to th.3 1'ed p,arment of blood, and its being " made white in
the KcK/d of the Lamb " (Rev. vii. 14) adds to the vividness
•lt'» Aif.—I. li.]

that in this case there is transferred to the earth a
ministration of punishment against Cain. Since Cain
has done violence to nature itself, even to the ground,
in that it has been compelled to drink his brother'a
blood, therefore must it take vengeance on him Id
refusing to him its strength. The curse proper, how-
ever, of Cain must be, that through the power of his
guilt-consciousness he must become a fugitive and a
v:igabond upon the earth. 131 S3, a paranomasia
as in ch. i. 2. The first word (participle from S^i)
denotes the inward quaking, trembling, and unrest,
the second (from T13) the outward fleeing, roving,
restlessness. The interpretation, therefore, of De-
Utzsch is incorrect, " that the earth in denying to
Cain the expected fruits of his labor, drives him ever
on from one land to another." The proper middle
point of his curse is his inner restlessness. More
correctly says DeUtzsch : " ban of banning, wander
ing of exUe, is the history of Cain's curse ; how di-
rectly opposite to that which is proclaimed by the
blood of the other Abel, the Holy and Righteous
one (Acts iii. 14)." Knobel, according to the view
•bove noticed, interprets the words '• fugitive and
vagabond," as indicating in the author a knowledge
of the roaming races of the East. — My punishment
is greater than I can bear [Lange lenders it my

guilt, ''31J"], — The question arises whether this ex-
pression means my sin, or my punishment. The old
interpretations (Septuagint, Vulgate) render it my
sin, and accordingly give NITS the sense of forgive-
ness. My sin is too great to be ever forgiven. This
expression of despair into which his earUer confi-
dence sinks down, has been interpreted by some as .
denoting Cain's repentance, which, analogous to the
repentance of Judas, fails of salvation through self-
will and want of faith, or rather, bears him on more
fully to destruction. But since "|1S may denote also
the punishment of sin (ch. xix. 15; Is. v. 18), and
since Cain further on laments the greatness of his
punishment, DeUtzsch, Keil, and others, with Aben
Ezra, Kimchi, Calvin, etc., take the sense to be; my
punishment is too great, that is, greater than I can
bear. But now the question arises, whether there is
not here in view a double sense, as indicated by the
very choice of the expression ; and this the more,
since, in fact, there lies also in Cain's repentance a
similar double sense. The sin is evidently acknowl-
edged, but only in the reflex view of the punishment,
and because of the punishment (attritio in contrast
with contritio). The self-accusation, therefore, that
the sin is held unpardonable, is, at the same time, an
accusation of the judge for having laid upon him an
unendurable burden. The reservation of the heart
still unbroken in its selfishness and pride, makes the
self-accusation, in this kind of repentance, an accusa-
tion of the doom itself; it is "the sorrow of the
world that worketh death." It is, however, the lies
bound up with the pride that gives the impassioned
utterance its curiously varied coloring. — Behold
thou hast driven me out.— Out of the sentence
of his own conscience, through which God lets him
become a fugitive and a vagabond, Cain makes a
clear, positive, divint iecree of banishment. There-
by does it appear to him a heavier doom that he
must go forth from the presence of the adamah in
Eden, than his departure from the presence of God
(though before he had put the latter first; , ind,
finaUy, they are both to him the harder punishment,
since now " every one t,bat finds shall slay him." It

CHAP. IV. 1-26.

U59

w the full, unbroken, sel6sh fear of death, that falls
upon him like a giant, rather than the wish that he
niuy *>fi slaiti by the avenger of blood, whoever be
may be. But therein does his outer understauding
of it give notice of the sentence : thou shalt be a
fugitive and a vagabond. It has changed, for liim,
into the threatening: avengers of blood will every-
where hunt and slay thee (Prov. xxviii. 1). — Behold
thou drivest me forth this day from the face of the
Adainah, that is, out of Eden. *' In Kden dwelt Je-
hovah, whose presence guaranteed protection and
security." Knobel. But would Cain take comfort in
the idea of the divine protection ? It is suffering and
punishment, in itself, that, as he says, he is directly
driven forth (U3ia) from that home still so rich and
charming, where, moreover, through his tilling of the
ground he meant to become a permanent possessor.
— ^And &om thy face shall I be hid. — Knobel :
" Outside of Eden, withdrawn from thy look. In a
similar manner Jonah believed that by his withdrawal
from Canaan, the land of Jehovah's habitation, he
should escape from his territorial jurisdiction." On
the contrary, Delitzsch and Keil : " from the place
where Jehovah revealed his presence." It must be
observed that he mentions this suffering as of second
moment. It sounds partly as a complaint, and partly
as a threatening ; for it is the specific expression of
the morose self-consciousness that it flees from the
presence of God, whilst it maintains, in order to have
some plea of right, that it has been forced to do so.
When I lose the face of my home, then also am I
compelled to flee from the face of God. Though in
every place he would fain hide from the face of God,
yet the obvious sense here is neither the unbiblical
thought that God dwelt only in Eden (or in Canaan),
nor the loss of the beholding of the cherubim. The
idea that man can hide himself from God the Scrip-
ture everywhere treats as a mere false representa-
tion of the evil conscience. It is clearly growling
despair that will no more seek the presence of Jeho-
vah through prayer and sacrifice, under the pretence
that it is no more allowed to do so. Cain, however,
has still religious insight enough to know, that the
further from God, the deeper does he fall into the dan-
ger of death. — Every one that findeth me. — How
■ could Cain fear lest the blood avenger should slay him,
when the earth was uninhabited ? Josephus, Kimchi,
Michaelis, have referred the declaration to the rav-
enous beasts. Clericus, Dafche, Delitzsch, Keil, and
others, have referred it to the family of Adam.
Schumann and Tuch find in it an oversight of the
narrator.* Knobel takes it as embracing the repre-

[* If there is a difficulty here, it ia one that the writers
of the account must have seen as cleariy as the mosb acute
of modem critics. The narrative excludes the idea of any
other historic human race than, that derived from Adam..
If there had heen before this any other creation, or crea-
tures bearing a resemblance to man, either physical or psy-
chological, or if there were any such in other and remote
parts of the earth, they had no generic connection with the
species homo, or that Adamic family, afterwards represent-
ed by the three sons of Woah, and from which has come all
whom history has recognized, and now recognizes, as prop-
erly man, DIX i33 , Sons of Adam, according to the Scrip-
tural designation, or Sons of Man. But what reason have
We to suppose that Cain knew all this ? The inconsistency
of some comm.entatora here is very striking. They hold as
absurd that notion of some of the older theologians, according
to which Adam was a being of surpassinpr knowledge, and
yet here, in order to make an objection to the Scriptures, they
ascribe to Cain a knowledge he could only have had from
Bome transcendent experience or some direct divine revela-
tion. To establish such a contradiction, they supposo him
to have known, or that he ought to have known, that there
irere no oHuet beings iik^ himself anywhere in existence.

sentation of their havmg been piimitive inhabitant!
of Eastern Asia {Chinese immigrants, perhaps) witfc
whom Cain had fought. Delitzsch says: '*It is

Now, as iar as the account goes, notl ing of this kind hai
ever been revealed to him, and he had no meuns of leamina
it. There is nothing to show that even Adam himsc.f had
any such knowledge of his own earthly solitariness. Bi;j ond
his own Eden he knew nothing of the earth's vast extent or
of what God may have done in other paits of it. We are
carrying into the narrative our own definite knowledge of
the figure, geography, and history of our globe, and tbia
some would call interpreting rationally. We may, indeed,
have a hi^h view of Adam's position in its moral aspect ana
in its spii'itual grandeur, but this does not demand for Irim
a past knowledge, which could only have been supematorw
aLy acquired, and of which the account gives not the slight-
est intimation. Awaking to a hiunan consciousness under
the divine inspiration that first made him man, he finds
himself the object of a tender care and a guiding law, pro-
ceeding from a being higher than himself. His next exp*Ti-
ence is that of a companion mysteriously introduced to him
as one derived from liimself. He is conscious of a serei e
happiness and a blissful home. Then comes his later
knowledge. He remembers the beautiful Eden, his sad
ti-ansgression, his fall from that blessed state, and his ban-
ishment into the wide wilderness world- He carriers with
him the thought of some dark malignant power from whom
he had received deadly injury, and is consoled by the
promise that one of his descendants shall finally triumph
over him ; but beyond this, nature and history; are all un»
known. The vast waste may have other inhabitants.
Nothing to the contrary has as yet been revealed to h m or
to his children. His geography is limited to the lost Eden
and the adamah that lies around it ; hi:* ethnology takes in
only himself, his companion the mother of life, and the chil-
dren that have been born to him. To Adam himself there
may have been the thought that he was alone with God
upon the earth, but it would not be experience or revelation,
— only an inference from the care and government of which
he found himself the object To the lawless, vindictive
Cain, on the other hand, nothing would be more natural
than the thought that, somewhere in the unknown waste,
there might be beings like himself, and who might be as
malignant to himself as he had been to his slain brother.
Thus regarded, Cain's language, instead of involving a con-
tradiction, or an oversight on the part of the narrator, pre-
sents one of those inimitable features of truthfulness that
characterize the account the moment we get in the right
position for viewing it. Had not the author been writing
artlessly and truthfully (that is, in his subjective consL-ious-
ness, whether coming from inspii-ation or otherwise), he
would have provided against the cavil ; for he could not
have failed to see the diflBculty if his stand-point had been
the same with that of the modem objector. Had it been
a mere fancy, he would have supplied the required linowl-
edge, as Milton has done by the conversation of the angel.

We may say, too, as Lange intimates, that Cair's awful
guilt gave a preternatural power to his imagination, and
peopled the world with avengers. This is perfectly credible
and in accordance with human experience. The supposition,
too, that by 'i&t^'lTQ PT , whosoever or whatsoever finds me,
he may have had in mind imagined demonic beings, is not
to be rashly rejected. To say nothing now of any outward
demonic realm, such as the Bible elsewhere clearly reveals,
a subjective world of devils is created by the guilty human
conscience, which must find an avenger, an aAatrrwp, some-
where ; and we thus regard Cain as the first human me-
dium of tMs awful revelation, just as other doctrines of a
diiferent kind have been brought out, first as emotional
consciousness and afterwards as expressed dogma, through
the action of the human soul itself in its holy experience.
This has been the method of their inspiration, or the germ
of their first introduction to the minds of men. Thus the
doctrine of a hell originated in the human soul itself^
jiist as the hope of some final rest, in holy suuls like Enoch,
or of some " city that had fuundations," as in the longings
of the pilgrim patriarchs (Heb. xi. 10), became God's morn-
ing star of revelation to the whole doctrine of a future life,
Rowing brighter and brighter until, in the New Testament,
it reaches the " perfect day."

When, in the Eumonides of ^schylus, Orestes seci* the
'Epti'i'ues everywhere pursuing him, we recognize it as dra-
matically true to nature. It is indeed a strange aspect ol
the human soul that the poet presents, but it has its ground
in its deeper consciousness, and we cannot help feeling that
there must be something objective corresponding to it. li
we acknowledge this fitness in the representations of the
Greek tragedian, founded, doubtless, on some past tradition,
why may we not regard it as a truthful interpretation of thj
same human conscience in this account of t^je first mux*
derer?— T. Ifc]

860

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

clear that the blood arengers whom Cain feared,
must be those who should exist in the future, when
his fatlier's family had become enlarged and spread
abroad ; for that the murderer should be punished
with death (we might even say that the taking ven-
geance for blood is the fountain of regulated law and
rifflit respecting murder) is a righteous sentence
written in any man's breast ; and that Cain already
Gees the earth full of avengers, is just the way of the
muiderer who sees himself on all sides surrounded
by avenging spirits ('Epii^vvfs), and feels himself sub-
jected to their tormentings." Keil adds : " Though
Adam, at that time, had not many grandchildren,
great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren,
yet, according to ver. 17, ch. v. 4, he must, at that
time, doubtless, have had already other children,
who might multiply, and, earlier or later, avenge
Abel's death." In aid of this supposition we must
take the representation that would give to Cain an
immensely long life. Cain's complaint was an indi-
rect prayer for the mitigation of the punishment.
Jehovah consents to the prayer in his sense, that is,
he knows that the fear of Cain is, in great part, a
reflection from his evil conscience, and, consequent-
ly, the destiny which is appointed to him appears
to serve more for the silencing (not giving rest to)
his frantic excitement, than as designed to protect
him outwardly from any danger. For not absolutely
shall he know himself protected, but only through
the threatening of a seven-fold blood-vengeance
against his pursuer, whoever he might be, and
through the warning of the same as given by a sign.
There appears to Knobel a difficnlty in the question,
Who then would undertake the blood-vengeance on
behalf of Cain, seeing he had no conipaidons?
Seven-fold shall he be punished, or shall he (Cain)
become avenged. — Set a mark upon Cain. — Ac-
cording to the traditional interpretation, God put a
sign on Cain himself which would muke him known ;
and hence the proverbial expression : the mark of
Cain. On the contrary, the literal language has the
preposition 5 (to or for). Another old interpretation
(Aben Ezra, Baumgarten, Delitzsch) will have it that
God gave him a tolsen for his security, in order that
he might not be slain. The language, however, does
not denote a sign of security for Cain that would
make him absolutely safe, but only a sign of warn-
ing, and threatening, for some possible pursuer, and
which might possibly remain unnoticed, though
serving to Cain himself as a conscious sign for the
quieting of his fears. According to Knobel, the
author had m mind, perhaps, some celestial phenom-
enon, which should every time make its appearance
and warn away the assailant. Such a divine inter-
vention, however, would be a placing the murderer
In absolute security, and besides a thing simply in-
conceivable. The warning sign for the pursuer of
Lamech, whoever he might be, was the newly in-
vented weapons of his son Tubal-Cain. The warn-
ing sign that should serve for the protection of Cain,
niust disclose to the pursuers the threatening pros-
pect of a seven-fold blood-vengeance. Such a sign,
although for Cain, may be, notwithstanding, repre-
sented as on Cain in some kind of threatening de-
fence, perhaps, or in the attendance of bis wife ; it
is enough that the history is silent, or simply means
to tell us that God already, immediately after the
first deed of murder, had established a modification
of the natural, impul-ive, and impassioned, taking
ol vengeance for blood ; — a warning sign, in fact,
that the carrying out of the blood- vengeance would

have for its consequence the extirpation "f the whols
human race. But why this exemption of Cain f
To this question every kind of answer has been given
(comp. lielilzsch and Keil). The chief thing was.
tliat this banishment had in itself the significance of
a social human death. It was a member cut off
from the human community, as in the New Testa
ment history of Judas. Besides, the unfolding of the
Cainitish existence was to reveal an unfolding of
death in a higher degree, and, at the same time, to
do sei-vice to human culture in the dissemination of
the Cainitish talent. Finally, there comes into con-
sideration, in relation to Cain, what is said by
DeUtzsch : " He was gracious to him in the pro-
longation of his time of grace, because he recognized
the sin as sin." But at the same time, God himself
gives here the first example for the significance of
the law of pardon in the later society. To demand
the death of Cain was properly the right only ol
Abel's parents. But these were also Cain's parents
The right of pardoning is the right of modifying or
mitigating the punishment in view of special mitigat-
ing circumstances. — And Cain went out " The

name "lU denotes a land of escape and banishment,
and is therefore the contrast to the happy land of
Eden, where Jehovah walks and communes with
men." Keil. The land lay eastward of Eden. In
other respects it cannot be definitely determined ;
for Cain carried everywhere the land of Nod with
him in his heart. Knobel thinks here again of
China.

5. Vers. 17-23. Cain and the Cainites. — And
Cain kne^tr his wife, — Here comes in the supposi-
tion that Adam must have already had daughters
too. Cain's wife could only have been a daughter
of Adam, consequently his sister, and Abel's sister.
She still adheres, nevertheless, to the fearful man,
and follows him in his misery, which is also a testi-
mony to a humane side in his life. The marriage of
sisters was, in the beginning, a condition for the
propagation of the human race. At the commence-
ment of the race, the contrasts in the members of the
family must have been so strongly regarded, that
thereby the conditions for a true marriage ".ould be
present in the same family ; whilst the most Significant
motive for the later prohibition of sister marriages,
such as the establishment of a new band of love,
and the consequent separation of the sisterly and
marriage relations, could not yet have become effec-
tual. Keil, moreover, remarks that the sons and
daughters of Adam represent not merely the family,
but the race ; this is indeed the case, even in single
famihes, though on a reduced scale. Some have
thought it strange that Cain should have built a city
for his son. But in this objection it is overlooked
that the main conception of a primitive city is simply
that of a walled fortification. The city must have
been a very small one. Caui might have built it for
an entire patriarchal race. Moreover, it reads, as

Keil calls attention to it, (132 "'In'^", he was bujld>

ing. It was the thought and the work of his life, in
proof that immediately after the protection offered
to him by God, he longed for something to fortify
himself against the fear of his conscience, and had
need to fix for himself an outward station, in oppo-
sition to his inner imsettled condition. " Even if
we do not, with Dehtzsch, regard this city aa the
foundation-stone of the worldly rule in which the
spirit of the beast predominates, yet we must not
misapprehend thereir. t" le effort to remove the cuts*

CHAP. IV. 1-26.

261

ji' banishiDent, and to create for Ms race a point of
unity as a compensation for the lost unity in society
witli God ; neither must we lose sight of the contin-
ual tendency of the Cainitish life to the earthly.
The mighty development of the world-feeling, and
of ungodUness, among the Cainites, becomes conspic-
uous with Lamech in the sixth generation." Keil.
This comes to be, indeed, the ground idea of the
Cainite development, that in the symbolic ideality of
culture, it seeks an offset to the real ideality of the
living cultus (or worship), even as this is generally
the character of the secidarized v/orldlLness ; that is,
it makes a development of culture, in itself legiti-
mate, to be its one and all. If after this we take
into view the names of the Cainitish line, it will serve
for a confirmation of what has been said.

1. Henoch, initiation, the initiated and his city.

2. Irad, townsman, citizen, urbanus, civilis.

8. Mahujael, or Mahijael, the purified, or the

formed of God (nna).
4. Methusael, the (strengthened) man of God.
6. Lamech, strong youth. His two wives: Adah,
the decorated, Zillah, the musical player (ac-
cording to Schroder, the dark brunette).
[Schroder is all wrong. — T. L.]
6. The sons of Lamech, by Adah : Jabal, the
traveller (nomade), and Jubal, the jubilant,
the musician. By Zillah : Tubal Cain, work-
er in brass or irou (aeconling to the Persian,
Thubal ; Gesenius), the lance-forger (accord-
ing to the Shemetic, mason) — if not more
probably : brass (or iron) of Cain, that is, the
forger of the weapons in which the Cainites
trusted. His sister Naamah, the lovely.
Cain and Adam included, this is eight genera-
tions ; whereas the line of Seth that follows (ch. 6)
embraces ten generations. On account of the like
names, Henoch and Lamech, Irad and Jared, Kain
and Kenan, Mahujael and Mahalael, Methusael and
Methuselah, Knobel supposes a mingling of both
genealogies, or one common primitive legend in two
forms ; Keil contends against this by laving empha-
sis on the difference of the names that appear to be
similar, and the different position of those that are
alike. For the sake of comparison we let the line
of Seth immediately follow: 1. Adam (earth-man).
2. Seth (compeusiition, or the established). 3. Enoch
(weak man). 4. Cainan (profit, a mv re like-sounding
of Cain). 6. Mahalaleel, praise of God (only an
echo of Mahujael). 6. Jared, descending, the de-
scender (only a resemblance in sound to Irad). 1.
Enoch or Henoch, the consecrated. Here the devo-
ted, or consecrated, follows the descending ; in the
Cainitish line he follows Cain. The one was the
occupier of a city in the world, the other was trans-
lated to God; both consecrations, or devotions,
Btand, therefore, in full contract. 8. Methuselah.
According to the usual interpietation : man of the
arrow, of the weapons of war. As he forms a chro-
nologiciil parallel with the Cainitic Lamech, so may
we regard this name as indicating that he introduced
these newly invented weapons of the Cainites into
the line of Seth, in order to be a defence against the
hostile insolence of the Cainites. It consists with
this interpretation, that with him there came into the
line of Seth a tendency to the worldly, after which
it goes down with it, and with the age. Even the
Imposing upon his son the name Lamech, the strong
youth, may be regarded as a warlike demonstration
tgainst the Cainitic Lamech. Therefore, 9. Lemeoh
Ir Lameuh, 10. Noah, the rest, the quieter, or

peacemaker. With Lamech, who greeted in his SOS
the future pacificator, there appeais to be indicated,
in the line of Seth, a direction, peaceful, yet troubled
with toil and strife. It was just such an age, how-
ever, as might have for its consequence the alliancal
and mingliugs with the Cainites that are now intro-
duced, and which have so often followed the exigen-
cies of war. This Sethian Lamech, however, forma
a significant contrast with the Caiuitic. Tlie one
consoles himself with the newly invented weapons
of his son Tubal Cain, as his security a;;ainst the
fearful blood-vengeance. The other comforts hmi-
self with the hope that with his son there shall
come a season of holy rest from the labor and paina
that are burdened with the curse of God. In regard
to both hues in common, the following is to be re-
marked : 1. The names in the Cainitic line are, for
the most part, expressive of pride, those of the
Sethio, of humdity. 2. The Cainitic line is carried
no farther than to the point of its open corruption
in polygamy, quarrelsomeness, and consecration of
art to the service of sin. The Sethic line forms in
its tenth period the full running out of a temporal
world-development, in which Enoch, the seventh,
properly appears as the highest [point. 3. Against
the mention of the Cainitic wives, their charms, and
their art, appears in the Sethic line only the mention
of sons and daughters. It serves for an introduction
fo the sixth chapter.

Concerning the repeated appearance of like
names, compare what is said by Keil, p. "71. Zillah
can just as well mean the shadowy as tlie sounding,
yet the latter interpretation is commer.ded by the
context. By the invention of Jubal a distinction is
made between stringed and wind insirumenls. In
its relation to Tubal Cain the word ttj-ih must be
taken as neuter ; since otherwise Tubal Cain would
appear as the smith that forged the smiths. The
song of Lamech is the first decidedly poetic form in
the Scriptures, more distinct than ch. i. 27 and ch.
ii. 23, as is shown by tiie marked parallelism of the
members. It is the consecration of poetry to the
glorification of a Titanic insolence, and, sung as it
was in the ears of both his wives, stands as a proof
that lust and murder are near akin to each other.
Rightly may we suppose (with Hamaim and Herder),
that the invention of his son Tubal Cain, that i,<, the
invention of weapons, nnide him so excessively
haughty, whilst the invention of his son Jubal put
him in a position to sing to his wives his song of
hate and vengeance. This indicates, at the same
time, an immeasurable pride in his talented sons.
He promises himself the taking of a blood-ven-
geance, vastly enhanced in degree, but shows, at the
same time, by the citation of the case of his ances-
tor Cain, that the dark history of that bad man had
become transformed into a proud remembrance for
his race. The meaning of the song, however, is not,
I have slain a man (Septuagint, Vulgate, &c.). He
supposes the case that he were now wounded, or
now slain ; that is, it looks to the future (Aben Ezra,
Calvin, &c.). We may take the 'S with which the
song begins as an expression of assurance, and the
preterite of the verb as denoting '.lie certainty of the
declaration (see Delitzsch, p. 214). We think il
better, however, to take it hypothetically, as Nagels-
bach and others have done, and this too as corre^
spending to the sense as well as to the grammatical
expression. In respect to the inventions of the
Chmese, and the discovery of music as coming out

202

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

»f the shepherd-life, compare Knobel, p. 66. In
regard to the conjectures concerning these genealo-
gies, see the Catalogue of Literature, p. 66. Thus,
for example, Jubal is connected with Apollo, and
Tubal Cain with Vulcan. The similarity of particu-
lai forms in popular traditions cannot justify us in
confounding them. Knobel refers here, in the view
he talies, to the bloodthirsty cruelty of the Mongo-
lian tribes. Ewald finds in the three sons of Lamech
(Noiih ?) the representatives of three principal states
according to the Judsean conceptions (see Delitzsoh,
p. 212; also similar interpretations of Ewald, p.
211).

6. Vers. 24-26. Seth. — And called his name
Seth. — Seth may denote compensation for Abel
(Knobel, Keil), — one who comes in the place of Abel
who has been slain and taken away ; and in this way
he is said to be fixed, established. Eve called th&
giver Elohim, according to Knobel, because the Seth-
ites were elohists ; according to Keil it was because
the divine power had compensated her for what hu-
man wickedness had taken away. The fact that the
name Jehovah, as mentioned further on, came to be
adopted in connection with Enoch (weak man), may
lead to the thought, indeed, of a lowering of hopes,
and yet there lies an expression of hope in this, that
she regards Seth as a permanent compensation for
Abel. — And to Seth, — to him also was born a
gon. — Enoch, — a designation of weakness, frailty ;
probably a sorrowful remembrance of Abel (Ps. viii.
6; xc. 3). — Then began men to call. — 2 6<"ii3,
primarily, to call on the name of Jehovah, and then
to proclaim him, to announce. Men hud before this
prayed and called upon God, but now they begin to
reverence God as Jehovah. But why not before, in
the time of Seth ? God as Jehovah is the covenant
God of a pious race, of a future full of promise.
First with Enoch does there appear the sure pros-
pect of a new line of promise, after the line of Cain
had lost it. With a new divine race, and a new be-
lieving generation, there ever presents itself the
name Jehovah, and ever with a higher glory. Now
it is for the first time after Eve's first theocratic
jubilee-cry of hope. Delitzsoh is inclined to think
that men now called upon Jehovah in the direction
of the East (where the Cainites made their settle-
ment). Moreover, it must be that here is narrated
the beginning of a formal divine worship. In re-
spect to this, as also in respect to the two pillars of
Seth's descendantB of which Josephus speaks, com-
pare Delitzsoh, p. 218. The language undoubtedly
refers to a general houoring of the name Jehovah
among the pious Sethites. Concerning the name of
God, compare the Bibelwerk, Matt., p. 126 (Am. ed.).
In relation to Jehovah is the name of special signifi-
cance, because Jehovah is the God of the covenant,
or of the revelation of salvation, and because the
name of God, whilst on the one side it denotes his
revelation, does, on the other, present the reflex of
his revelation in the human religious recognition,
that is, in religion, itself. In respect to the supposi-
tion that the primitive religion was the true religion,
Bs we find it in Rom. 1. 19-21, Knobel gives an ac-
count in its historical relation (p. 67). According to
a Hebrew interpretation of the word bn^in , as
though from the word bbn , to profane, and which
Hieronymus mentions, though he rejects it, there
must have begun, in the days of Enoch, a species of
image-worship, as a profanation of the name of Je-
hovah (see Rahmer, " The Hebrew Traditions in the

' Works of Hieronymus," p. 20). It Is a RibbinlpaJ
figment, resting upon the misinterpretation of «
word, and of the whole text

DOCTRIWAL AlfD ETHICAl.

1. The propagation of the human race is ont
side of Paradise, not because it is first occasioned
by sin, but rather because it supposes a distinct
development of mankind, and is tainted with its
sin.

2. The human pairing is not an act of natural
necessity, but a free ethical love, a knowing, as its
fruit is a begetting, a witnessing.

3. The first mother's-joy after the first mother'*
anguish, is a spirit of high enthusiasm, and, there-
fore, an expression of believing hope in the coming
salvation. It takes the form of womanly precipi-
tancy, and may mean that now she has borne the
serpent-crusher (gotten him, or brought him forth).
This is the first misreckoning in respect to the times
and hours of God, and the person who is to bring
salvation, but the believing hope itself is not a vain
thing. Upon this high soaring, as it appears in the
mother's naming of Cain (ei/p->)«a, see John i. 42),
there follows, after the human fashion, a great lower-
ing of hope, as shown in the naming of the second
son, wherein there appears to be indicated a fearful
motheily foreboding, which may have been already
occasioned by the conduct of the young Cain.

4. The formation of the family : the fundamental
law of human relations ("next to the conjugal the
parental, the sisterly and brotherly, the general rela-
tion of kindred," Delitzsoh) and of all human ordi-
nances. Church and state, with their binding ce-
ment, the school, all in the embryo form. The
offering. The sentence upon Cain for his brother's
murder. The first moral lesson, an admonition or
warning to Cain.

5. In the bosom of the first family there appears
the first contrast between the two ground-forms of
the human calling, — between worldly power and a
divine endurance, between an ungodly and a godly
direction, between one who was godless and one who
was pious, between one who was loaded in life with
the curse of God and one who was slain for his
piety, yet whose death, blood, and right, had still an
abiding value in the eyes of God.

6. The religious offering is indicated and intro-
duced as early as humanity in the state of sin, ch,
iii. 21. It has its origin in thankfulness for God's
gifts, and the acknowledgment that all belongs to
him and must be presented or consecrated to him.
It is, moreover, an expression of the feeling that the
failure to present a real and perfect obedience of the
heart and will, and of a perfectly holy life with
prayer, is attested by the symbohcal offering, which,
as such, denotes a longing for, and a craving need
of restoration to, that perfect condition wherein life
and offering tmite in one. Concerning the offering,
see Exodus and Leviticus.

7. God's pleasure in the one offering, his displeas-
ure at the other. See the Exegetieal notes.

8. God's warning to Cain. Sin evidently appears
in Cain in an advanced stage of progress, and this
indicates hereditary sinfulness. The divine warning,
moreover, characterizes this hereditary tendency to
sin, in its most peculiar being, not as a fatnlisti*
force, but as a seducing inclination tu evil, as i

CHAP. IV. 1-26.

263

tempting power which already, like a raTenoua wild
beast, waa crouching at his door, and ready to spring
npoL him. Therefore does God ascribe to him a
capa<<rty to rule over sin by the aid of the warning
word of God standing as security to him for such
assistance. It does not depend upon his choice
whether he shall be tempted or not, but it does be-
long to his choice, whether he will let sin have its
will in him, or whether he himself shall rule over it.
Sin (though feminine) is presented in the figure of a
male beast, or of a masculine nature, — as a lion,
dragon, or serpent. On account of a supposed
Btrangeness in the exprv;ss;«n : rule over him (or it),
Kwald takes it as a quest/ a : Wilt thou be able to
rule over it ? And Dehtzsch holds that it does not
mean the ruling over the sin that is lurking for him,
but only over the inward temptation. But this in-
ward temptation, in so far as it is temptation only, is
just the sin that is crouching at the door; for the
door denotes the entrance to his inclination, or to his
will. Keil corrects Delitzsch by saying : " it is not
the holding down of the inner temptibility which is
commanded, but the withstanding of that power of
evil which invades man from without,'' — a view
which here gives no proper sense. The personifica-
tion of sin, and what is said about its desire and its
craving after men (as though to devour them), ap-
pears not without significance, yet still the remem-
brance of 1 Pet. V. 8 should not lead us to find
here, as Delitzsch does, a conscious intimation of
Satan. More rightly does the Book of Wisdom
make a distinction between men's being raised out
of the fall, on the one hand, or their permitting sin
to charm them, increase in strength, and so give
power to the hereditary sinful tendency, on the other
(Wisd. of Solomon, i. 13-16 ; ii. 24 ; x. 1). What
is said Rom. v. 12; "Death has passed upon all
men," bears ahke upon all ; but what follows : eif' S
jripre^ ruiaprei', allows an endless diversity of indi-
vidual character, and within the ratios of its grada-
tions, forms that contrast between the pious and the
godless, between the seed of the woman and the
seed of the serpent, which the Scripture everywhere
Bets forth. ^

9. The Fratricide. " Thus sin attains to its do-
mhiion, and in tiie outward act reveals its inhuman,
beastly, diabolical nature. DeviUsh hate, brutal sav-
ageness ; it is in these two together that murder has
its origin. At the same time there comes out openly
here, for the first time, the conflict of the two seeds
in the relations of man to man. It is the serpent-
nature of Cain under whose stab in the heel Abel
falls — the first example of martyrdom ; in appear-
ance a defeat, but in truth a victory. From the in-
nocent murdered man, there goes on, even to the
case of Zaohariah the son of Jehoiada, one great
stream of blood throughout the whole history of the
Old Testament (Matt, xxiii. 35). At the very head
of the New Testament history does the bloody deed
of Cain against his brother Abel again repeat itself
m its counterpart, the bloody act of the Jewish peo-
ple as committed against God's most 'holy child
Jesus,' their biother in the flesh. Thenceforth flows
OE the stream of martyr-blood through the whole
history of the Church. Death and murder proceed-
ing from him who was av^pailrOKTovos air* apxv^ (a
murderer from the beginning, John viii. 44), become
Indigenous in the history of man, and of the world,
ind rule in a thousand forms." Delitzsch.

10. The de'xth of Abel ; the second powerful proof
•f the proph'jtic significance of his bloody offering.

Abel appears as the special prophet and mediator ol
the peculiar idea of the Old Testament revelation, ol
as the one who introduces into the world the typical
sacrifice — that is, the symbolical representation of a
yielding up of the individual will and hfe to God
through death, in order to the taking away the sepa-
ration between God and man ; and which represeuta
tion (as it unfolds) must ever become more and mort
the type of the real propitiation as set forth in th<
New Testament. Therefore would Abel be justified
by bin act of faith, even as Abraham was (Heb. zi.
4) ; and to such an extent must the offering of Abel
be referred back to a divine occasioning, or some
divine institution.

11. Tlie first murder of a brother proceeded from
a strife couceming religion. It appears to be pre-
supposed that Cain, in his sacrificial worship, had

.wilfully separated himself from Abel. This would
be the first separation. The second is that his offer-
ing, whilst it appeared in a stinted form, remained
throughout an unbloody sacrifice. Communion in
the offering would have made it of richer value. The
mark of servility, legality, joylessness, and an envioua
jealousy of his brother's altar, appears quite promi-
nent. Therefore it is, too, that he fails of the bless-
ing, and the seal of the divine acceptance. The
efl'ect. however, is not repentance, but envy, fanati-
cism, hate, obduracy against God's word, and, finally,
the murder of his Ijrother. The first war was a re-
Ugious war. From thence have all the wars in the
world's history had their motive and their coloring.
Even with the most modern wars religion has more
to do ..uan is commonly thought. The altar, the cen-
tre as it is of all holy sacrificial acts, is the centre
also of aU that is horrible in the history of the world ;
sino'. It is the rehgious idea, in some form, that is the
moving power of human history.

12. Already has tlie first-born lost his birthright,
through a proud confidence in its prerogative, out of
which is developed envy of his brother's preference,
and from this, again, in the course of its progress,
scorn and hate. In this form goes the story through
the history of the world, through the history of reli-
gion, of the church, and of the state. Thus, many
a time does the prerogative of birth, which in itself
and normally is a blessing, become transformed into
a prerogative of hereditary sin and guilt (Matt.
iii. 9).

13. As chapter 3d presents to us the archetype
of the genesis of sin, even to the evil act, so does
chapter 4th give us the form of the genesis, and of
the unfolding of obduracy. The commencing point
is irreligiosity, that is, anjjffering worthless and hypo-
critical in its idea (Rom. i. 21). The consequencea
that immediately follow are unfriendliness, envy,
brotherly hate, rage, grudging, and moroseness. To
this succeeds an impenitent demeanor towards the
divine voice of warning, as shown in a wicked silence.
Then comes the consummation of his evil behavior
towards his brother. The first example of this was
probably a mocking perversion of what God had said,
into a presumptuous retort upon his brother ; then'
the bold throwing off the mask in the murder itself,
as it took place in the field, upon the boundaries of
their respective callings. Now again, on God's ar-
raignment, his impudent, diabolical lying, and Titanic
presumption, but which becomes, after the imposition
of the penalty, a howling despair. Thus it is that
whUe in his presumption, and in his despondency, he
becomes an enemy of God, so is he also a foe of man ;
seeing that his disordered imagination peoples th«

564

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

world with human beings who stand to him on a foot-
ing of deadly hostility. When in this spirit he goes
forth as a fugitive and a vagabond from the land of
Eden to a laud of sohtary exile, and there builds a
city, the main significance of it hes in its walls. It
is 2i fortress to defend himself against any of Adam's
future children who may not belong to the Cainite
race.

14. The judgment on Cain, a parallel to the first
judgment, ch. iii., just as the behavior of Cain is a
counterpart, and a parallel, to the behavior of his par-
ents. As a parallel it reminds us of the behavior of
the serpent. '* Olamitat ad codum vox sanguinu^ etc. ;
it is like the old saying of the four heaven-crying sins.
When the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that by
means of his faith, Abel, though dead, yet speaketh
(AaA.ei), it must mean that the cry of bis blood, re-
garded as still heard, is a proof that even after death
He is still an object of the divine care,* one still un-

• [Crielli uTito vie. Gen, iv. 10, damat ad me, complams
nnto me. This is one ot the texts which the blind Sad-
ducee had often read, but with the veil upon hi8 heart. He
had seen nothing in it. It w:is no proof to him of anything
vital and personal in man after death. But what a Hood of
light is poured upon this, and similar language in the Old
Testament, by the divine iiiterpieter : " He is not the God
of the dead, but of the living," Matt. xsii. 32. It must he
life that cries unto God, and that he hears. Abel yet lived ;
he yet spake ; XoAei, in the present, he speaketh still. To
Christ, in whom the veil is taken away, it was no figure
merely, or rhetorical usus loquendi, as it was to the Sad-
ducee, and as it has become, in a great measure, to the mod-
ern interpreter who carries back the deadiiess und frigidity
of worn-out modem speech to chill the wai-mth and vitality
of ancient language. In such primitive foi-ms there is noth-
ing unmeaning, or merely rhetorical. To the spiritual mind
of Chilst it was all made real by that intimation of a divine
interest which guaranties a rea"l personal being in tbose for
whom, it is expiesstd. The soul of Abel, of which tlic blood
was the nearest material garment, was ifwoKaTiit tov 9v(na-
rrrjpCov, "under the altar" of the Divine Justice, "inD2
limbs', in "the secret place of the Most High;" it was
**lodging, tarrying (^aibp"^ Ps. xci. 1), under the shadow
of the Almighty." It was not for Cain's sake that this is
eaid, for his reformation, or for his punishment merely, or
for any preventive benefit of a police kind in the checking
of future murders among a race all of whom, if only the
worldly aspect is regarded, were soon to perish in some way
and he no more. It was not this, solely or mainly, that
made that voice effectual in its call. It was for Abel's sake,
as a pious son of God,— the still living Abel, in ■nhom the
image of God had been assailed (sre Gen. ix. 6 ; Ps. cxvi. 15),

And so we may say of other expressions in the Old Tes-
tament, now become mere metaphors, or dead forms of
epeech, hut anciently full of life and reality, representing
Bouls, especially the souls of the pious, as yet having some
kind of being, known at least to God "to whom they live,"
as our Saviour adds, Luke xx. 38. They are " gathered to
their people;" they have "gone to their fathers;" they
'* yield up the ghost," not as a. thing that perishes, but as a
most precious deposit to he kept (laid up, or treasured in
Sheol, Job xiv. 13), "until the set time when God shall call
and they shall answer; for he will have a regard (CibD"^
Job xiv. 15, 16, will have a longing desire) to the work of
his hands." They call themselves " pilgrims and sojourners
upon earth " — a phrase that has no meaning except as con-
nected with the idea of another state of being, a homeland,
a rest. This is the salvation, as one of these pilgrims says at
the very close of his earthly lifi.', when all thought of a mere
worldly deliverance ia necessarily excluded, and there can
remain only the hope of somelhing beyond : " I have wait-
ed for thy salvation, O Lord." Sie bow it breaks from the
dying Jacob in the very midst of his prophetic contempla-
tion of the futare worldly destiny of his sons. Gen. xUx. 18.
What could they mean ? There are here no imagined bounds
of space and time, no localities ; it is all pure subjfctiveness,
it may he said; but such a hope, indefinite as it may seem,
has far more of moral power than any Elysi.m or Hesperi-
dean fauces. It was securihj, it was blcssedn'?ss, and with
this they were content. Itwastho idea of protection, a"cov-
ering of wings," being under " the shadow of the Almighty."
It waa all that was contained in that most mysteiious ex-
ptteaeion ^"^SS "^IJS* "^^^ secret of thy presence," Ps.

forgotten, not lost— still living." Delitzsch. At the
same time is the cry of this martyr-blood the first
sigDLl of that voice, whether of the blood or of th«
spirit, which ever calls for God's judgment, first upon
Jerusalem (Matt, xxiii. 15; comp. ch. ii. 18), and
fintdly upon the whole world (Rev. vi. 10). Only
the call of the blood of Christ it is that transforms
this judgment into a judgment of daliveiauce for all
who shall i-eceive salvation (Heb. xii. 24).

15. The chief poiuts in the sentence against Cain.
He is cursed from the ground. The very nature of
the ground, so to speak, becomes an angel (or min-
ister) of penal vengeance against the unnatural tran*
gressor. He hath aroused it against him in its innei^
most nature, in forcing it to drinl< his brother's blood.
Henceforth will earth deny to him its fruits. Where
the murderer perpetrated the murder, the grass grows
no more. The fratricide makes the ground the pUce
of judgment. The war desolates the land. The
curse proper, however, lies on the conscience itself.
His heavy consciousness of guilt, incapable of being
healed, and in its deceit, its presumption, and its
despondency, driven to despair, must make him a
fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth. He is ban-
ished beyond any protecting enclosure, from every
place of rest ; and though he may surround himself
with walls as high as heaven, he is still a banished
Azazel (Lev. xvi. 22)— the prince of exiles. There
lies in the passage before us a germ of the church's ex-
communication and of the civic outlawry. Ihe ban-
ishment into immeasurable space appears as a warn-
ing prelude to the endless exile of damnation. We
may ask : Why was not the punishment of death im-
po^ed on Cain, as is demanded by the later law, ch,
ix. 6, instead of exile ? It is not a sufficient answer
to say, that the parents of Cain could not execute
such a sentence ; the cherubim might have crushed
him. But it becomes evident, already, that the re-
Ugious social death of absolute banishment from hu-
man society, constitutes the peculiar essence of the
death penalty (see Langk, X>ie Geseizlich-Oatholische
Kirche ah Sinnhild^ p. 71).

16. In respect to the repentance of Cain and
Judas, see the Exegetical annotations to v. 13.

17. The Cainitic race. Development of the ear-

xxxi. 20, "the hiding (M2D3) in God's pavilion," where
they have that unimaginable being which Christ calls
"living unto God," Trai/Tcs ^ap aurw ^wo'ii', Luke xx. 38.
Some may see in such expressions merely the hope of tem-
poral deliverance, and yet even the most unspiritual inter-
preters can hardly avoid th e feeling that this lower i dea, how-
ever it may be partially accommodated to a seeming secular
context, does not satisfy the holy earnestness of'the lan-
guage, or fill out that idea of blessedness and protection so
far bej^ond what could be afforded by any earthly taberaa-
cle, or in any temple made by hands : " O how grtat is Thy
goodness which Thou hast laid up (PlSS^ comp. Job xiv. 13)
for those that fear thee! Thou wilt hide them in the secret o/
thy presence, thou vnlt treasure them in thy pavilion," nway
from all the strife and censure of this present life, Ps. xxxi.
20, 21. We cannot be wrong when we have our Saviour to
guide us in the interpretation of such language, as proving
a hcl ef in immortality, or a continuous being, from the ex-
pression (if the divine care and protection lor the pious liv-
ing and the pious dead. Identity, continuity, personality,
are inseparable from the idea of'such an interest, and we
must suppose that the thought was vividly present to th«
minds of those in early times who so passionately expressed
it. One thing is certain, that Sadducecism or materialism
would never have given rise to such modes of speech, al-
though they may be satisfied with them after they have
divested them of all moaning. "We may say, too, that after
such an exposition as Christ has given us, the denial ol there
being any idea of a future life m the Old Testami.nt JB doira-
right iniidelity, however it may be presented by piolessed
Christian theologians, or even by learned biahops in tint
Church.— T. h.}

CHAP IV. 1-26.

265

Hest world — culture in its reciprocity with the ad-
vancing Cainitic corruption. Delitzach finds it sig-
nificant that Cain gave the same name, Henoch, to
bis son and to the city which he built for him, and
that he must have had regard in both to the funda-
mental beginnings of a peculiar and special histori-
cal development. He cites the words of Augustine,
Be CivUaie Dei, eh. xiv. 28 : " Fecerunt igitur civi-
tates duos amores duo, terrenam scilicet amor sui
usque ad contemptum dei, cceleslem vera amor Dei
usque ad contemptum sui; ilia in se ipsa, hcec in
Domino gloriatur." Yet still even DeUtzsch makes
prominent the value of each Cainitic advance in cul-
ture. In writings which set forth the origin of all
tilings, there could not fail to be something in rela-
tion to the origin of trades and arts. At a later time
would these inventions come into the possession of
God's people. Still the Cainitic race has the honor
of every important advance in worldly culture ; be-
cause this race of the promise has suffered in the
ruin of the world, whilst the race of the curse falls
naturally into it, or make it their home. We can
only say, however, that the one-sided, worldly ten-
dency, favored a precocious development of every
power of culture among the Cainites — or that the
children of this world are wiser in their way than
the children of Mght. It is not the inventions them-
selves, but their morbidly active development, and
their abuse, that have on them the mark of the
curse. Again, it is in the direction of the dualistic,
theosophic assumption of a deeper, or hidden sense,
when we read (Delitzsch, p. 21.S): "Even to this
day the arts cannot disown the root of the curse, out
of which they spring." " There is, moreover, re-
maining in all music, not only an nnspiritualized
ground of material naturalness merely, but a Cainitic
element of impure sensuality" (p. 213). Neverthe-
less, through the subjectivity of the artist shall " that
fundamental being of art which in itself is sinless "
attain that to which it is morally destined," p. 215.
Further on Delitzsch weU says: "With a deed of
murder began, and with a song of murder closes, the
history of the Cainites. In the seventh generation all
Is forgotten — immersed in music, revelry, luxury,
decoration and outward show," etc. Again he says :
" This is the genesis of the most spiritual art, such
as poetry, music, etc." (p. 216). More happily, at
least in respect to its outer consequences, did there
precede all this that pious song of jubilee at the cre-
ation of the first man (p. 1 23). Thus much is true,
that as art, and especially poetry, points out the dis-
tance between the real and the ideal on the side of
culture, so does the sacrificial offering do the same
on the side of cultus, or religion.

18. Concerning the worship of Jehovah as begin-
ning among the Sethites, see the Exegetical explana-
tions.

HOMILETIOAl AND PBACTIOAIi.

See Doctrinal and Ethical. — Adam's Family. His
guilt, his suffering, his salvation, and his hope. —
The first family picture in the Bible. — The tragic
Borrow in every family (indicated in the baptism of
children) — The family the root of every human ordi-
nance— both of church and state. — The first form of
education as it makes its appearance in the first sac-
rifice, and in the varied callings of Cain and Abel.
IVhat education can do, and what it cannot. — Unlike
children of like parents. — Pious parents may have
tricked children (Cain — Abel). — Eve's precipitancy

even in the utterance of her faith. — Eve's materna;
joy, in its divine trust, and in its human mistakings.

1. The divine truthfulness in her hope of salvation j

2. the mournful disappointment in her expectationa
of Cain ; 3. the happy disappointment in respect t«
Abel (not a vanishing vapor : Abel " yet speiAeth ").
— The two ground-forms of the human vocation. — The
acceptable and the rejected offering. — The coutrasj
between Cain and his brothers in its significance:

1. Cain lives, Abel dies ; 2. Cain's race perishes, tht
race of Seth continues (through Noah), even to the
end of the world. — Cain the first natural firstborn
(like Ishmael, Esau, Eeuben, the brothers of David,
etc.), Abel the first spiritual first-bom. — Cain and
his pride in the carnal birthright and prerogative,
a world -historical type : 1. For the religious history,

2. for the political. — Cain and Abel, or the godless
and the pious direction inside the common pecca-
bility.— Cain and Abel, or the history of the first
sacrificial offering, a prefiguration of the most glori-
ous light-side, or of the darkest and most fearful
aspect in the world-history. — Cain and Abel : the
separated altars, or the first rehgious war, or tho
divinely kindled fiume of beUef and the wrath-en
kindled flame of fanaticism. — Cain, or the world-
history of envy. Abel, or the world-history of mar-
tyrdom.— The brother's murder. — The brother's
blood. — The first slain. — And death with sin. — The
first appearing of death — War. — The obduracy of
Cain, or Cain warned by God in vain. — Cain's free-
dom and bondage. — Cain's sentence. — The curse of
Cain.— Cain's repentance (first presumption, then
despair). — The evil conscience in the history of
Adam and in the history of Cain. Comparison. —
The banishment of Cain. — The sign of Cain. — Cain
and his race, or worthlessness as regards religion
and worldly spiritual power, a reflected image of the
Satanic kingdom. — The progress of corruption in the
Cainitic race. — It was not the worldly cultivation of
Cain that was evil, or from the evil one, but its
worldliness. — The first city. — Lamech, or the misuse
of weapons, or the misuse of art, or of all culture. —
Polygamy. — Seth, or the one remaining, established,
compensation for Abel. — The Sethites, or the first
beginning of a new and better time indicated in this,
that men begin to proclaim the name Jehovah, the
God of the covenant. — Enosh, denoting frail humani-
ty, a name of humility. — When God becomes great
at any time, or in any race, then man becomes
small. — Does man first become small, then God be-
comes to him great. At the birth of Cain, Eve was
hasty in her joy ; at the birth of Abel, hasty in her
despondency ; at the birth of Seth, quiet and confid-
ing.— Seth, or the established people of God ; " And
the gates of hell shall not prevail against them."

Starke : Ver. 3. God himself instituted the offer-
ings, as we see from Heb. xi. 4, that as the belief
of Abel in his offering had for its necessary ground
the divine command, promise, and revelation, so the
Jofferings themselves must be types of Christ. —
ver. 4. We cannot doubt that from the very be-
ginning God reserved to himself the firstlings ot
first-born. Such a command He repeated, Exod.
xiii. 2 ; Numb. iii. 13. It was for i type of Christ
the first-bom before all creations. — Ver. 6. Cain
ever oppresses and murders Abel. What else is it
than the strife between the flesh and the spirit, the
enmity between the seed of the woman, and the
seed of the serpent ? Aendt's " Christianity." — Tab.
Bible: Wouldst thou that thy service be accept-
able to God, perform it with unfeigned behef, and a

26«{

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

pure heart (Matt. t. 23, 24 ; ix. 13 ; 1 Tim. i. 15).—
Cramer : When God builds a church, then does the
deril build a chapel close to it (Ps. xxvi. 5). — How
beautiful and lovely is it when brothers dwell togeth-
er in harmony (Ps. cxxxiii. 1 ) ? but how rare ? —
Envy and jealousy have their origin from the devil,
and are the root of all evil deeds. — When the godless
ought to be allured to reformation by the example
of the pious, they often become thereby only the
more embittered (Acts vii. 54). — Ver, 8. Accord-
ing to the Jews, Cain maintained that there was no
judge, no judgment, no reward of the good, no pun-
ishment of the wicked, no eternity, all which Abel
contradicted ; wherefore Cain became so embittered
that he slew his brother. There is no ground for
the pretence of the Masorites that there are wanting
here twenty-eight verses, which contain the speech
of Cain with Abel. — Abel prefigures Christ. As
Abel was a shepherd, so also was Christ. — Freiherg
Bihle: Cain is an exact type of Antichrist.- — Osian-
DER : The preaching of repentance avails not with
all men ; especially is this the case with those who
are given up to a reprobate mind (Acts vii. 49, etc.).
— Cramer : Sin grows rapidly, and after a small
beginning takes wide steps (Wisdom of Sirach xxviii.
13, 14). — Where there is an evil heart, there is an
evil eye, and where both these are, there is also
an evil hand. — The Wurtemb. Bible : It is a very an-
cient stab in the heel by the malicious devil, that
the false church hates the true, and persecutes it
even unto blood. — Hedinoer : How early the date
of martyrdom in the world ! The first man that dies
dies for the sake of religion. He whose offering is
acceptable to God, becomes now himself the victim.
— Ver. 10. When Cain thought that he had won,
that he Was now alone the beloved child, that Abel
was wholly forgotten, then did the latter still live,
stronger and mightier than before. Then does the
Majesty on high assume his cause ; He cannot bear
it, He cannot keep silence when His own are op-
pressed. And though they are crushed for a little
while, they only rise to a more glorious and stronger
state ; for they still live. — Cramer ; There is nothing
secret that shall not be made manifest (Matt. x. 26 ;
Exod. ii. 12, 14 ; Josh. vii. 22 ; 2 Sam. xii. 9).— Ver.
1 S. When man should humble himself, he goes rather
into despair, and rejects the means of grace. He
falls, therefore, into a bitter enmity towards God,
and into an ever-deepening unbelief, since he refuses
to acknowledge the grace of God, and the service of
Christ, or to let them avail for his salvation. — It is
in this way that Satan plays his game ; he sets the
sins before the conscience in their most frightful
form, whilst he takes from the eyes the grace of
God. — Mark the steps of sin, how imperceptibly
they advance ! 1. Cain was arrogant ; by reason of
his birthright he thought himself better than he was ;
2. he thereupon falls from arrogance into mocking
hypocrisy, and secret presumption ; 3. thinking that
there is nothing hke him, he becomes envious ; 4.
from the foregoing sins he falls mto murder, even the
Blaying of a brother ; 6. then he falls into lies, where-
with he thinks to palliate or excuse his brother's
murder ; 6. finally ht falls into utter despair. — Ver. 14.
Surely in the anguish of his conscience must Cain be
afraid of everything, of angels, of men, of wild beasts
even ; yea, even inanimate things cause him distress
and terror. — Ver. 15. Cramer ; No sins are too great
to be forgiven (Isa. i. 18). — No man shall arbitrarily
take from Him the infliction of vengeance upon eviU
ioers (Rom. xii. 19). — Tub. Bible : All godless men

bear in their souls a mark of the curse, which numberi
them among the goats. God marks all evil-doers
with a brand in the conscience (1 Tim. iv. 2). — Ver,
16. Wiirt. Bible: It is the mind of all the children
of the world, their trade and business ; they ask not
after the true church ; gladly are they separated
from it ; they rejoice if it only goes well with the
body (Ps. xlix. 10). — Ver. 24. Confident men wil-
lingly delude themselves with the example of others,
and thus did Lamech comfort himself with a false-
hood..— Ver. 21. (0 ye musicians, bethink yourselves
that ye are descended from a godless and murder-
ous race ; cease to abuse your art, otherwise will
your end be like theirs !) Handicrafts, arts, and in-
ventions are gifts of the Holy Spirit, and come from
God, who bestows them upon both the beUeving and
unbelieving ; blessed is he who uses everything for
the honor of God ! (Dan. i. 17; Siriich xxxviii. 6j
Exod. XXXV. 31-35). — Ver. 26. Cramer : God can
wonderfully console Christian parents in affliction ;
has he taken from them an Abel, he can give them
back a Seth. — We can do no more precious work on
earth than to help in propagating and spreading the
true and right service of God (Sirach xlix. 4). — Te
teachers in schools and churches, follow the blessed
example of these holy forefathers, and let it be your
chief business to proclaim and make known the name
of the Lord to old and young (ch. xviii. 19 ; Deut»
vi. 6, etc.).

ScHRonER ; The first revelation of the divine
holiness ia renewed in the second ; and in the same
proportion is the advancing progress of the curse. —
Ver. 1-5. After the character of the parents has
become fixed in tlie probation, then must the men-
tion be of their children ; they must be born that
others may be born from them. In her song of joy,
she forgets what lay right before her eyes ; with
her glance of hope into the future she calls the in-
fant " a man." She looks at the child of her won:b,
and thinks it the seed to whom God lias promised
the victory. This common reference to the divine
promise in ch. hi. 15 is ever held as truth in the
interpretations of our fathers. — Luther : But the
poor wom.in is deceived ; she does not yet see her
sorrow aright, nor understand that from flesh can
nothing else than flesh be born, and that by flesh
and blood sin and death can never be vanquished ;
she knows not, moreover, the day nor the hour.
Eve's joy and Mary's song of praise, Luke i. 40, how
different ! (Yet Mary too knew not yet that at a
later time a sword must pierce her own soul). The
one birth from Eve is followed by a second, — the
first is the Patriarch of the false, the other of the
true church. The name of the one forms an exact
contrast to the name of the other. In Cain does the
mother of the living repose all her longing and her
hope ; Abel, on the contrary, the second-born, must
serve as the foil of her heart's pain and sorrow.
The best description of this name Abel (nothingness
or vanity) we read in Ecclesiastes (or the Preaching
of Solomon), ch. i. 2. That whole book, indeed,
may be regarded as a diffuse commentary on the
name Abel. According to the opinion of some of
the fathers, Abel was never married. — Luther:
Adam and Eve are not simply parents to nourish
and instruct their children : they bear towards them
also a priestly office (in that they lead the children
to the sacrifice). The sacrifice is as old as religion
(that is, as the religion of fallen men).--LcTHEn :
All the histories of the Old Testament show thai
God, in his superabundant ^tace, hath ever gives

CHAP. IV. 1-26.

267

■nd maintained in close connection with his word an
outward and visible sign of grace, that men, as
reminded by such sacramental sign, might the more
confidently believe. Therefore it is that after the
flood the rainbow appears. And so to Abraham was
given the sign of circumcision. In respect to the
supposed sign of God : let one think on the blessing
of God upon Abel's cattle-keeping in the year that
followed, whilst Cain's agriculture miscarried, or on
the symbolic upward-mounting, earthward-steaming,
sacrificial smoke. For other biblical analogies, in
strictest accordance with this, we may think of a
glance of light for Abel, and which would become
for his offering a consuming flame of fire (Exod. xiv.
24, (See). In Matt, xxiii. 36, Christ makes Abel the
beginning of the church of those that fear God,
which will remain to the end of the world, whereas
Cain is the beginning of the church of the malignant
and the murderous, which will also continue to the
end of the world. Abel is not slain on any worldly
or domestic account, but only on account of the
service of God. The good and the evil conscience
are described here as though they were visible to our
eyes ; the one only hfts its face on high, the other
casts itself despairing down. — Vers. 6, Y. [On this
field (of the murder), so runs the story, was Damas-
cus afterwards built, whose name hints at the bloody
deed]. — He who according to his mother's hope was
to have been the slayer of the serpent, becomes the
murderer of his brother the son of his own mother.
— Herder ; What a dramatic spectacle ! the first
slain upon the earth. — Krummacher : Here is the
first brother's murder on the very threshold of
Eden, — the first war. — Vers. 9, 10. Herder : Who
shall take vengeance, when God does not take ven-
geance ? The father ?— Lothee : Cain intends, by
this, his exculpation ; but when he uses the name of
brother, what else is it but an acknowledgment that
he ought to be his brother's keeper. It is not for
slaughtered sheep and cattle slain that God asks ; it
is for a slain man that he inquires. It follows that
men have the hope of a resurrection, the hope in a
God who out of the bodily death can bear them up
to everlasting Ufe, and who asks after their blood as
a very dear and precious thing (Ps. cxvi. 15). What
can be that still small voice which comes from the
earth, and which God hears high up in heaven ? Abel
had, heretofore, whilst yet in life, endured violence
with gentleness and silence ; how is it that now when
he is dead, and rudely buried in the earth, he is im-
patient at the wrong ? How is it that he who before
spake not one word against his brother, now cries
out so complainingly, and, by his cry, moves God to
action? Oppression and silence are no hindrance to
God in judging the cause which the world so mis-
takenly fancies to be buried. — Vers. 11, 12. As
Adam's sin develops itself in Cain's deed of murder,
BO does the first curse of God reveal itself in the
second. Cursed be thou ; that is, thou art not the
one from whom the blessed seed is to be hoped.
By this word is Cain excommunicated, cut off like a
twig from the branch, so that he can have no more
hope of the honor which he coveted. That which
with Abel had a figurative or praefigurative power,
becomes in Jesus the most perfect realization ; " and
the earth did quake" (Matt, xxvii. 62). Adam had
already become a stranger in the earth ; Cain is now
a fugitive. — Calvin: Not to bodily exile alone is
Cain condemned, but subjected to a much severer
punishment ; there is not a spot of earth that he can
flnil where he shall not be confounded and mazed in

soul ; for as a good conscience is rightly called a
wall of iron, so neither a hundred walls, nor as many
fortresses, can protect the godless from their unrest.
— Vers. 13-16, In this way, although not excusing
his sin, does Cain complain nevertheless of the fear-
ful severity of that judicial sentence which deprivea
him of every refuge. So too the devil. — He must
hide from God (Ps. v. 5), and yet he cannot (Ps.
cxxxix. 7). God's face or countenance means his
presence as revealed in guiding care, or in forgiving
mercy (Exod. xxxiii. 15). — And this his misery he
imputes, not to his sin, but to the account of God.
Cain considers not merely that he is stripped of
God's protection, but also that every creature in the
world is now armed with weapons to take vengeance
upon him. According to an ancient legend it was
the destiny of Cain to be slain from the house in
which he dwelt. The Jewish tradition makes him
perish with his race in the flood. — In respect to the
mark of Cain : some have conjectured that God
placed upon his brow one of the letters of the name
Jehovah ; others say that it was a dog that continu-
ally ran before him ; others that it was a horn which
grew out of his forehead, and others, finally, main-
tain that it was a particular robe which God com-
manded him to wear, that every one might know
him. Then follow the views respecting tiiis mart
that were held by Luther and the author (Calvin ),
that it was sometUng that lay in his appearance,
especially in his loolc. — Vers. 1*7-21. Ldther : la
this case the affliction of the parents is the greater
in that they must have lost three children at once
(Abel, Cain, and his wife who went into exile with
him). — -Even in his city, too, did Cain remain a
fugitive and a vagabond. — Zillah, " shadow" either
meaning the dark, the brunette, or the one shaded
by a rich head of hair. — Calvin : We have here the
origin of polygamy in a perverse and degenerate
race, as we also find its first author to be a man
ferocious and alien to all human kindliness. — Naama:
Jewish tradition ascribes to her the first poetry and
gift of song; others make her the inventress of the
arts of spinning and weaving. — Baumgarten : True
it is that originally aU, as created by God, was very
good: but since the entrance of sin, the whole out-
ward world of nature is loaded with the curse of
death. And yet is this testimony of Holy Scripture
against the pomp of the world far removed from the
monastic rigor ; as is shown by the subsequent
course of the Scripture history. It is true that Cain
builds the first earthly city, but afterwards comes a
city of God. [In support of this, there follows men-
tion of the beauty of the mother of Israel, the rich
tents and herds of Abraham, the harp of David, the
watchword of Gideon (" the sword of the Lord and
of Gideon," in contrast with that of Tubal Cain),—
and then legends concerning Cain's old age and
Lamech's death, p. 99.] Men are very fond of
boasting before their wives. The first poet in the
world was an old man rejuvenated, a hero in words,
a praiser of himself. His song is without doubt a
song of triumph on the invention of the sword.
The Arabians have a whole book full of names and
praises of the sword. — Ziegler: The sin of Cain
becomes fearful in the sword-intoxicated Lamech.—
Vers. 26, 26. We see that culture and science are
as old as humanity itself. Barbarism and brutality
follow after a corrupt civilization. Immediately
after the ever-stronger manifestations of a Cainiti«
world-spirit, we find the strong revelations of the
covenant Jehovah. — Luther: There are traditioul

268

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

of Adam's daughters Salmana and Deborah, but I
krow not of any ground for believing in them. Eve
had slighted Abel, whilst she thought much of Cain
as the one who should iuheiit and possess the prom-
ise ; now (on the birth of Seth) she holds the con-
trary, and seems to say : in Abel was all my hope,
for he was righteous, but him the godless Cain hath
slain ; therefore has there been given to me another
seed in place of Abel. She does not adhere to him
in the motherly way, and after the motherly heart.
She does not excuse or palliate the sin of her son.
Tile Sethites : They unite together In a community ;
but there arise not therefrom cities full of lust and
luxury ; no, no, but places of holy meditation and
devotion. And so there emerge the first delicate
outlines of a church and community of life among
the pious. Adam and Eve, we may believe, assem-
bled their children and descendants for the maintain-
ing of a solemn divine service. In contrast to the
self-congregating of the wicked were the good gath-
ered into a church by God himself.

Gerlach : The gross deeds of individual sin, as
well as the original sin of Adam, had their primary
seat, not in the temptations of the sense, nor in any
momentary outward occasions, but in the disposition
of the heart towards God. This is manifest here on
the occasion of the first outward divine worship
through the sacrificial offering, in which man, sepa-
rated indeed from God, yet outwardly feeling his
need of him, might hope to merit the divine accept-
ance in such rehgious service ; whereas, with God,
such a woi'k has worth and significance ojdy as the
outer manifestation of the inner yielding of the
heart to him. — Ver. 3. The use of the earliest do-
mestic animals, and the cultiviition of grain, were
derived to man out of their primitive condition. The
sheep cannot live without the human care and pro-
tection ; the grain is nowhere found wild upon the
earth, and it degenerates without human cultivation.
—Ver. 4. When man joins in covenant with this
divine will, nothijig can ever overcome him, for he

has omnipotence on his side. — Ver. 10. Here comei
in now the division of works and occupations.

Lisco : The offerings. As offered in faith, which
ever rests on the word of God, they are to be re*
garded as divinely instituted. Abel is God's friend ;
his cause is, therefore, God's cause, and God is his
avejiger. — Ver. 13. First presumption, then de-
spair ; both are contrary to Holy Scripture. Unbelief
in God's righteousness before the evil deed, tends,
after the act, to unbelief in the greatness and power
of the divine mercy ; — to a repentance that is full
of despair. — A tortured conscience fears every-
thing : the murderer fears murder, the treacherous
fears perfidy.

Calvee Handbook: How many vain offerings
and gifts in the heathen world ! — Where faith is,
there is the willing miud, and there can God make
demands of men. — Instead of a crusher of the ser-
pent, Cain is one of the serpent's seed. — Bunsen:
The land of Nod, that is, the land of iiight, of wan-
dering, of banishment, the strange land (the inter-
pretation that refers it to Turan in opposition to Iran).

MiCHOW: The first evil fruit of the evU seed.
He cites the saying of Schiller :

The evil deed's avenging curse it is,
That evil evermore it shall beget.

Tacbe : 1. As thou standest in relation to the God
of mercy, so art thou, — either beheving or unbe-
lieving. 2. Remainest thou unbelieving, then, in
spite of all attempts to obtain deliverance from God,
thy course is onward from sin to sin until it lands
thee in despair. — W. Hofmann : The seed of the
woman : 1. In its first manifestation ; 2. in its re-
mote future ; 3. in its prefigurative significance.

Delitzsch : Whilst the race of ihe Cainites de-
veloped itself in outward show, and on the ground
of a corrupt nature, the commmiity oi' the Sethitea
built itself up through the common calling upon the
name Jehovah, — that is, of a God revealhig himself
on the ground of mercy.

THIRD SECTIOK.

Adam and Seth. — The Sethites or Maerobii {the long-lived). — The living Worship and tne Blessing
of the Life-reneicing in the Line of the Sons of God.

Chapter V. 1-82 (compare 1 Chron. i. 1-4).

1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man,

2 in the hkeness of God made he him. Male and female created he them; and blessed

3 them and called their name Adam [man] in the day when they were created. And
Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after hia

4 image, and called his name Seth, [fixed, compensation]. And the days of Adam after he

5 had begotten Seth were eight hundred years; and he begat sons and daughters. And
8 all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died. And

7 Seth hved a hundred and five years, and begat Bnosh ' [man, weak man]. And Seth lived
after he begat Enosh eight hundred and seven years and begat sons and daughters.

8 9 And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years ; and he died. And
10 Enosh lived ninety years and begat Cainan [gain, gainful, industrious]. And Enosh lived

after he begat Caman eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters.

CHAP. V. 1-32.

26«

11, 12 And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years; and he died. And

13 Cainan lived seventy years and begat Mahalaleel " [renown, praise of God]. And Cainan
lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons

14 and daughters. And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years; and he

15 died. And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years and begat Jared [descent, one descendinKJ

16 And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sonf

17 and daughters. And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five

18 years; and he died. And Jared hved a hundred and sixty and two years, and he hega»

19 Enoch' [the devoted, mysterious]. And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred

20 years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred

21 and sixty and two years ; and he died. And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and

22 begat Methuselah [Gesenius: mrmoftheanow, rarst: man of war; Delltfsch: manof growtli]. And

Enoch walked'' with God [iwed in communion with God] after he begat Methuselah three

23 hundred years and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were three

24 hundred and sixty and five years. And Enoch walked with God and he was not

25 [disappeared suddenly], for God took him. And Methuselah lived a hundred eighty and

26 seven years, and begat Lamech [the strong young man, or hero]. And Methuselah lived aftM
he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters.

21 And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty and nine years ; and

28 he died. And Lamech lived a hundred eighty and two years and begat a son.

29 And he called his name Noah [rest, rest-bringer], saying. This same shall comfort us'
concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord

30 hath cursed. And Lamech lived after he begat Noah, five hundred ninety and five

31 years and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred

32 seventy and seven years ; and he died. And Noah was five hundred years old ;
and Noah begat Shem [name, preserver of the name] and Ham [heat, from can] and Japheth

[wide-spreading, room-making, from nrs].

[} Yer. 5. — 'iJIDX . In general little reliance can be placed upon the etymological significance of these early names aa
given by the lexicographers, whether we regard them aa purely Hebrew, or as having been transferred from some older
Shemitfc tongue. In a few of thera, however, there appear contrasts that can hardly be mistaken. Thus, for example,
between Seth the esiablishrA, the firm, and Enosh the -weak, the fToil (^poros, mortalis, homo), the conti-ast is similar to
that between Cain and Abel (gain, as the promised seed, and vanily or disappointment), as though the liopes of men,
from generation to generation, were alternately rising and falling. — T. L.]

[^ Yer. 12.— bxbbri 13 : Praise of God, or one who praises God. This is very plain, and seems to be followed by
another contrast in the name ^^^ , a descending, whether it denotes degeneracy, despondency, or a plain, pious humility
without the high rapture which' e'ecms to be indicated in that of the predecessor. — T. L.]

[3 Ver. 18. — Tiisn ; rendered devoted, initiated. This, however, seems to be a later sense of the root, although it U
well applicable to the one to whom it is applied. From the Arabic there may be got the sense of instructed, learned, and
from this came the notions of the Mohammedans and later Jews respecting Enoch's great scientitic attainments, as nlso,
perhaps, the other name. Edris, by which he is mentioned in the Koran, though it would seem also as though they most
unchronologically confuunded him with Ezra. — T. L.]

[^ Ver. 22.— Ti^rini . Compare the similar phrase Gen. xvii. 1, xxiv. 40, xlviii. 15, to walk before God. Here and
in Gen. vi. 9 to walk with God. In both cases it denotes concord, and the LXX. were justified in rendering it evTjpecrTTjo-e,
"pleased God.'.— T. L.]

[^ Ver. 29. — ilSlcn^^. The Jewish interpreters regard this as explanatory of the name Koah (rest), but not its
etymological ground. 'Otherwise, says Rasbi, he should have been called cnsiS, Menahem. They also distinguish
between etymology in the sound, and in the sense. They say (see Aben Ezra) that Noah invented .inptruments of agri-
culture (as the son of the Cainite Lamech invented vv'eapons of war), and thus delivered their agriculture, in some
measure, from the barrenness "which had been brout^ht upon it by the .curse, and by bad tillage. This is grounded by
them on the words of Lamech, and on what was said of Noah after the flood, that he was ITS'lsn ISJ^N, yeojpybs,
agricota. Gen. ix. 20, a husbandman. !13^n3^, shall comfort, rather, shall revive, restore, make us breathe again, like
the Greek ava>pi3x<a. Compare Ps. xxiii. 4: "Thy rod and thy staff shall revive me." It is the^good shepherd
restoring to life and vigor the fainting, dying sheep— to bring back the gasping breath. Hence the Syriac {.I^OjaqJ
for the resurrection. It is not the sense of consolation, as some give it, but resuscitation, reviviticatiou. — T. L.]

EXEGETICAl AND CRITICAI,.

1. The line of Seth, as the line of the pious wor-
shippera of God, is carried on to Noah, with whom
the first humanity from the stem of Seth, now puri-
fied in the flood, passes over to a, new age : so that
the name Seth, as in verification of Eve's maternal
prophecy, becomes established in contrast with Abel
the mere breath of life, and the line of Cain drowned
in the flood. The question may be asked, Why is

not the superscription placed before the 25th veise
of the fourth chapter? The documentary hypotliesia
answers ; it is because here again the Elohim docu-
ment takes up the history. We let that question
rest, though here verae 29th, with its name Jehovah,
does not have the look of an interpolation. It must
be remarked, nevertheless, that in the preceding
section it was necessary for Seth to appear as the
representative of Abel. But here again begins the
history of Seth as the history of Adam himself ; s'nc*

«70

GENESIrf, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

only through Seth does Adam live on beyond the
flood, and even to the world's end. In respect to its
inner nature, therefore, is the section Elohistic ;
that is, it presents the universal grouiiding of the
whole human race, not merely that of the line of
Shem or of the theocracy of Abraham. Knobel
represents the section according to the documentary
hypothesis : " The Elobist ranges the genealogical
table of Adam immediately nfter the account of cre-
ation, ch. i. (?), and connects with it directly his
history of the flood, ch. vi. 9, etc. ; it forms, conse-
quently, an essential part of his work, without which
it would have had a hiatus (rather viith it, we may
add). From the same author who concerned him-
self with the connected genealogies and chronolo-
gies, as being predominantly Elohistic, whilst the
Jehovist took little notice of them, originated also
the other genealogical tables and chronological series
that are introduced in their order throughout the
Pentateuch." The section before us, in its entire
contents, evidently presupposes ch. ii. and iii. There
is special proof of this in verses 3, 24, and 29, as
also in the constant refrain : and he died.

2. Ver. 1. The book of the generation of
Adam. — The genealogies of Adam become perma-
nent and continuous alone through Seth.

3. Ver. 2. In the likeness of God.— This is
expressed here by 3, not by D, as in ch. i. It means,
when He created him He made him in the likeness,
etc. ; that is, the divine ideal form was the model of
his making, — or of the finishing of his human form
in distinction from its creation. The name man
(Adam) is ascribed here in common to both man
and woman. The creation in the divine image is
repeated, because the line of God's sons is grounded
on its divine origin (see Luke iii. 38).

4. Ver. 3. Seth.^For the significance of the
name in relation to the names of the Cainitic line,
see the preceding section. Of Seth it is said. He
begat him in his own likeness, after his image. That
is, as his image, Seth was similar to him, indeed, but
not identically like ; he was distinguished from him
individually, he was like him in his Adamic nature.
And this is said, doubtless, with a consciousness of
Adam's fallen state, although in the ground ideas of
this fifth chapter the nature of Adam as made in the
divine image, and its pious direction, are still made
promiilent. Even if the names further on denote,
in the average probability, the first-born of the gen-
ealogies (although this does not always hold good,
as is shown by the examples of Ishmael, Esau, Reu-
ben, etc.), yet it does not follow that Seth also is to
be regarded here as a first-born ; just as little as the
three sons of Noah, taken together, can, be thus
regarded. Seth has become the spiritual first-bom
of the Adamitic house ; he is the continuance of the
line of Adam in its pious direction, and in its his-
torical duration.

5. Ver. 4. The ages of the Patriarchs who lived
before the flood are individually stated in the fol-
lowing manner: 1. Adam 980 years, 2. Seth 912
years, 3. Enosh 905 years, 4. Cainan 910 years, 6.
Mahalaleel 896 years, 6. Jared 962 years, f. Enoch
865 years, then translated, 8. Methuselah 969 years,
9. Li-jnech 777 years, 10. Noah, before the flood, 600
years (ch, vii. 6), in the whole 950 years (ch. ix. 29).
In relaiion to the dates, the following things are to
be remarked. Adam is 130 years old at the beget-
ting of Seth, whom Cain and Abel naturally pre-
ceded. Seth begets Enosh when 105 years old.
Finosh is presented to us as a father at the age of 90

years, Cainan 70 years, Mahalaleel 65 years, Jared 168
years, Enoch 65 years, Methuselah 187 years, La.
mech 182 years, Noah even 500 years. Since, more-
over, there is mentioned in each case the begetting
of other sons and daughters, it becomes very quea-
tionable whether we are to understand all these gen-
ealogical heads as being first-born. The numbers, as
given, do, indeed, indicate late marriages hnviug
proportion to the length of life. That, however, no
ascetic idea is necessarily bound up in this, is shown
by the case of Enoch, who with Mahalaleel had a
son the earliest of all the patriarchs. Even between
the repeated mention, moreover, that he walked with
God, It is said that he begat sons and daughters.
The age 65, as a year for begetting, is also worthy
of note, as showing to be impossible every attempt
to reduce these patriarchal years to shorter sections
of time. This numbering of their years is of richest
significance. It expresses clearly the blessing of
longevity as emphatically exhibited through the
Sethic piety ; it is the history of the devout Macro-
bii, or long-livers of the primitive time. In Enoch
the line reaches the highest point of its life-renova-
tion ; since in him the peculiar death-form falls
away ; he departs without dying, and by a divine
translation. In Methuselah this grand march of life
reaches its extreme longevity in this world. The
line then sinks down in Lamech, as is indicated by
his sighing over the labor and pain that comes from
the curse-ladened earth. The whole line, in its ap-
parent monotony, is a most lively expression of a
powerful strife of life with death, of the blessing
with the curse. They advance far in years, these
pious sons of God ; the numbers reach a high figure,
but ever again there comes that tragic word r^^'l :
and he died Once, and only once, is there reached
the silver glance of the life-renewing, and of that
Ufe-transfovmation without death, which comes up
to the original form. This is in the hfe of Enoch,
the seventh patriarch. It must be observed, in ac-
cordance with what is implied in the following chap-
ter, that the hne of Seth, in its development, suffers
a gradual disturbance, which does not permit it to
reach the ideal aim, — a fact which seems to be indi-
cated by this name Methuselah, and the sighs of
Lamech. When in respect to this long life-endur-
ance, we add the consideration of the enormous
breaking up that was suddenly occasioned by the
flood, it must not be overlooked that Noah, although
already six hundred years old when the flood took
place, survived its storms three hundred and fifty
years.

Two main difficulties are objected to the forego-
ing statement : 1. the length of life ; 2. the authen-
ticity of the chronology. "The highest possible
age," says Valentine (" Compendium of Physiology,"
ii. p. 894), " appears to be from about 150 to 160
years ; and in fact, none of the highest ages which
men are known to have reached attain the height
of 200 years (Pritchard's ' Natural History of the
Human Race'). It cannot be shown that men after
the flood differed in any remarkable manner from
those who lived before. In ch. xi. 10, moreover, the
narrator represents some as attaining, even after the
flood, to the age of 400 or 600 years." Knobel
Special treatises on the preceding question are con.
tained in the writing of De Lapasse ; Essai sur la
conservation de la vie, Paris, Masson,, 1860. 'In
general, there is no deciding this qutstion by any
appeal to strong constitutions, simple modes of life,
unweakened powers of life, &c. First of all, <1«

CHAP. V. 1-82.

a7l

both extremes of humanity need to be settled ac-
cording to the Scriptures and the ehristological ideas;
and, in fact, in conespondence with the middle point
of humanity. The truth of Christ's resurrection, not
ds a return out of death to the life of this world,
but as a transition from the first form of human life
into a second imperishable form, casts light as well
upon the paradisaical beginning as upon the ea-
chatological end of humanity. It testifies to an
ideal capability for the preserration of life even to
the point of a death-like, yet not deathly transforma-
tion into the incorruptible. To this testifies also, in
Bymbolical form, the paradisaical tree of life, as well
as, in its dogmatic acceptance, the words of Paul
concerning the longing " to be clothed upon " (2
Cor. V. 1-6) that lies in the depths of human nature
(compare Lange's Miscellaneous Writings, ii. p.
232). So also what he says of Ohriit as the life-
giving spirit of man from heaven, and of the trans-
formation that awaits those who Uve long at the
world's end (1 Cor. xv. 45, 51). The ehristological
idea that lies at the foundation is this : As the his-
torical death, the death of corruption, in its gradual
course first breaks through from the spiritual sphere
of sin into the pi'ovince of the soul, and from the
province of the soul into the corporeity, so also does
the healing of the new life make its passage ; first
in renewing the spirit-fife, then the life of the soul,
and finally becoming visible in the restoration of a
new corporeal capacity for transformation at the
world's end. Thus the decreasing longevity of the
primitive time furnishes the contrast to the increas-
ing longevity at the end of the world (see also Is.
Ixv). But it was not only through the original
power of a corporeity not yet wholly shattered that
the death of the Sethites was retarded ; it was also
kept back through the progress of life in the Jeho-
vah-faith of the Sethites, as it culminated in Enoch,
and had, therefore, already, as its consequence, a
typically prophetic pre-representation of the trans-
formation and the resurrection in his mysterious
taking. The difficulty which is foimd in the suppo-
sition of such long life in the Sethites, has given rise
to various hypotheses. Some have supposed that
along with the patriarchs named their races and
peoples are meant to be included ; Rosenmiiller,
Friedreich, and others, think that from these
orally transmitted genealogies, many names had
fallen out; Hensler holds that the expression n:ia
(year) denotes among the patriarchs lesser spaces of
time, namely, three months, till the time of Abra-
ham, thence to the time of Joseph eight months,
and afterwards, for the first time, twelve. Raske :
from Adam to Noah the year was equal to one month.
Bee against this, Knobel, p. 68 ff. To the first sup-
position is opposed the definite characterizing of
single persons ; to the second the fact that in the
Barae manner the son always follows the father ; to
the third the constant signification of the year as
tropical, periodical.* "No shorter year than the
period of a year's time have the Hebrews ever had.

•^Besides the reasons given by Lange against the idea
»f any lesser time being denoted by nslij , there are others
•rising from the etymology of the word. This makes it
the most fixed and most distinct of all the measures of
tmie. Not only in the Hebrew, but in the Greek, the radi-
lal idea of the word for year is repetUion, or a coming over
igain in a second recurrence of the same astronomical
•eries. Thus the primary sense of the verb HSUJ is to re-
peat, t» do a saiond time ; hence the word for the numeral
turn. In Greek there can be no doubt that rrot has the

Against any shortening of the n:ttj stands the fact
that in that case some of the patriarchs must have
begotten children at an age in which they were not
capable." Knobel. By him and many of the mod-
ems it is explained as a mythical conception, with
reference to the old representation that iu the core
happy primitive period, men hved longer, but were
ever becoming weaker and of shorter fife. " This
representation (of the brevity of life) presents itself
very clearly in the Old Testament. In the historical
time a man among the Hebrews became 70 or 80
years old (Ps. Xc. 10) ; in the Mosaic and patriarcha.
time, when there meet us statements of 100, 120,
123, 133, 137, 147, 175, and 180 years, man reached
an age between 100 and 200 years ; for the time of

same Idea, aa-we see it in Hom. Odyss. i. 16, It<k iiA#t
TrepnT\oij.€vtov ivtavriav. Compare it with the particle m
(Lat. elj iierum, iterare^ Saxon yety addition, repetition).
So also in the word eftavrd? (that which returns into itself),
an etymology which, though condemned by some, is not to
be rashly rejected. In harmony with this is the Latin
annus, a rijtg, or circle. So the Gothic iar, jar, jer, the
old Anglo-Saxon gear, German jolir, English year, seem
all to carry the same thought, that which comes again, —
being connected witli the Greek eap (Latin ver), the spring,
the repetition, the new life, and not with the indeiinite
Greek icaipdt, as some lexicographert* suppose. So marked
a word carrying this distinct conception in all these lan-
guages, would be the last one to be used for any smaller, or
less marked division, and this view is confirmed by the fact
that neither in the Hebrew writings nor anywhere else do
we ever find any such substitution. Years in the plural,
mslT , seems sometimes to be used for larger designations,
or for aeonic time; as in such expressions as "["^Ta^ nisiZJ
■|i^P5 , " years of the right hand of the Most High,'' Ps*.
Ixxvii. 10, or "thy years, ^•'pljO, are for ali genera-
tions," Ps. cii. 24 ; though even in these cases it may have
its fixed astronomical measure, denoting God's doings in
time and himian history.

We get a cnnfirmation of these views by considering
how the whole idea of time is divided for us into the as-
tronomical and the Eeonic, — the former measured by the sun
and other heavenly bodies, the latter above such measure-
ment, entirely independent of it, having its division from
inward evolutions, and thus presenting a higher and an
independent chronology of its own. In astronomical tune
the day is the unit, complete in itself with its dual evolu-
tion, and having no smaller astronomical snbdi\'isions,
although it may be cut up into hours and watches by arbi-
trary numberings. In aeonic time, the single atiiji^ or olam
is the unil, and the greater measures are made by its redu-
plications and retriplica ions, its ages of ages (ait^vei run*
aluuiav) and worlds of worlds. "We see from this why, of
all astronomictil measures, the day is used to represent the
Eeonic unit, and to stand for an aiwy or an olam, aa in the
iltjt-tpa alujvoi of 2 Peter lii. 18. From its peculiar position
as the unit in the one department, it becomes the most easy
and natural term for this purpose m representi ng the higher
chronology on the earthly scale. For the opposite reason,
year and month are less fitted for such a parallelism ; and
hence we find the usage refeired to so strongly verified in
so many, perhaps in all, languages. A year is not only as-
tronomical in itself, but internally divided by astronomical
periods. Hence it is generally used for nothing longer or
shorter than its own solar measurement. Everywhere,
however, day is thus employed, not only in philosophical
language where a ntagnus annus is artiiicially spoken of,
but in common idioms, where we feel its natural propriety
as used to denote any long internally completing, or sel^•
evolving time, series, or cycle ; as in that line of YibgiLi
^n. vi. 745 :

Douec longa dies perfecto temporis arhe,

or In that peculiar Latin phrase venire in diem, to be born,
to come into the world, or in the still greater Scriptural
phrases " before the day I am He," Is. xliii, 13, or th»
rjixepa aiSivoi already cited. We should feel it as a philo-
logical discord if year were thus used, whether in poetry,
or in any other animated language. On the same gi-ouna
it must appear as forced when any one would interpret
n 3U) , eros, eviavT6^, jahr, rear, of any shorter period. Be-
sides, the Hebrews had two distinct names for months,
neither of which is ever used in giving the lengths of lives,
or in keeping the record of genealogies, although emiloyed
In tlie designation of festal times.— T t*j

272

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Abraham, and thence up to Noah, the dates maintain
themselves, with one exception, between 200 and
600 years (ch. xi. 10-32) : whilst in the time from
Noah to Adam (there too with one exception) they
are between 700 and 1000 years. According to the
Hebrew belief therefore, in respect to the duration
of human life, it became worse with men in the
course of the times. Thence tlie hope in a restora-
tion of the old longevity in the Messianic time (Is.
Ixv. 20 ; XXV. 8). So also the rest of antiquity as-
sumed a greater length of life for the oldest time,
and JosKPHos (Airtiq. i. 3, 9) names Manetho, Bero-
sus, Moschus, Hestiseus, Hieronymus, Hesiod, &c.,
as giving accounts similar to that of Genesis." In
the number ten of the patriaichs, there is, in truth,
a symbolical significancy (the Chaldeans, too, accord-
ing to Berosus, number ten antediluvian patriarchs),
but a symbolical number is not on that account a
mythical number, and under the mythical point of
view Knobel does not know what to do with the un-
like and uneven numbers.

Concerning the chronological treatises that relate
to our section, namely the assumed rectification of
the Bible chronology through the Egyptian, com-
pare Delitzsch, p. 220 if. For the motives which
lie at the ground of the chronological changes of
our text in the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Sep-
tuagint, or their deviations (as well ch. xi. as ch. v.,
compare Knobei., p. 70) the reader is referred to
Keil, p. 70. According to our chronology, from
the creation to the flood there were 1656 years,*'
according to the Samaritan text 1307 years, and ac-
cording to the Septuagint 2242 years. The time
after the flood until Abraham was, according to the
Hebrew text 36.5 years, according to tlie Samaritan
1015, according to the Septuagint 1245. " The
translation of Enoch falls nearly in the middle point
of years from Adam to the flood, — that is, in the
year 987 after the creation of Adam. At that time
Seih, Enosh, Cainan, Mahahdeel, and Jared, were
Btill Uving, as there was also living his son Methuse-

• [In the excollent commentary on Genesis by Dr.
James G. Murxjhy, of Belfast College (p. 196), there is a
very clear and convincing comparison of the Hebrew text
cbronology with that of the Weptuagint, the Samaritan,
and Josephuf*. The internal evidence is shown to be de-
cidedly in favor of the Hebrew from its proportional con-
sistency. Tlie numbers in the LXX. evidently follow a plan
to whidTi they iiave been confonned. This does not appear
in the Hebrew, and it is greatly in favor of its being an
autlientic genealogical record. The numtiers before the
birth of a successor, wh;ch are chiefly important for the
chronology, aio enlarged in the LXX. by tlie addition of
just one hundred years In each of six cases, maliing Adam
230 years old at the birth of Beth, Seth 205 at the birth of
Enosh, and so on, whilst the sum-total of each life remains
the same as in the Hebrew, with a slight exception of 25
Tears in the case of Lamech. The interest, here, is evi-
dent, to extend the total chronology without changing the
other numbers of the macrobiology. It is not easy to
imagine what motive could have led in the other direction,
or to the shortening, if the orif^inal had been as given in
the Septuagint ; since all ancient nations have rather
shown a disposition to lengthen their chronology. On
physiological grounds, too, the Hebrew is to be preferred ;
eince the length of the life does not at all require so late a
manhood as those numbers would seem to intimate. There
IF no proof that these were all first-boi-n sons. It was the
line of the pious, of those that had the spiritual birth-
right. Tlie uncvcnness of the Hebrew bii-th-figures, vary-
ing from (35 and 70 to 157, shows this, whilst the added 100
years, in each case, by the Septuagint, shows a design to
bring them to some nearer proportional standard, grounded
on some supposed physiological notion, and the unwar-
ranted idoa that each is a natural tirst-bom. To all this
must be added the fact that the Hebrew has the best claim
to be regarded as the original text, from the well-known
scrupulous, and even superstitious, care with whirh it has
been textually preserved.—!', li.]

lah, and his grandson Lamech, then 113 jears old;
Noah only was not yet born, and Adam of all th«
line was the only one dead." Keil. We will remark
in general, in relation to our treatment of the chro-
nology in the Introduction, that the genealogical
chronology throughout corresponds to the funda-
mental biblical ideas, or to that significance of per-
sonality which determines everything as actual I'acU
In their experience, however, of the way in which
the blessing of piety advanced their length of life,
the Macrobii must have found a special warning to
number their days, and in the unsymbolical form of
the numbers it was easier to admit misreckoninga
in single cases than any arbitrariness in respect to
the whole. In consideration of the extraordinary
impression which the year-period must have made
upon the first men of our race, in consideration of
its symbolical dying and living again with nature,
as well in the change [in the length] of day and
night, as in that of summer and winter, they could
have had, in general, no occasion or inducement to
leara the reckoning of numbers more vivid than
that which was furnished by these annual vicissitudes.

6. Ver. 1. This is the book "lEB means

any finished writing, whetlier it c:)nsists of only one
pair of leaves, or even of a single one ; as, for exam-
ple, the book (or bill) of divorce. Deut. xxiv." Ue-

litzsch. — The generations of Adam The nearest

bound to this book of the generations of Adam, is
the genealogical register of Noah. In a wider sense,
then, does this register of Adam go on in the genea.
logical register of Noah (ch. x.) and in the genealo-
gical register of Shem (oh. x.), even to Abiaham.
After that it goes on through the whole Old Testa-
ment, until it becomes the genealogical register of
Jesus Christ (Matt. i.).

7. Ver. 4. And Adam lived. — " The narrator
reckons the years of each forefather unto the beget,
ting of his first-born, who carries on the main line,
then the remainder of his life, and after that he reck-
ons both periods together, so as to give the whole
length of his life and name." Delitzsch. — Begat in
his likeness. — Adam bore the image of God. Seth
bore the image of Adam: 1. according to its dispo-
sition in respect to the image of God ; 2. according
to the measure of its deformity by sin ; 3. according
to the hereditary blcfsing of his piety. " In that
primitive time the births did not rapidly follow each
other — a fact which had not a physical, but only an
ethical ground," says Delitzsch. There is, however,
a physical cause, since in exact correspondence with
the increasing degeneracy and r-ankness of human
life, is there, in a Uteral sense, the increase of a nu-
merous and wretched offspring.

8. Ver. 6. And he died Baumgaeten : " In

its constant return does this expression nb*^ prove
the dominion of death, from Adam onward, as an
immutable law (Rom. v. 14). Still, on this dark
background of a conquering death shows still more
clearly the power of Ufe. For man dies when he has
already propagated anew the life, so that in the
midst of the death of the individual members, tha
life of the race holds on, and the hope grows strong,
er and stronger in the seed that is to conquer tlie
author of death." The unceasing refrain, and ht
died, denotes here also the limit of the long and ele-
vated line of life that seems to be ever mounting
towards heaven, but ever breaks off in the end,—
with the exception of Enoch. And so we get a cleat
view of the battle of life with death.

CHAP. V. 1-32.

273

9. Vers. 22-27. And Enoch walked with
Qod. — This expression, which occurs once more In
respect to Noah, ch. vi. 9, is afterwards enlarged. It
becomes (ch. xvii. 1 ; xxiv. 40), " to walk before the
face of (xod," — " to follow Jehovah," Deut. xiii. 5
— and similarly, Malachi ii. 6, it occurs in respect
to the priest. It denotes the most intimate inter-
course with God, or, so to speak, a permanent view
of a present deity, a continual following after His
guidance. The word occurs here twice. In its first
usage it denotes the character of his life, and gives
assurance of the perseverance and soundness of his
piety ; he walked with God three hundred years, he
begat sons and daughters. In the second, it gives
confirmation of the wonderful translation of Enoch.
According to the Jewish tradition, Enoch had, in all
probability, borne witness against the Cainitic anti-
nomists of his day, and had announced to them the
judgment which came with the flood. From this
Jewish tradition the book of Enoch and the epistle
of Jude took ill common (Dillmann, Buck Henoch);
for there is no necessity of referring the place in
Jude to the apocryphal book, since the apostles, as
is well known, have cited popular traditions in other
places, although even DeUtzsch seems to connect the
epistle with apocryphal story. With this prediction,
and in correspondence with fundamental biblical
principles, does the epistle of Jude make him the
type of the prophetic testimony against that anti-
Christian Antinomianism of the New Testament day,
which is comprehended in its unity as " the last
time," and also h typical prophet of the last day
itself. The translation of Enoch has two sides.
ISJ^'XI means, in the first place: he was no longer
there, he had disappeared (ch. xlii. 13, 36). There-
by is it indicated that his people had missed him, as
the sons of the prophets missed Elijah when he was
taken away (2 Kings ii. 16, etc.). Luther has pic-
tured in a most vivid manner this missing of Enoch,
as reflecting itself in the case of Jesus in His death,
and on Easter morning. According to Luther, they
had some thought that he had perished, had prob-
ably been slain by the Cainites, and then received a
special revelation concerning his taking away. —

God took him This word Dpi is also used in the

taking up of Elijah (2 Kings ii. 9, 10 ; Ps. Ixxiii. 24 ;
xlix. 16). A death so early in a line of men for
whom life was a blessing, could only be regarded, in
this connection, as a punishment. It would seem to
make Enoch of least worth among the patriarchs,
whereas, on the contrary, he was the most eminent.
It is clear, therefore, that there is narrated here a
transition which did not go through the form of
death. The Christian tradition (Heb. xi. 5), as well
as the Jewish (Sirach xliv. 15 ; xhx. 16), hold fast
the unmistakable sense of the text, in which here, m
place of the ever-returning "and he died," there
comes in that other expression, "/or God took him."
It is also confirmed by the analogous representations
of the Bible (Elijah, Christ, the transformed, 1 Thess.
iv. 17; 1 Cor. xv. 51). But whither? and to what
state was Enoch translated ? Delitzsch : " To a
closer nearness with God, with whom he had hitherto
walked : not that he became a partaker of that glori-
fication which awaits the justified in the resurrection ;
for in this glorification Christ is the first fruits."
On the contrary, Keil : " Not m the glorification is
Christ the first fruits according to 1 Cor. xv. 20, 28,
but in the resurrection." By a transformation, or
by a clothing upon, were Enoch and Elijah trans-

18

lated into everlasting life with God. We must di»
tinguish, however, between the transformation and
the glorification, between the heavenly region of the
pious, that is. Paradise, and the perfect heaven of
Christ. " His 365th year of life corresponds prob-
ably to our 33d," remark Delitzsch and Knobel :
" Enoch lived as many years as the year has days."
In respect to the legendary parallels in the extra
biblical antiquity, comp. Knobel, p. 72 ; in which it
is clear that we must distinguish the biblical tradi-
tion from the kindred stories. According to Knobel
the motive for the translation was probably to rescue
Enoch from the age in which he lived, — with relation
to ch. iv. 10. Beyond a doubt, however, the main
reason was the fact that he had become personally
ripe for transformation, and that through his faith
there might be introduced into this world the faith
in a, new life in the world beyond (Heb. xi. 6, 6).
If we would seek farther, we must compare the
translations that foUow in sacred history. Elijah is
translated because his consistent legahsm must be-
come a judgment of fire, and a Last Day for the
apostate Israel ; Christ is translated, because His
staying longer in this world must have come to a
sudden conflict of life and death with the old world,
— that is, must have had for its consequence the
Last Day ; the believers at the end of the world are
translated, because now the Last Day has actually
appeared. Judging from these analogies, we may
conjecture that the translation of Enoch denoted a
decided turning-point in the fife of the old world.
At all events, he had not m vain announced the
day of judgment before his departure. At this time,
it is probable, there was the beginning of the corrupt
alliances between the Sethites and the Cainites. It
is the probable middle time between Adam and the
flood. The Jewish and Arabian fables, according to
which Enocli is said to have discovered the art of
writing and book-making, together with arithmetic
and astronomy, must rest, for the most part, on his
name, TJn, from ~3n (to initiate, educate), and
upon the astronomical significance of the number
365.

10. Ver. 27. Methuselah.— The highest age,
969 years.

11. Ver. 28. Lamech "At so great an age

did these pious forefathers, who had renounced the
self-created worldly lust, confess their experience of
the burden and painfulness of life, in all its gravity
and in all its extent ; and it is easily explained how
it is that the history of the Sethites closes with lan-
guage of such a different sound from that of the
Cainites. Lamech the Cainite is full of an evil
drunken confidence. Lamech the Sethite, on the
contrary, is filled with the most extreme dejection in
respect to the present, and has no other joy than in
the promise of the future." Delitzsch. The name
nj, which he gives to his son, is put in relation to
cn: , from which it does not follow that this relation
is etymologically significant The confident hope of
the wearied is ever some bringer of rest. Without
doubt does the life-labor and toil of the Sethitoa
stand in relation to the pride of the Cainites, even aa
it forms a contrast to their confident and false secu-
rity. It is this pride which has power to trouble
their life more than the unfruitfulness of the earth.
In respect to Lamech's language in which he greets
Noah as the bringer of rest, Lother remarks :
Sicut Hei)a fallitur, ita quoque desiderio restitutionis
mundifaUitur etiam bonus Lamech. Still is he mi*

274

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

taken in supposing that Noah was to bring in the
closing sabbath of humanity ; that there came with
him a great reckoning, and a preliminary new world,
he correctly anticipated.

12. Ver. 32. And he begat Shem. — Ranke :
" The naming of the three sons of Noah leads us to
expect that whilst hitherto the line has moved on
ever through only one member, in the farther course
of time all three of Noah's sons must simultaneously
lay the foundations of a new beginning." "The
order of the ages of Noah's sons is Shem, Japheth,
Ham (see ch. x. 21). In the enumeration, however,
Japheth ever stands last, because his name of two
syllables makes the best close in the collective ar-
rangement.'' Knobel. The series of the three sons,
however, in regard to their age, makes a difficulty in
relation to ch. x. 21. (See Keil, p. 104.) Accord-
ing to the passage before us, Noah begat Shem first
when he was 600 years old. According to ch. vii.
6, he was 600 years old when the flood came. Ac-
cording to ch. XI. 10, Shem was !00 years old two
years after the iJood. Either then must we here re-
gard the 100 yea.li) of Shem as a round number, or
the word biTii, ch. x. 21, must relate to Japheth, as
Michaelis and others think. On the contrary, see
the remarks of Knolll, p. 120, and of Keil, p. 104.
Keil, however, would vake Itipn as merely a com-
parative designation ot Ham, ch. ix. 24 : the young-
er instead of the youngest ; so that the series Shem,
Ham, Japheth, would be the actual order of their
ages. This consequence does not appear to be
confirmed by the iiT5 of cu. x. 21, since "I3pn
expressly refers to Noah in connection with 133,
a position that fails in respect to biTS, in ch. x. 21.
Assuming it as not grounded on the analogue of the
theocratic history, that the physical firsUborn must
always be the spiritual first-boin, it would remain
doubtful whether, in the passage before us, Sliem
was not placed first on the ground of worth.

[Note on the Translation of Enoch, anh the

EARLIEST ideas OF DEATH AMONG THE PRIMITIVE

Men.-— Din^X ins npb •'3 !|2r!<% A right un-
derstanding of this remarkable language respecting
Enoch, depends upon our getting the right stand-
point from which to determine the earliest notion
that man must have had of death. This could hardly
have been the modern idea, either in its materializing,
or in its more spiritual, aspect. That is, it was not,
on the one hand, a cessation of being, nor was it, on
the other, any distinctly formed thought of a separa-
tion of two things, soul and body, one of which no
longer pertained to the man, or the selfhood, and the
other passed off to a wholly separate and immaterial
existence. God had not defined to them the nature
of this fearful doom, and experience showed them
nothing but the fact of an awful outward change on
the once moving and active personality. It had not
ceased to be, though now it was motionless and ghast-
ly. They could not regard it as a fallen tree, or a
rJain animal, not from any metaphysical or physiologi-
cal distinction, but from the strong feeling of social
personality which they had ever connected with the
living man, and which they could not get rid of.
This was the germ, the God-implanted germ, we may
taf, of the idea of a continuous being, or a future
life, as we find it in the earliest parts and throughout
the Old Testament. To this they held on even against
appearances, against the sense we may say, or any rea-
toning from sense, even as it is yet found among the

rudest and simplest nations, — the very antagonisms
it has had to encounter from the outer phenomenal
world only showing the strength and the indestructi-
bility of the sentiment. This one personality had not
wholly vanished, though what had once appeared as
a human form they now saw undergoing a rapid and
feaprful transformation. Death presented itself in
contrast with that moving outward thing they called
life, but it was not necessarily a breach of all con.
tinuity, or an utter extinction of all selfhood, with
its rights and claims, as in the case of Abel's com
plaining blood. The self, the man was there, but he
was dead, or in the state of being they called death.
Or he was still somewhere near, in what connection
with the body, or with themselves, they could not
imagine. They gazed in astonishment at this won-
derful phenomenon, but they did not reason about it,
or draw nice distinctions. They had no data from
which to draw them. It was the dread penalty of
which they had heard from their progenitors, and
that was all they knew about it. Of its extent, or
its consequences, or of any recovery from it, they
had little or no conception. Death was not to them,
as it has come to be regarded in our thinking, a sin-
gle terminating event, but a state, a state of being,
very strange indeed, but still real and actual. They
did not separate it into death (the act of dying) and
something after death. All eariiest language is
grounded on the idea of such after state as a going
on, or hnked identity ; but they did not distinguish
between it aad its incipiency. Hence, among all an-
cient people, the great care for funeral rites, not
merely in memory of, but as something due to a still
continued being, and as essential to its quietude. It
was not the idea of resurrection, as some have
thought, that made this so ancient and so universal,
but the ineradicable feeling of a personality, or self-
hood, as somehow inhering in the poor remains,
whether embalmed with costliest spices, or buried in
the bosom of their mother earth, or purified and so
preserved by fire. Therein a selfhood in the body;
Paul affirms it strongly of the sleeping Christian re-
mains ; there is something sacred in the human dust ;
it is not like other matter, though sovra in corrup-
tion ; we may thank God that the feeling still lin-
gers in our souls, in spite of that contempt for the
body which is sometimes manifested by a reckless
science on the one hand, or a hyper-spiritual pliiloso-
phy on the other.

It is very important to bear in mind, that to the
early view there could be no distinctions such as we
now make. It was all death, whatever it might in-
clude, as opposed to acting, moving being ; and
when very early there arose the thought of a dwell-
ing in the earth (as an underworld), of a Sheol or
cavity, of a Hades or the Unseen — all arising from
the act of burying or putting out of sight — this was
not a state succeeding death, but the very world of
the dead, the obi S tT'a , the House of 01am (Eccles
xii. 6), the House of Eternity, not as a figure for non-
existence, but as real continuous being, though in
striking contrast with the busy, knowing (sense-
knowing), remembering, loving, hating, upper life
"beneath the sun" (Eccles. ix. 6, 6). Superstition
held that there was some mode of intercom se with
these 7D3J "'SUB, or dwellers in Sheol. There is
little said about them in the Hebrew Scriptures, for
there was little known that could be said ; but there
is an undercurrent of thought and feeling throughout
the Old Testament which shows that they are nevei

CHAP. V. 1-82.

275

forgotten. They were dead, but stUl in being ; they
had not perished (per-iit, inter-iit, gone thrmigh, fallen
mt), become extinct, ceased to \^. Hence they called
them the 0"'SB"i , the weak, the weary, the inactive,
IS the Homeric and the ante-Homeric Greek called
them ol KOLfiovTeSf and afieviji/^ KapriPa. In all this
there was great logical inconsistency, bewilderment
of conception, contradiction even of the sense, so far
as the phenomenal body was concerned, but it was a
holding fast of that idea of continuous being, in some
way, which was from the beginning, and which the
human mind never gave up until Christ came and
poured light upon this dark Sheol, this gloomy Hades,
or world of the unseen. The imagery everywhere
was drawn mainly from the last appearances in life,
or from the associations of sepulchral acts, but the
real underlying idea was never lost. Very early a
better hope dawned upon the pious, or it came as a
revelation from God, born in the travail of their
earth-weary, rest-seeking souls, but it was mainly of
a deliverance at some time from Sheol, or of blessed-
ness therein as lying under the shadow of the divine
protection; It was, however, stUl death, doom,
^aipa, the great penalty, an idea expressed somehow
in the most ancient tongues, Shemitic or Japhetic,
with which we are acquainted. It was the great
wrath for whose turning the pious dead are repre-
sented as waiting; as Job prays, "0 that thou
wouldst hide me in Sheol until thy wrath be past,
TjSX 3!jp ns (umtil thy iiyrath turn), that thou
wouldst appoint me a time and then remember me "
(Job xiv. 13).

From such a doom Enoch was spared. No grave
received him. He disappeared from earth. He was
not found, as the LXX. have rendered IJJ^X, and as
it is given in Heb. xi. 5 ; that is, his body was not
found, though men, doubtless, made long search for
him, as tljey did afterwards for the body of Elijah
(2 Kings ii. 16, 17). Enoch may be said to have
shared in the great penalty in so far that for 365
years he bore a dying and corruptible body, and yet
it is testified of him that he did not see death, Heb.
xi. 5, that is, he did not enter into Hades, wluch is
the real death, although the change that his body
must have undergone in the translation was greater
than that which passes upon the dissolving human
frame. See the clear remarks of Dr. Murphy on
133''S , in his excellent Commentary on Genesis.

Dr. Lange has well distinguished between this
Old Testament belief of a future life, or rather of
continuous being, and the (m^ ahifios, the eternal
life, revealed by Christ. Great confusion arises from
confounding the two, and the distinction becomes
of great importance in refuting the reasoning of those
who teach the annihilation of the wicked.

The word npb here, though a common one, is to
be noted as used in a strikingly similar connection
in the account of EUjah (2 Bangs ii. 9, np^S), Ps.
xlix. 15, " God shall redeem my soul from Sheol, for
He shall take me," ^Sn)?"; , and Ps. Ixxiii. 24 : " Thou
Irilt guide me by thy counsel, and afterwards take
me (to) glory." It is worthy of note, too, how ex-
»ctly in Ps. Ixxiii. 24 the Hebrew int* corresponds
tf the use of the cognate Arabic 'iy^\ (Heb. n^'iriK

Numb, xxiii. 10 et al,), the frequent Koranic and ante-
Mohammedan word for the after or future life. In
tKese two passages from the Psalms, npb may not

denote the hope of a translation, yet the similarity
of context, which strongly seems to be suggested bj
the passage in Genesis, takes them clearly out of thi
EationaUst's limitation to a mere worldly deliver,
ance.— T. L.]

EOCTEINAl AND ETHICAL.

1. Concerning the line of Seth, see the Exegetical
annotations, No. 1.

2. Concerning the meaning of the image of Adam,
see the Exegetical annotations. No. S ; as also for
the significance of the names that here occur, No. 4.

3. Concerning the Macrobii, or the long-lived of
the primitive time, see Exegetical annotations, No. 5.
It ought to be considered that not only had death,
as yet, failed to make his full breach upon them,
but that, on the other hand, through their inward
intercourse with God, their lil'e-power had been
wonderfully advanced in the opposite direction of
the transformation form. Concerning the chro-
nology, see No. 5.

4. For the meaning of Enoch, see No. 7, Exegeti-
cal annotations. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, is
a very ancient witness : 1. For the degrees of piety ;
2. for the truth of the mystical or the mysterious
core of religion, communion with God; 3. for that
assurance of eternal life that wells out of a life of
faith and peace in God. In this is he, in a special
sense, a type of the life of Christ; 1. His divine
human walk ; 2. his glorification and translation to
heaven. Concerning the language of Lamech, see
No. 8.

5. For the meaning of Noah, see the extracts
from Starke below. According to Heb. xi. 1, Enoch
is the mediator of the idea of a revelation of deliv-
erance, or of salvation from judgment.

6. A main point of view of the Holy Scriptures
and of the religion of revelation, is the significance
of the personal life. This presents itself in the
genealogies as they stand in their simple grandeur
even to this day. It is Uke the granite of the earth
in a highland landscape.

7. Enoch, Elijah, Christ, three stages in the un-
folding of the facts of the world beyond, of the
higher life of the world beyond, of its region of
glory, and of the wonderful transition to it, as well
as of the belief in those facts. In Christ the per-
fection of what is here prefigured.

8. Noah and his house a figure of the pious of
the last time (Matt. xxiv. 34).

HOMILETICAI; AlfD PEACTIOAl.

The race of Adam, according to the ground-
features of its life: 1. Birth; 2. marriage and the
family ; 3. death. — The constant repetttion, and h«
died, a powerful memento mori. [Through this con-
stant refrain, and he died, the reading of this chapter
is said to have awakened men to repentance.] — Adam,
through Seth and Noah, the ancestor of the human
race : 1. In the continuance of the divine vocation ,
2. of sinfulness, pain, and labor upon the earth ; 3.
of strife with sin : Seth, Enoch, Lamech, Noah ;
4. of the prospect of the future of the perfected
Seth (meaning compensation and established), of the
perfected Enoch (devoted), of the perfected Noah
(rest-bringer). — The conflict of life with death in
the line of the Sethites 1. How it holds back death

276

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OP MOSES.

through the blessing of piety (the long-living) ; 2.
how it ever opposes to death new generations (and
he bfcgat sons and daughters) ; 3. how it finds a way
of life beyond death (Enoch). — Seth aa the again-
risen Abel. — The time of Enosh, that is, of the feel-
ing of human weakness, as a time of the first glori-
fying of the divine power and covenant faithfulness.
— The names of the Sethites (see above). — Enoch
the mediator of the faith of a new Mfe in the world
beyond (Heb. xi. 5, 6), on the ground of the experi-
ence of the divine complacency (justification in its
first form), through faith, that is, in the unfolding
of his communion with God, and in the bearing of
his prophetic testimony against ungodliness (Jude).
— Enoch's walk with God and his blessing. — The
long life of Enoch and the long life of Methuselah.
— Enoch the wonderful height in the experience of
the blessing, in the race of the blessing. — Enoch a
turning-point in the primeval history, as Elijah in the
history of Israel, and as the ascension to heaven of
Christ in the history of the human race generally.
— The history of Enoch the first germ of the doc-
trine of a heavenly inheritance. — Enoch as a type
of Christ. — The Cainitic Lamech and the Sethitic
Lamech. — Lamech's word of confidence in respect
to Noah, 1. a delusion, and yet, 2. no delusion. —
The lijie of the Sethites and the line of the Cainites:
1. Worldliness ; spirituaUty; 2. pride and confi-
dence ; sorrow and patience ; 3. an end, with terror ;
a newer, fairer beginning of life. — Noah as a type
of Christ. — Adam the ancestor of two lines ; a pious
and a godless. — Noah the ancestor of three lines :
a line of faith and worship, a line of human culture,
and a line of sensual barbarity.

Starke : It is this genealogical record that has
been preserved by God's wonderful care, and is to
be found, 1 Chron. i.. Matt, i., Luke iii. — Cramer :
There has always been a church of God, and will re-
main even to the last day (Matt. xvi. 18). The evan-
gelical religion is the oldest and the truest of all. —
Ver. 3- All men are by nature children of wrath,
and stained with the hereditary sin (Eph. ii. 3). —
Long life is also from God ; well for him who seeks
to apply it to his honor. — Osiander : We have lived
long enough when we know how to learn Christ. —
Ver. 5. It is an old covenant : thou, 0 man, must
die (Sirach xiv. 18). — Cainan. He had (like Enoch)
Been all the patriarchs. — The example of Enoch is a
glorious proof that the marriage state can and ought
to be holily maintained. — Whether now children and
babes enjoy any such intimate intercourse with God,
there are still degrees herein, so that hu.sbands and
fathers in Christ have thereby a much closer com-
munion with God. Jewish, as well as some old
patristic and papistical interpreters say, that he
(Enoch) was carried into the earthly paradise, where
he will remain to the end of the world, when he will
come back and be slain by Antichrist, and there-
upon rise again and be tal<en up into heaven. We
may readily see, however, what a mere fable this is.
Eather has he been taken up into this heavenly para-
dise (Luke xxiii. 43).^Aim of Enoch's translation :
1. Thereby was the doctrine that the good man was
rewarded in a future life established as against the
prevalent security of that day ; 2. thereby, in the
seventh from Adam, was there given a pattern which
even to the time of the seventh trumpet should serve
as an example to believers whom the day of Christ
might find ahve; 3. thereby Enoch was set before
as as a type of Christ in his ascension. (Then fol-
lows a comparison of the translation of Enoch with

the ascension of Christ.) — Methuselah. No one of
the patriarchs reached a thousand years, for thai
number is a type of 2he perfection to which no man
in this life can attam. — He died in the year IB?*),
and, therefore, in the year in which the flood brok«
in upon the world. — Noah (Luke iii. 36 ; 1 Pet. iii
20 ; Heb. xi. 7). Noah is a glorious type of Christ!

1. In respect to his name : Noah signifies rest and
peace, or consolation and comforting ; so is Christ,
too, our Prince of peace, who makes for us peace
and tranquillity (Is. ix. 6 ; Rom. v. 1 ; Jer. vi. 16).

2, According to his threefold olBce : Noah was a
prophet (2 Pet. ii. 5), and announced many years
beforehand the destruction of the first world and itf
sons, which was to befall them (Matt. xxiv. 25)
Noah was a priest, for he offered sacrifice; Christ
has offered hunself (Heb. vii. 27). Noah prayed foi
the wicked world (Ezek. xiv. 14) ; so also is Christ
our advocate (Hom. viii. 34 ; 1 John ii. 1 ; Heb. v.
7). Noah blessed Shem and Japheth ; so also Christ
(Mark x. 16). Noah was a king, the head of Ids
family and of the new world, the builder of an ark
at God's command ; Christ was king and head of hia
threefold kingdom, the builder of the church (Ps. ii.
6). — The sons of Noah. They are not born in th(
order in which they here stand, but Japheth was the
first-born (ch. x. 21), Shem the middle son (ch. xi.
10), and Ham the youngest (ch. ix. 24).

SoiiRiiDER : Genealogies may be called the threads
on which history, chrouology, and everything else in
the first book of Moses moves. The Adamitic gen-
ealogical table, ch. v., throws a bridge between thf
fall and the flood. In the plan of Genesis, the ey
of Moses is firmly directed to Israel. The object of
this constantly keeping the eye upon Israel, has for
its ground the placing, in the most visible manner,
before the eyes of the latest descendants, Jehovah's
covenant faithfulness in the outer as well as inner
preservation and assistance of the woman's seed.
On this account the genealogies of the Old Testa^
ment, and of Genesis especially, form a part not to
be overlooked in the great history of the divine as-
sumptions of humanity before the incarnation of God
in Christ. — Vers. 1 and 2. According to Luke iii.
38, man stands in a genealogical relation to God ;
his descent loses itself in the divine hand of the
Creator (Acts xvii. 28). — Vers. 3-5. The significance
of the time depends upon the significance of the
person who is born, lives, and dies in it. The mean-
ing of the time is nothing else than that there ap-
pears in it the birth and life of the human person-
ality. To the mere dead number the coming man
first gives life and content, and so too he first makes
history. — Abel is murdered, Cain is cursed ; and now
Seth enters, a first birth, as it were, into history. —
Val. Herberger ; Adam and Eve may have wept
long for the death of the pious Abel, and the wick-
edness of that wretched son Cain ; but now God
makes them to rejoice again in a pious child whom
he presents to their eyes. Such vicissitudes of joy
and sorrow befall all pious people. Be not, there-
fore, proud when it goes with thee accoriling to thy
heart's wish ; be not cast down though it may lain
and snow crosses. God will again rejoice thee with
a cheerful sunshine in thy long, wearisome domestic
trouble.^ — Whether the rest of the patriarchs who
followed were all first-born sons, is made doubtlW
by the case of Seth. — "Prom Adam onward to thi
patriarch Jacob, hath the Holy Spirit signified to us
in what year each named ancestor, who propagated
that line out of which Christ was to upring, begat

CHAP. V. 1-32.

271

Ihat son who in turn was to become a specially-namei
incestor in tiie course of descent." Rodk. — Setii's
genealogical register is the line of " the sons of God,"
that is, of the true church. " With reverence and
jwe do I draw nigh to thee, 0 holy people who
iwell under his shadow and before his presence, 0
Aiou light of the world, thou salt of the earth ! Thou
wast a chosen race, a patriarchal priesthood, to make
known the virtues of Him who called thee." Herder.
— LcTDKB Eve, too, it is probable, lived to the
eight hundredth year, and so must have seen a nu-
merous race. How much care must she have had,
how much industry, and labor, in visiting, dressing,
and teaching, her children and her children's chil-
dren ! The first oral fountain of oral and written
traditions that have come down to us, could in this
way maintain itself through the possibility of a per-
sonal converse between Lamech and Shem, between
Shem and Abraham. The original undying destiny
of the human race comes powerfully before us in the
numbers of this genealogical register. That sharp
appendage, aiid he died, forms a standing refrain of
sorrow to the joyful picture of life that precedes. —
Roos : So should the thought arise in us : I too must
die, and after a shorter pilgrimage than that of these
fathers ; I too must watch. — Vers. 6-20. Arabian
stories concerning Seth and Jared, p. 111. Jared:
an enigmatical name, out of which, however, as out
of most of the Sethic names, there evidently enough
breathes a tone of sorrow and of pain. Sharp con-
trast with the namings of the Cainites, which express
might and pride. — Vers. 21-23. Wliilst the Enoch
of ch. iv. 17 bears upon himself the Cainitic conse-
cration, and gives to the earthly his consecration
(say rather receives it from the earthly), the Enoch
of our chapter shows the consecration of God (Sirach
xliv. 16 ; Heb. xi. 5). The subjective side of patri-
archalism is its faith, the objective the divine ac-
ceptance.— Luther : From this we take it that there
was in Enoch a peculiar consoladon of the Holy
Spirit and an excellent and noble courage, so that
with the highest confidence and boldness he bore
himself agaiost the church of Satan and the Cainites,
in the presence of the other patriarchs. For to walk
reverentially with God means not to roam in a des-
ert, or to hide oneself in a corner, but to come forth
according to his calling, and to bear himself bravely
against the unrighteousness of Satan and the world.
(In this, however, the question still remains, whether
we are to think of Enoch as having the contempla-
tive Johannean, or the zealous Petrine form ; we
may rather suppose the first than the second.) — •
Rooa ; We never find this mode of speech, to walk
with God, after the giving of the law, but rather the
terms perfect, upright. In the New Testament pious
men are called holy (saints), and beloved of God.
In this way there shines clearly before the eyes the
difference of the divine economies, namely : before
the law, and under the law, and under the grace of
the New Testament. In respect to the language, to
walk with God, it expresses the patriarchal piety in
* very becoming and lovely manner. There were, at
thiit day, no literally expressed prescriptions aa to
what ought to be done or left undone. God himself
Blood in place of all such prescriptions. — Hengsten-
BEEG : The main thing was that each should become
» partaker of the life of God. When this took place,
frcn had he eternal fife, and the assurance of it in his
coTxsviousness. In all the Holy Scripture this term
(translation) is used only of three persons : of Enoch
Id thp old world, of Elijah ip the old covenant, and

of Christ in the new. The first is a " type of th«
second, and both are Old Testament figures " of the
last. — Herder : The seventh from Adam cannot b«
without God in a world which scorns him ; God for-
got him not, but made him immortal and an ever-
lasting monument of this divine truth. — Hengsten-
berg: Everything arbitrary must be far removed
from a rehgion whose God is the unchangeable Jeho-
vah; what God does in the case of one is, at the
same time, a prediction of what he will do to all who
occupy with him a like stand-point. — Baumgarten :
When we confine our looks to the bare catalogue,
we find, indeed, life followed close by death, but
this opens up to us a series in which we see no
close. But that this series has an actual conclusion,
namely, the victory of life over death, is for the first
time assured to us through the translation of Enocii.
— Luther: So shines out, in the midst of this nar-
ration of the dead, like a fair and lovely star, the
pleasing light of immortality. The old doctors of
the church say: Abel confessed another life after
death, for liis blood cries out and is heard ; Cain
acknowledged another life before death, for he waa
afraid to die, and his soul foreboded that something
more awaited him than this world's unhappinesa;
Enoch confesses another life without death, for, out
of this world's misery, and without the pain of
dying, he goes straight to everlasting life. In the
Koran and among the Mohammedans Enoch bears
the name of Edris. So also the heathen legends
mention him under the names of Aimak, Cannak,
Nannak (for the further treatment of these stories,
p. 119). Methuselah means either man of the arrow-
shooting, because, by standing on his defence and using
his skill in weapons, in these last time.' of the first
world, he was able to resist the robberlike, murder-
ous Cainites ; or his name means man of the shoot or
germ, that is, of a great posterity ; one i ioh in child-
ren and in children's ciiildren. — Val. Herberger :
God can prolong our life, as in the case of Hezekiah.
While Methuselah lived the great distress came not
upon the world, for he could pray from the heart
and keep back the wrath of God ; but as soon as
Methuselah's white snow dissolves, and his gray
hair descends into the grave, then grows the weather
foul, the rain comes down, out swells the flood, and
all the world must drown. — At the speech of Lamech,
ch. iv. 1, it was the wife whose mother-feelings sang
joyfully together ; in the passage before us (of the
Sethic Lamech) we perceive the loud pulse of a,
father's heart. — The advancing corruption of the
time, and of his cotemporaries, give no doubtful col-
oring to his soul's longing ; on this dark background
first falls that hard fate of eating bread in the sweat
of the brow (ch. iii. 11). — In such a consolation of a
pious son did the old pious fathers find their rest. —
Roos ; From such a man must the patriarchs have
been greatly comforted, and gained new courage.
(Similar examples in the Old Testament, Moses,
Samuel, Elias ; in the New Testament time, John the
Baptist, the Apostles; in modern times, Huss, Lu-
ther, and others.) It all presupposes Christ the
middle point. — Theodoret names him (Noah) the
other or second Adam. — Drechsler : Here, in the
mention of Noah, there is 'm extension to the whole
chapter in contrast to the previous concise declara-
tions.— (Comparison of the three sons of Adam and
the three sons of Noah.) Shem the first-born, the
most like to his father, who carries farther on
the golden thread; he is the representative of the
divine principle in humanity, p. 125. The oppositt

278

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

riews of Luther and Calvin respecting the declara-
tion that Noah was five hundred years old. Lu-
ther : He lived so long unmarried, because, in that
corrupt time, it was better to have no children than
evil, degenerate ones ; but then he may have become
married from the admonition of the patriarchs, or
the command of an angel. Calvin : It is not said
that he had hitherto been unmarried, nor in what
year he began to be a father, but, on the occasion
of noting the point of time when the future flood is
announced to him, Moses adds that at this time he
had already become the father of three sons [this
explanation, however, is not in harmony with the
allegations of a middle time which he cites as analo-
gous to those in our chapter]. — Hekdek: Remark-
able history of humanity ; the form it ever presents.
These, under the curse are singing their song of
jubilee; those others, under the blessing are full of
sighs. These are building, singing, inventing ; those
live, bring up children, and walk with God. The
number of the one class is ever growing more
numerous, the gathering of the other grows ever less
and less. It ends with one race, with one man, and
the seven souls that are with him. So will it also
be, says Christ, at the end of the days. Be not dis-
heartened, little flock. — Ldthek: This chapter pre-
sents to us a form and image of the whole world.
As, therefore, there may be seen in our chapter a fair
form and image of the early world, so also is it God's
overwhelming wrath, and a most fearful ruin, that
we behold in the fact that the whole race of these
ten patriarchs perished, with the exception of only
eight that survived. — The same : We ought not to
think tliat these are common names of mean and
common men, for, in fact, they are great heroes. —
The same: Our world of to-day, the third, and
still a world of mercy, how full of blasphemy and
cruelty ! — It must be punished with a flood of fire ;
for so prophesy the colors in the rainbow (then fol-
lows an interpretation of the three chief colors).

Gerlaoh : God himself stands at the head of
the genealogical table, not merely as creator, as he
is of all other beings, but as the father of men, as
appears Luke iii. 88. Not without purpose is there
mentioned the divine origin of the human race at
the very apex of this series. It contains the patri-
archs that remained true to the covenant of God,
and who, on that very account, are called the Sons
of God (oh. vi. 2).— Ter. 5. "Who was like his
image." This expression contains no allusion to the
fall, but there is rather indicated a continuance of
the divine image according to the original position
of man. As Adam was created in the divine image,
so could he also beget a son who should be like to
his own image. That the predominance of sin is
inherited along with it, is taken for granted through
the whole history (therefore is it here also indicated,
although the author rightly saw that here, in the
representation of the higher Sethic line, and in ac-
cordance with its connections, there should be a
ipeciol emphasis given to the continuance of a side

of light in humanity). — Enoch : Most worthy of noM
as a verj* ancient witnessing to the earliest human
race of a blessed eternal life.

Lisco : Enoch, that is, devoted. He is the sev
enth from Adam, wherein there may be some indi-
cation that after the six long world-times of sin and
death, there should be introduced, in the seventh
period of the world, through one, that is, Christ, a
divine life, with freedom from death [" Calculus ol
the BiWical Chronology," p. 23].

Calwer Handbuch : Seth. Eve looks upon him
as a present from God ; but thinks no more, as in
the case of Cain, that she actually has the Lord.
Still does her faith behold a new beginning for the
promise, of the seed of the woman, bearing in itself
the pledge of its sure ongoing, whilst she beheviugly
receives this " other seed " from the hand of Goi
[Indication that in ihe birth of Cain she had ascribed
to herself too great a share.] — Methuselah, the eighth
from Adam, lives nearly one hundred years cotempo-
raneously with Adam, whilst Noah lives eighty-four
years with Enoch, the grandson of Adam, and, in the
other direction, was one hundred and twenty-eight
years cotemporaneous with Terah the father of Abra-
ham.— Abel died early a violent death ; Adam was
the first who died a natural death ( ? ) ; fifty-seven
years after him was Enosh translated. A threefold
way. [Enoch. Under the name of Idris (learned
man) he is said to have been the inventor of letters
and writing, of arithmetic, and astronomy.] — Bdnsen,
on ihe word of Zamech, v. 29 : This indicates very
hard times and great disturbing events of nature, in
the last period of the old world. Men labor hard,
but nothing thrives. They toil in vain ; the crop is
Uttle, or it is wholly lost. Now there is a breathing
again (according to the root-meaning of naham
(cn:) and the Arabic usage) after the fruitless la-
bor. [Here, in the first place, it is overlooked that
the object of Lamech's lamentation has an ethical
background (a commencing corruption), and in the
second place, that the destined limitation of that old
period through a sudden and destroying flood ex-
cludes earlier catastrophes.] — From the name of the
Cainite Mahujael, ch. iv. 18: " Z>etruit de Dieu,"
and with reference to a Lydian and Indian tradition.
Von Rougemont concludes that : sa geniraiion a
He en majeure pariie enlevSe par une effroyable
secheresse, which lasted at least eighteen years.
Hintoire de la Terre, p. 98. [In reference, however,
to this meaning of the name Mahujael, it is to be re-
marked that it would be contrary to the analogy of
the Cainitic names]. — Taube : What Enoch's Ufe and
destiny proclaims to us : 1 . That a godly life in
faith pleases God ; 2. that God in his grace rewards
it with the gift of everlasting life. — The name of
Noah : 1. A significant index to the state of soul of
the Sethites and of all children of God ; 2. a figure
of Christ. — Hofmann (p. 40) : Fathers ever hope foi
deliverance in their sons. [^Then follows a referenc*
to Seth, Enosh, Enoch, Noah.]

CHAP. VI. 1-8.

371

FOIJRTH SECTION.

JTke Vniverial Corruption in consequence of the mingling of the two lines. — ITie anomitm

{or enormity) of sins before the food. — Predominant unbelief. — l^tanic pride. —

After the flood prevailing superstition.

Chapter VI. 1-8.

1 A.nd it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and

2 daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God .-aw the daughters of men
[looked upon them] that they were fair, and they took them wives of all wliich they chose

3 [^after their sensual choice]. And the Lord said, my spirit" shall not always strive' with man,

4 for that he ' also is flesh ; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. Tliera
were giants' in the earth in those days ; and also after that, when the sons of God came
in to the daughters of men, and they bare children to them ; the same became mighty

5 men, which were of old, men of renown. And God saw that the wickedness of man
was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was

6 only evil continually. And it repented' the Lord that he had made man on the earth,

7 and it grieved" him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I havfi
created from the face of the earth ; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and

8 the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. And Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord.

[^ Ver. 3. — "p^^ C<3 . This word has given rise to a great variety of interpretations. The most unsatisfactory, ai
well as the farthest from the Hebrew usage, is that of Gesenius, who renders it, non humiliabitur, my spirit shall not bi
humbled, or become vile, in man, regarding it as cognate with the Arabic ,.*lt> {,.i«0). There is not a trace of such
a sense anywhere else in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is directly opposed to the ptrong sense of pmver, superiority, as it
appears in the frequent 'ji"IN , lord, mastsr, "jilTS , judicial conflict, and the name of Beity, ^3TX , Dominus. Compare
also ]1^ , Job xix. 2^, judicium. The other form "pT , if it is not rather an abbreviated Hiphil of "|^^, has always this
ruling judicial sense, and corresponds to the other Arabic verb ..jfO (,.yJi^). The Arabic verb ,.*«t^ may have

come from this by acquiring a modified passive sense. Il may bt; said, ti >o, tliat the view of Gesenius i^ out of harmony
with the whole spirit of the Scriptures. ThL-re is no such thought in the Bible as God's spirit being bumble 1 by dwelling
or striving with men. Its philosophy is all the other way: God's " strength is made ] erfect in our weakness . " The
LXX. have rendered it, ov /lij Kara/j-uvji, shall not remain ; the Vulgate the same, non permanehit ; the Syriac in like

manner, i_ifl^Z )i , shall not dwell. The LXX. and the Syriac were probably inftuenced by some eiirly Jewish Targum.
since Ontelos gives it substantially the same sense, D^pn^ 6<b, thougii he paraphrases the passage. The interpretation
of ini has been much influenced by the interpreters' view of ^n"fl following, as denoting the natural Ufe, the spirit or
Boul which God had given men (see Ps. civ. 29, 30 ; Ecoles. xii. 7), and they have aocordingly given Tcli any general
sense that, whilst harmonizing with such view, would not be opposed to the radical idea of ruling judicially. Hence we
need not regard these old interpreters as having read C1^^ or "i'l?'^, as some have supposed. Another view which is
found in some of the Jewish commentators would refer ^n""! to the spirit, mind, or disposition of God generally, repre-
sented as occupied with the care of man, and, as it were, wearied with it. So Eashi : my spirit within me shall not he
disturbed on account of man. Another very strange one mentioned by Aben Ezra connects "pl^ with the rare noun
njl: , meaning a sheath 0- Chron. xxi. 27), as though the body were the sheath of the spirit— shall not always be irj-
sheatlied, or insheath ttself— bom the root yii ; and they refer to the Aramaic of Dan vii. 16, " my spirit was grieved,
n:13 iaa, within my body "—literally, within the sheath. But this interpretation, besides being etymologically false,
Is too far-ifetched and inconsistent with the simpUcity of the early language. The Arabic translation (Arabs Brpenji)

renders it c >JtJ, to be wholly occupied with, according to the view of Bashi above. — T. L.]

[2 Ver. 3.— in>11 . Of this there have been nearly as many interpretations as of "IT'. It may mean the spirit at
God generally, as the mind of God ; it may mean the Holy Spirit as a power or influence, or, in the New Testament
lense, as a person. It has been interpreted as the spirit or life of man, which God calls Tll-I (my spirit), because given
by him (as in Ps. civ. and Eccles. xii., before referred to). This latter view may have two modifications : 1. as the lif»
generally, or nil taken for tUB3 or i/rox^ ; or, 2. in the higher sense of m-eOjiii, according to thf trichotomy— the highei
or rational power in man, and more nearly allied to the divine— the reason as distinguished fron the sense, and from ths
men inductive intellect judging by sense, and far the sense. The decision between these depends on the context, on th«
forM of obij'b, and the true meaning of nffla Xin D511)3; also, on the question whether, taken as a whole, it is the
*nguago ot a, judgment or of s. prediction on which the judgment is grounded. On this see the Exegetical and Notes,— T L.I
[' Ter. 3.— DJ 1133 . All the old authorities, versions, commentaries, etc., take this, as it is rendered in E.T., as equivalent

to oa ICSa, in that also, or because also. Thus the LXX., Sii rb ; Vulg., quia ; Syriac, 5 "'^^Lio ; Onkelos, tj b^'\2 ,
Jonath. bbaa )V. The Ajibic of the Polyglotts, ^o wCij fV^^ '• -"^^^^ Erpenu, J^| ^jjO. So also th»

280

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Biudem versions until very lately. The excellent Arabic version made by our American m'jssionarips, and lately
printed, lias followed the most modern commentaries and lexicographers, (rashly, we think,) aiid rendered it XJUt,>w
I ^Jl^, "because of his declination, or straying,he isflesh." The objection made by Gesenius and Eosenmiiller to the

r^.

abbreviation IZJ for ItDN , that it belongs to the later Hebrew, has little weight. There are examples in the oldest books,
and *^; tonformily of the writing to the pronunciation is rather a mark of earlier orthography, though it may oe after-
wards imitated, for brevity, in the later Kabbinical writings. There can hardly be a doubt that CjU'S or DJIZ^S.
Oasshaggam, would give about the actual pronunciation (especially if rapid) of Cr. TCXS if written m fvXl—baashcrgam
basshargam — in which the semi-vowel sound of ~] would become very feeble and disappear, as is the case with 2 in othcl
combinations, so that shargam would become shaggam; the duplication by the dagesh compensating for the lost".
And this would answer the question why it is not more frequent in the early books. It is not the settled use of 1!)
for ^ITX (which is a mere orthographical abbreviation of "IITX becoming const;int in later and Rabbinical writing), but
only a following the pronunciation in a peculiarly harsh combination that seldom occurs. The patach in place of the
Begol (12^) is explained by tLe Jewish grammarians, who, as their rich phont tic system clearly shows, understood these
matters as well as the modern philologists. The last syllable is lengtheneil by the tone, and the compensating dagesh
requu-ea the shai-pening of the preceding one. An objection to the view of Gesenius and others is, that such a use of
the infinitive of y^'C (if it can be regarded as an infinitive) is unexampled in the Hebrew. Besides, this verb or noun,
as employed elsewhere, is always used of the more venial errors, or tresjjasseSt and is, therefore, unsuited to the greatness
and malignity of the sins here denounced. It may be said, moreover, that Sin , with the plural third person pronoun
immediately preceding, is an ungrammatical anomaly. — T. L.]

[■* Yei. 4,~Q'^:>Z^y NepJnlim. The derivation of this word from bs:, to /a//, cannot be sustained, either in the
sense of fallen (from heaven), or in that of invaders (en-nnVroi'Te?, those who fall on—irrueiUes). It is evidently the
ancient name they took to themselves, and that would not be, in the beginning, a name either of degeneracy or reproach.
Its connection with nbSj N^S, is much more clear and consistent. Compare the Niphal, Ps. cxxxix. 14, nbs3, and
nixbsJ (contracted D^bs5) ; also Exod. xxxiii. 16, Cl'n b^C TjlSSI "'IS ilD'^bsDI, " and I and thy people shall be
dislinguished above all people." "When it became a proper name, C^xbs^ or D'^bsS iJViphlim) would easily be changed
to 0*^55:3 (Nephilim), the shewa hecomirig movable in the fi-equent use. Thus viewed, we may regard the expression
at the end of the verse, Cll'n lOSN , as the intended exegesis of the word itself — I'^bSj , distinguished men ; D^S-SS,
wonderful men — men of name — men of rcnoion. Thit the same name should have been given afterwards to gigantic
robbers, as in Numb. xiii. 33, is very natm-al, whether regarded as applied from a tradition of these wonderful men of
old or from inherent fitness, "p "^inx uy , and also afterwards— cloaily intimating that some of these Ncphilim,
or wondrous men of violence, had existed before this event, or fri m of old (a tim ■ comparatively ancient, going b :ck to the
days of old Cain), and that after these mesalliances, whatever they may be, there waa an increase of such persons. — T. L.J

[* Ver. 6. — DP 2*1. LXX., evedvij.iQ0ri; Vulg., Pcenituil eum. The Syriac and Arabic make it tae repentance of grief •
ihe Samaritan version strangely renders it nE3n&{, iratus fuit, he was ./;.erce?y enra^et?, making it the repentance of
anger. Both the Targums say : "^i 2ni , and Jehovali repenUd, but qualify it by rn^'^^2 follo^Tng — that is, in his
word, or by his word. What tbey meant by this is not very clear, but it is one of the metibods they take of avoiding the
seeming nntbropopathisms of the Old Testament, of which the Je^^ish translators, paraphrasts, and commentators, seem
to have been more afraid than the Christian. Farther, see Exegctical and Notes. — T. L.]

[fl Ver. 6.— iSb bs ZSl'D^I . The LXX. give no translation of tlis, or they have softened it into Sievo^eij. The
TargTims also leave it out, and put in its place a mere paraphrastic repetition of what follows. Among the Jewish com-
mentators Alien Ezra worthily calls attention to its contrast with the language Cren. i. 31. It is the opposite, he says,
of God's rejoicing in his works, now that evil has so grossly come in and marred it all. See Exegeticai and Notes. — T. L.]

PEELIMINAKT aUESTION, EXEGETICAL AND
THEOLOGICAL, BESPEOTING THE SONS OF
GOD.*

The question, what kintl of beings are we to
nnderstaniJ by the Sons of GotJ, has been answered
In different ways from the earliest times, and has
lately, again, given occasion to lively theological dis-
cussions. Wo give here, in the first place, the state-
ment of Kurtz, who has engaged in the question
with peculiar earnestness (History of the Old Cov-
enant, i. p. SO, 3d ed., 1864, and in a long Appen-
dix to vol. i., under the title: Die Ehendtr Sohne
Oottes mit den Tochtem der Menschen, Berlin,
1857). " In respect to the Bne Elohim, we find
three principal views : 1. they are filii magna-
tum pitellas ptebeias rapieittes ; 2. they are angels ;
8. they are the pious, that is, the Sethites, in con-
trast with whom the " daughters of men " denote
Cainitish women. The first view is found in the
Samaritan, Jonathan (Taigum), Onkelos (Targum),
Symmachus, Abeu Ezra, Eashi, Varenius, cStc, and

* This PisousHton has been somewhat abridged by the
JVanslator.

may now be regarded as exploded. The second view
is most strongly represented in the old synagogue
and church. It would seem to have its ground in
the Septuagint. At least the manuscripts vary be-
tween viol TOO biov and &77eA(»i Tov ^eoC. Very
decidedly, however, it is presented (and mythically
improved upon) in two old Apocryphal books, name-
ly, the Book of Enoch, and the so-called Minor
Genesis, of which DiUman in Ewald's Year Books
has given a German translation derived from the
Ethiopic. It is, moreover, recognized in the Epis-
tle of Jude (vers. 6 and 7 ?) and in the Second
Epistle of Peter (ch. ii. 4, 5 ?). It was also presented
by Philo, Josephus, and most of the Rabbinical
writers (Eisenmenger's " Judaism Revealed," i. p.
380), as well as by the oldest church fathers: Jus
tin, Clemens Alex., Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose;
anti Lactantius. Since then it fell gradually into
disfavor; Chrysostom, Augustine, and Theodore!
contended zealously against it ; Philastrius de-
nounced it as downright heresy, and our old chnrch
theologians turned from it almost with abhorrence.
It found also in the synagogue vehement opposers

CHaP. VI. 1-8.

!281

Rabbi Simeon Ben Jocbal pronounced the ban
(gainst all who adhered to it. In more modem
limes it has been seized upon by all exegetes who
regard the early history of Genesis as mythical,
notwithrilauding which a decided number of com-
mentators who are behevers in revelation have not
allowed themselves to be deterred from deciding in
its favor, — for example, Koppen (" The Bible a Work
of Divine Wisdom," i. p. 104), Fk. ton Meter
(Blatter fur holiere Wahrheit, xi. p. 61 ff.), Twesten
("Dogmatics," ii. 1, p. 332), Nitzsch ("System,"
p. 234 f) Dresohlek {Mnheit der Genesis, p. 91),
HoPMANN ("Prophecy and Fulfilment," i. p. 85, and
" Scripture Proof," i. p. 374 ff.), Badmoarten (" Com-
mentary on the Pentateuch," ad h. I.), Delitzsoh
(Comment, ad h. I.), Stier ("Epistle of jude," p. 42
ft'.), DiETLEiN (" Comment, on the Second Epistle of
Peter," p. 149 ff.), Lcthkr (" Comment, on the Epis-
tles of Peter and Jude," pp. 204, 341). The third
view is found in Chrysostom, Cyril Alex., Theodoret,
(on the special ground that Seth, on account of his
piety, acquired the nameAeds, and that, therefore, his
descendants were named vioi roii Sieov). It was held
by almost all the later church theologians. In mod-
ern times it has been defended with special zeal by
Bengstenbero (" Contributions," ii. p. 328 ff.), Bi-
VEKNiK ("Introduction," i. 2, p. 265), Detiinger
(•'Remarks on the Section, Gen. iv. 1-ch. vi. 8," in
the Tubingen Journal of Theology, 1835, No. 1), Keil
("Luther. Periodical," 1851, ii. p. 239), and many
others.

The preceding statement has been made complete
by Kurtz in his Book (" The Marriages of the Sons
of God,") BerHn, 1857, p. 12 ; as Ukewise by Keil
(p. 80) by the citation of the treatise of Hengsten-
BEiiQ (" The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men,")
ill the Evangelical Church Gazette, 1858, No. 29, and
No. 35-37 ; in the exposition of Philippi (" Church
Doctrine of the Faith,") iii. p. 176 ff, and the con-
troversial writings of Kurtz that have appeared
agiiinst the treatises of Keil and Hengstenberg
(" The Marriiiges of the Sons of God with the Daugh-
ters of Men)," BerUn 1857, and " The Sons of God,"
in Gen. vi. 1-4, and the " Sinning Angels," in 2 Pet.
iL 4, 5, and Jade, vers. 6, 7. Mitau, 1858. Engel-
hardt also takes the side of Kurtz (" Lutheran Period-
ical," 1856, p. 4o4). DeUtzsch appears as the latest
defender of the angel hypothesis of any considerable
note (" Comment." 3d Ed., 1860, p. 230 ff.). Its
latest opponent of note since Keerl (" Questions on
the Apocrypha," p. 206), is Keil (" Comment,"
1861, p. 80 tf.)

It is shown by Keil (p. 80) that the relation of
our passage to the Sethites had its defenders, both
among Jews and Christians, before the time of Chry-
sostom; since .losephus knew of this interpretation,
and the critical Julius Africanus maintained it in the
first half of the third century. So also did Ephraim
the Syrian, to which add, among the Apocryphal
writings, the Clementine Recognitions, and the ori-
ental Book of Adam.

We take first into view the section as it hes be-
fore us, with its connection and the analogies of the
Old Testament, then the relations to our passage of
Jhe New Testament, farther on, the exegetical tradi-
tions, and finally, the religious-philosophical, dog-
matic, and practical significance of the question.

2he Place itself in question ; its Connection, and
the Analogies of the Old Testament. The Sons of
God. Bne Elohim,. According to the angel hypo-
thesis, angels alone are here to be understood, uot^

withstanding that there is no mention of angels im.
mediately before this, to stand as its antecedent, bu(
only of the pious race of Sethites. Chap. 5 gives u«
an account of pious men, of chosen m,en, of a won-
derfully glorified man of God ; but of angels, on the
contrary, there is not a word, even to this place, ex.
cept the mysterious language respecting the cheru-
bim, in which we cannot at all recognize any personal
angel-forms. The single apparent ground for a sup-
position, at first view wild and abrupt, is found in tha
fact, that in the later books of the Old Testament,
not the pious are called DTi'isstn "iJa , but the an-
gels. It is, however, simply incorrect to say that
anywhere in the historical scriptures the angels are
called sons of God without anything farther ; only in
a few poetical places, and in one nominally prophetic
(Job i. 2 ; xxxviii. 7 ; Ps. xxix. 1 ; Ixxxix. 7 : Dan.
iii. 25) are they so called ; and then, too, beside the
poetical language, there comes into view the eluci.
dating context. In Job i. they form the council of
God represented as administering government (there-
fore not bne Elohim, as nomen natures in distinction
from ilaleak, as nomen officii), and in fact in contrast
to Satan. In the same way in chap. ii. In chap,
xxxviii. 7, they hail the laying the foundation of the
earth and the creation of man. Ps. xxix. 1, they are
called upon to glorifj the Lord in the thunder-storm,
and in the restoration of his people. Ps. Ixxxix. 7,
are they thus denoted by way of contrasting their
dependent state with the glory of the Lord. Dan.
iii. 25 hardly belongs here, but is, perhaps, to be in-
terpreted according to chap. vii. 13. In respect to
this, Hengstenberg has already shown that the name
hne Elohim belongs to the poetic diction.

Whilst, therefore, in the pure historical pieces the
angels are never styled sons of God, there does ap-
pear the indication of a filial relation, or of a sonship,
in respect to the people of Israel, to the Old Testa-
ment kings, to the pious or dependent w.ards of God,
and that, too, in various ways, even in the legal
sphere. Delitzsch remarks, that the idea of a filial
relation in the Old Testament had already begun to
win for itself a universal ethical significance beyond
the limitation to Israel (Ex. iv. 22 ; Deut. xiv. 1) — as
though this filial relation of the children of Israel,
under the law, were a real step in progress in respect
to Abraham and the Sethites. But the case is ex-
actly the other way. In the Epistle to the Galatians,
the patriarchal standpoint of belief in promise is a
higher one than that of the Mosaic legality (Gal. iii.
16). It is to be specially remarked in regard to
Kurtz, that he knew not how to distinguish the differ-
ent economies of the Old Testament. When, for ex-
ample, the Apostle Paul tells us, that the law was
given through the ministry of angels, he concludes
that the angel of the Lord that appeared to Abraham
must have been a creaturely angel (History of the
Old Testament, p. 152). And yet Paul brings for-
ward this character of the angelic mediation for the
express purpose of showing that the revelation of the
promise was a more essential, and, also, a higher
form than that of the law-giving ; it could not, there-
fore, have been in this sense (of Kurtz) that the law-
giving is referred to the mediation of angels. The
explanation consists in this, that the promise was a
revelation for Abraham, and, generally, for the elect
patriarchs, whilst the law-giving, on the other hand,
was for a whole people mingled and coarse, or at nil
events, greatly needing an educating culture. But
as the patriarchal economy, in respect to its rehtion-

282

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF M(jSES

ship to the form of the Gospel, had a superiority to
the form of the law-gmng, and in so far appears like
to the New Testament, so again had the economy of
the Sethites a superiority to the Abrahamic. The
specific distinction is the separation between the line
of the pious, and the godless, curse-loaded line of
Cain. Therefore it is that that peculiar designation
of Enoch's piety: "he wallted with God," never oc-
curs again in the later law-times of the Old Testa-
ment. In a word, the Sethic economy is a aira^ Key6-
liivov in the Old Testament, which has been funda-
mentally mistaken by the contenders for the angel
hypothesis. It has a prefiguration of the New Tes-
tament state, and acknowledges, therefore, the ui'ol
SeoiJ, or sons of God, as is done in the New Testament
in our Lord's sermon on the mount. If the objection
is made, that the redemption is not yet perfectly in-
troduced, it is to be remarked, that the faith in re-
demption, in the time after Christ, is not to be meas-
ured, in its degrees, by the chronological advance;
as is shown in the examples of Enoch and Abraham,
Luther, moreover, knew better how to estimate the
worth of this singularity in the economy of the long
living so greatly exalted through the blessing of Seth,
and who reflected in thi-ir life the end of time : " They
are the greatest heroes that, next to Christ and John
the Baptist, ever appeared in this world, and at the
last day we shall behold their majesty." Since, there-
fore, even the law-period, notwithstanding Israel's
servant-relation, did not exclude the idea of Israel's
sonship generally, or of the beUeving especially, (as
the places Deut. xxxii. 5 ; Hos. ii. 1 (therefore not
poetical) and Ps. Lxxiii. 15 show to us, how much
more clearly must this idea have appeared, in its
typical significance and beauty, among the pious de-
aoendants of Seth. In that case it has been said,
they ought to have been called bne Jehovah (instead
of bne Eloliim) ; but this is not to keep clearly in
view, that the Sethitcs represented the universal re-
lation of humanity to God, and that they, like Mel-
chizedek at a later time, disappeared from the stage.
That the angels, however, in a physical sense, as
opposed to an ethical sense, could be called sons of
God, — that is, could be referred to some generation
of a physical kind, is a view that has been rightly de-
nounced by Keil (p. 11). And in this way, for flie
unprejudiced, the matter might seem tolerably well
disposed of. But further on it occurs as a thing to
be considered, that the sons of God woo the daughters
of men. How, it is asked, when it is said in its gen-
eral sense (ver. 2) that men multiplied themselves,
can we limit the expression daughters of men., ver. 2,
to the daughters of the Cainites ? We caimot here
rest upon the usual mode of stating this. There is
no reason why the sons of God should have found a
tempting beauty only among the daughters of the
Cainites, The daughters of men may, in the first
place, be women in general. In that case, however,
the first contrast would consist in regarding the ethi-
cally defined sons of God as opposed to the physic-
ally defined daughters of men, — among whom the
Cainitic women might be primarily understood, espe-
lially since the Sethite women too belong to the
children of God. Their fiist transgression, however,
would consist in this, that in the choice of wives they
let themselves be determined by the mere charm of
gensual beauty. From this follows the second trans-
gression, that they took them wives of all whom they
chose, that is, of all that pleased them. On the word
baa , therefore, rests the emphasis of the expression
(out of all). Instead of looking at the spiritual kins-

mansMp, they had an eye only to the pleasure of
sense. That was the first thing. Then there ii
nothing said here of any moral satisfaction in beauty
This appears from the fact that they took ihens
wives of all that pleased them, of all that they de-
sired. Instead of holding pure the Sethic line, they
took wives indiscriminately (^S'^), and that was the
second and decisive transgression. B) this was tliH
dam torn down which stood between the Cainites and
the Sethites, — that is, the dam which kept back thfl
universal corruption, and which hitiierto had pro.
tected the race of the blessing. Therefore is it, ver.
3, that the corruption which now comes is charged
upon men, and not at all upon the angels. If we
look for a moment at the angel hypothesis, it is not
easy to see how such amours with individual women
could have had so decided an effect upon the destiny
of the whole race, at a time, too, when more than
now, men formed the deciding factor ; and this may
we say, without taking into view the ftct, that in the
historical style angels are never called bne Elohim,
that angels do not seek nor are sought in marriage
(Matt. XX ii. 30), and that the expression: "take
themselves wives," denotes marriage-ties, not by way
of unnatural amours, or romantic loves, as Kurtz
pictures it in his first treatise (p. 99). But indeed,
out of those demoniacal, fleshly amours, it is said,
must have proceeded the D''bB3 and D^n2S, and thus
they would bring the whole matter to a decision. In
the first place, however, must we remember, that the
sentence of God respecting the desperate condition
of the race (ver. 3) precedes this mention of the Ne-
philim, and it is clear that the D^bs: must already de-
note a special form of the evil, which, with its fleshly
lust, stands at the same time in a position of recipro-
city. According to almost all interpretations, and
according to Numb. xiii. 33, " when the giant Aua-
kim are reckoned among them," the Nephilim were
gigantic, — or, more accurately, the distinguished, the
prominent or overpowering. According to such it is
from bs3 , a near form to Xt33 ; other derivations see
below. In their bodily appearance the Nephilim
were not exactly what are called giants in the mythi-
cal sense, but prominent and powerful forms of men.
In strength, In courage, or pride, they were Gibborim,
that is, mighty men, heroes ; in deeds, they were men
of renown ; but their deeds were especially deeds of
viol&ncc 053n (vT, 11, 13), unrighteousness, and op-
pression. The meaning is, that the fleshly nature
of pride and cruelty ever associates itseh with the
fleshly disorder of lust. Lamech the Cainite and his
song were now the general type of the human race.
But as the tendency to violence came in cotenipo-
raneously with the lust, and not as a generation for
the first time descending from it, so were the Nephi-
lim cotemporaneous with these fleshly mesalliances,
having been, in fact, from the days of Cain hitherto
■' men of renown." The Hebrew is l^il , not 1^n*1 ;
there were Nephilim, it is said, Diin D"'a^2, in
those same days, not there became or came to be, as
Knobel translates it. Add to this the oifspring of the
sons of God and the daughters of men, that is, of the
grossly sensual marriages of the pious, and their
mingling with the Cainitic race. Thus flow together
two origins of the Gibborim. In respect to the first
were they men of renown, or men of old, Bbisn —
that is, the Cainites. Thus, too, in the easiest way
does our section connect itself with both the preced-
ing chapters. In the fourth chapter there is described

CHAP. VL 1-8.

283

the line of the Cainites as atill divided from the line
of Seth ; in the fifth chapter we have the line of the
Sethites in its devotedness and elevation ; then, final-
ly, in the section before us, the mingling of both lines,
and the universality and flagitiousuess of corruption,
as, according to the programme of the Oainitic La-
mech, it culminates in the two fundamental features
of carnality and cruelty. Whoever reads Genesis, to
the passage before us, without any prejudice derived
from opinions alien to it, would never think of under-
Btanduig by the bne Elohim anything else than the
pious Sethites, and by their connection with the
daughters of men anytMug else than a corruption of
marriage and a mingling with the Cainites. This
would especially- appear from the fact, that in this
section the sharp contrast between the two Unes,
■which is so prominent in the previous chapter, wholly
disappears. If we read further we find, too, that not
the Cainites alone perished in the flood, but both
lines together, with the exception of Noah and his
house. Further on, Ishmael, who is a "wild man,"
and whose "hand is against every man," appears as
the offspring of Abraham and " the maid," a copy, as
it were, giving us a clear idea of the Gibborim, and of
the way in which they originated, although the con-
nection of the patriarcli was from a purer motive,
and more excusable. Hence the traditional and legal
abhorrence of untheocratio marriages in the theo-
cratic race; as we find it in Gen. xxiv. 3; xxvi.'34,
S5 ; xxvii. 46 ; xxxiv. 9 ; Deut. vii. 3 ; Josh, xxiii.
12 ; Judg. iii. 6 ; 1 Kings xi. 1 ; Ezra ix. 2 ; Nehem.
X. 30. The falUog away of the Israelites in the des-
ert came not from any amour between angels and the
daughters of men, but from an unlawful intercourse,
between the Israelites and the women of Midian
(Numb. XXV.). So the apostasies of Israel in the
time of the Judges were derived from the mingling
of the IsraeUtes with the daughters of the Canaau-
ites (Judg. iii. 6). The fall of Solomon, and the fall-
mg away of the people that followed it, came from
Solomon's connection with foreign wives (1 Kings
xi. 1). So the ten tribes sunk into the worship of
Baal in consequence of the connection of Ahab with
the Sidonian Jezebel, whose horrible significance goes
on even to the Apocalypse (1 Kings xvi. 31 ; Rev. iL
20) ; and so, too, Ezra and Nehemiah, after the great
visitation, know no other way to secure their people
igainst a new degeneracy, than by contending earn-
estly against foreign marriages. Thus again and
again do the theocratic mesalliances of one section
reflect themselves in the IsraeUtish history, without
the angels playing any part therein. For the first
time, in the apocryphal Tobit (Tob. vi. 15), does
there meet us a demoniac interest in human females,
and this is characteristic for the oiigin of the angel-
hypothesis. Here, too, it must be remarked, that
marriage with the heathen was not absolutely forbid-
den to the Israehtes. When the principle was se-
cured, that the believing party might make holy the
unbelieving (1 Cor. vii.), such marriages appear some-
times even in a favorable light. It was only union
with the Canaanites that was absolutely forbidden,
since they, as well as the Cainites, were sunk in in-
curable corruption; and Hengstenberg has rightly
supposed that our history here was given for the pur-
pose of warning the Israelites against such marriages,
a, The relations of the New Testament to the
paatagii before us. There is the passage of the
Epistle of Jude, ver. 6, which, in fact, we regard as
the original in its relation to the kindred passage,
2 Peter ii. 4. Here, too, Kurtz reasons from the

mode of speaking, but not happily: "Both epistlei
designate the actors who are punished as simplj
iyy f\oi. When we interrogate the biblical style of
speech it shows us at once that this word is nevei
thus nakedly used of spirits iv apxy who have
fallen. These are ever called Sai^orer, and then
head Sid$o\os or aaravas.^^ We will give presentlj
the simple solution of this objected difficulty
Wherever there is mention of the actual existenci
of Satan's kingdom it is naturally and generally of
Satan, of the demons, etc., although variations occur,
as Eph. vi. 12, et al. Here, however, when tha
original fall itself of the demons is mentioned, they
must be denoted according to their original state as
angels. Otherwise it would mean that the devil had
sinned, and thereby became a devil. In that case
oar catechisms would have to be corrected where
they apeak of fallen angels. When it is said, how-
ever, that there is here no special mention of Satan,
or that the sins of the angels cannot be particularly
described, or that the fall of Satan is nowhere desig-
nated as a leaving his habitation, aU such assertions
we must hold as having no significance at all.

The Epistle of Jude is a prophetical word of warn-
ing against the beginning of antinomianigm. Here
the IsraeUtes who fell in the wilderness are the first
example. In respect to these it is confessed that
they did not fall in the wilderness merely on account
of sins of sensuaUty. Then are there named the
angels who kept not their dominion (itpxv) but for-
sook their own proper habitation — that is, their
sphere of life. The contrast in the guilt of these
angels is made clear by that which precedes. The
Jews in the wilderness kept not their salvation, but
gave themselves up to unbelief and fell. The angels
kept not their dominion, but lost their station and
fell. To this corresponds the third example : Sodom
and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities are pre-
sented in a similar manner with these (tuutois), that
is, the angels and the Israelites, as an example of such
as are exposed to the judgment of the eternal fire,
and this on the special ground of their excessive
sensuality, and their degenerate going after strange
fiesh. The words ot^uwf Tponav tovtols stand in re-
lation to ■!rp6ic€ivTat Se7yua, and the parenthetical
iKTopveviraaa has its Special interpretation as refer-
ring to the Sodomites. The IsraeUtes in the wilder-
ness furnish an example of a lost condition, as jujj
Trtfrreiitraj/TeT, the angels as fi^ T^jp^crarres, &C.,
Sodom and Gomorrah as eKiropveiKrao'ai, &c. The
forms of antinomianism are different, the judgment
upon it is throughout the same. The distinction,
however, in antinomianism is this, that the IsraeUtes
sinned through unbehef in the word of revelation ;
the angels sinned against the divine ordinance,
assigning their position, and in striving, beyond
their sphere, after a Umitless dominion ; the Sodom-
ites sinned against the natural law of the sexual
relations, established as a moral foundation of life
itself 'The antinomiats, against whom Jude con-
tended, resemble the before-named in this, that Uke
the Sodomites they pollute the flesh ; like the fallen
angels they contemn authority ; Uke the unbeUeving
Israelites they speak evil of S6(as, glories (rendered
dignities — visible proofs cf the revelation of God in
Israel). So, too, in the second chapter of the
second Epistle of Peter, the ground-idea is the inex-
orabiUty of the divine judgment against an obdurata
anomism, without giving the special form of that ano-
mism. Of the angels it is merely said that they sinned,
God spared them not although they were angela

284

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

And so he spared not the whole old world (Gen. vi.),
on whom there is here no other charge imputed
than a(7f'(3eia (impiety). So, too, Sodom and Gomor-
rah are here denoted as having incurred judgment
solely under the same point of view. Clearly, how-
ever, has the second Epistle of Peter distinguished,
in addition, the judgment of the fallen angels from
the judgment upon the old world^Gen. vi.). The
judgment agamst the angels, the judgment against
the old world, and the judgment upon Sodom, are
three judgment periods. And these places, it is pre-
tended, exactly coniirm the angel-hypothesis ! Com-
pare also Fronuiiiller on the respective places, in the
Bible-work.

3. Ilie exegetical tradition. The first interpreta-
tion, in which the bne Elohim were sons of the
magnates, or great ones, who wooed the daughters
of the low-born, Keil denotes as the interpretation
of orthodox Judaism. More correctly, however,
may it be denoted as the interpretation of the
Hebraistic or Palestinian Judaism, in its dry story-
telling tendency as represented in the Talmud. The
second interpretation Keil rightly describes as that
of the ethnizing, cabbalistical Judai.'^m; however
zealous Kurtz may be on its behalf (Part i. p. 8).
It is not without significance that the first trace of
this interpretation appears in single codices of the
Septuagint. It is sutficiently acknowledged that the
Alexandrian Jews took pains in every way to throw
a bridge between the Old Testament and the Greek
tradition. Here now appears a fair probable
occasion to introduce into the biblical text an
analogous story of Sons of God and of divine begets
tings. Thereupon present themselves two apocry-
plnd books as the first defenders of the angel-hypo-
thesis : the Book of Enoch and the Lesser Genesis.
Without doubt Philo found it already in existence,
and it suited entirely well with his system ; whilst it
Is acknowledged, too, by the more hebraistic Jo-
sephus. That Christian tlieologians of the Alexan-
drian school, like Clemens Alexandrinus, uncritical
fathers like Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, should
find the angel-hypothesis suited to their pectdiar
notions, is nothing to be wondered at. The fact that
from the fourth even to the eighteenth century, with
some isolated exceptions, the taste of the church
discovered in the angel-hypothesis a suspicious theo-
sopbic savor, cannot be set aside.

4. The religious., philosophical., dogmatic^ and
practical sigriijicance of our question. In its rela-
tion to the philosophy of religion the angel-hypothe-
sis would have the effect of confounding all the
ground conceptions of revelation, and of obliterating
its distinctions. It authenticates a fact which per-
fectly destroys all distinction between revelation and
mythology, between a divine miracle and magic,
between tlie biblical conception of nature, as con-
formity to law, and the wild apocryphal stories.
" We stand here," says Delitzsch, " at the fountain
of heathen mythology with its legends, but this
primitive golden age, to take it in the sense of
heathenism, is divested of all its apotheosizing
gaudiness." Rather may it be said, if we take that
view, that an evident myth was implanted in the
garden of the primitive religious history ; it is there-
fore not to be wondered at, that all theologians who
maintain the mythical character of Genesis, Uke
Knobel for example, should go in most earnestly
for the angel-interpretation. " And no less," adds
Delitzsch, "do we stand here at the fountain of a
dark magic that carries us back, if not to a sexual,

yet still to an unnatural intercourse with the do
mons." We stand rather by the troubled waters of
a piiganistic apocryphal superstition, where the siren
of an apparent theosophic profundity would allure ua
to plunge into the dark floods of " baseless para-
dox." With what sort of superstition this angel-
interpretation had already connected itself in early
times we may learn from the twenty-second chapter
of Tertullian's Apologetic. When we regard it in
its dogmatic relation we find the most wonderful
things proceeding from the view in question when
fully carried out. There would be a double fall
into sin, one in the human, the other in the angelic,
family.

The effects of the second fall must be destroyed
by a flood, whilst those of the first remain through
and after it. The gnosticizing darkening of this
place has for a consequence that there should be
gradually drawn from it series after series of similar
deductions, according to the tenor of its biblical dog-
matic process of ideaUess, anecdotical inventiveness ;
for example, what is said on the passage (1 Peter
iii. 19, 20) respecting Christ's preaching to the spirits
in prison.

Instead of this, we hold that the derivation of the
angel-interpretation from an ethnizing, apocryphal,
gnostico-ciibbalistical tendency in Judaism (as we
find it shown in Keil) is the correct one. We hold,
too, that Hengstenberg had grounds for the affirma-
tion, when he said : The next thing is, that in the
maintaining of this supposed remarkable fact, men
are led into uncouth theories, which violate the limits
that separate the church's theology from the chimer-
ical ideas of Jews and Mohammedans, and that one
such distortion of a sound theological comprehen-
sion may possibly have for its consequence an exten-
sive process of disorder. In like manner does the
objection appear well grounded, that the angel-inter-
pretation robs our narrative of all significance and
practical applicability. The same practical signifi
cance which is exhibited in the history of the Israel-
ites in the wilderness (Numb, xxv.), and in the time
of the Judges in the history of Solomon, in the
history also of Ahab, in the history of Herod Anti-
pas — that same significance, though in a more pow-
erful and original way, is presented in the history
that lies before us. We may, therefore, with Cyril
of Alexandria, reckon the angel-interpretation among
the aToirunwra, things most strange and absurd.

EXEGETIOAl AKD CBITICAL.

1. Vers. 1-3. When men began. — TheincreaBe
of men under a physical point of view ; especially,
too, an increase of daughters. — The Sons of God,
that is, the Sethites especially, as sons of Elohim,
not of Jehovah, because their relation td God was
more universal than that of the later theocracy, and
because the Sethic religion had no contrast of the
Elohistic, as the later Abrahamic had, since the
opposing Cainitic line was not Elohistically pious,
but hved an utterly lawless life. — The daughters
of men. — Usually taken as the daughters of the
other race, that is, the Cainites. But they are the
daughters of men wholly ia the physical sense, and
therefore, too, according to the conception of tha
natural man, in contrast with the sons of God in tlie
ethical sense, only that the thought is mainly upon
the Cainites, in proportion to their greater multipli-
cation.— Saw that they ■were fair [Lange's traaa-

CHAP. VI. 1-8

28J

lation: They looked upon them, how fair they

were]. — We must not reduce the force of the ex-
pression by rendering: "they saw that they were
fair." The sensual beauty captivated them. — Took

them wives of all The phrase niHX npb means,

everywhere in the Old Testament, to take in mar-
riage, but never occurs in the sense of mere scorta-
tory intermarryings (from which also we must dis-
tinguish the sense, to take as concubines). — Which
they chose. — The emphasis is on Vsa (of all).
From this it follows that the sons of God let them-
selves be determined by the charm of sense to form
connections also with the Cainite women, and so to
rend asunder the protecting limits which hitherto
had guarded their race from the corruptive conta-
gion. Moreover, the prevalence of polygamy is
clearly presented in the expression. — My Spirit
shall not always stiiTe ■with man. — We cannot
understand n^n here of the Spirit of God as the
spirit of life, but of the Spirit of God in an ethical
sense, as it belongs to its office to judge and to
punish sinful men. Von Gerlach says, indeed : " the
contrast of spirit and flesh in the moral understand-
ing, as in the Epistles of Paul, does not occur in the
Old Testament." But, what is meant here by say-
ing, my spirit shall not tarry in man as spirit of life,
for he M Jlesh 1 The flesh as flesh does not hinder
the life-spirit, but the flesh as corruption repeLs the
Spirit of God (Ps. cxxxix. 7 ; cxliii. 10). We take
"ITi here in its simplest and most obvious sense,
not as the ruling of the life-spirit, nor as the con-
tinuance of the same in man (Septuagint), nor as its
degradation or depression. In the sinner who is yet
capable of salvation the Spirit of God exercises its
judicial office. But, when man has become wholly
obdurate, God withdraws from him his judging
spirit, and thereby he falls into the condemnation
of corruption. The circumstance is here inciden-
tally introduced. This is shown by the addition,
CSnia , in their erring (which, without any necessity,
is turned into a conjunction: D5 ~iB!<2, eo quod;
Knobel and Delitzsch), and the emphatic expression :
he is flesh, that is, the whole species, like one man,
is sunk in its flesh. Still, there is the expression:
"My spirit shall not always strive in him;" which
means that there is yet a respite appointed for the
race, and this is explained by, and explains, what
follows: And his days shall he an hundred and
twenty yean. According to Philo, Josephus, and
others, along with Knobel, it means that henceforth
the period of human life shall be reduced to one
hundred and twenty years. (See in Knobel a series
of quotations from the views of the ancients respect-
ing the life-endurance of man, p. 83). According
to the Targums, Luther, and many others, as well as
Delitzsch and Keil, God appoints a reprieve of grace
for one hundred and twenty years, which is yet to
be granted to men. Beyond a doubt this is the cor-
rect view ; since the age of the first patriarchs after
tlie flood extends much beyond one hundred and
twenty years. Another reason is, that the supposed
sliortoning of life would be no countervailing rule
bearing a proportion to the obduracy of the race,
whilst the time-reckoning agrees with the other
hypothesis, if we assume that Noah received this
revelation twenty years before the time given, ch. v.
82, in order that he might aimounce it as a threaten-
big of judgment to his cotemporaries.

fNoTE ON THE SpiRiT AND THE Flesh : Gen. vi. 3.

— The various interpretations of ^nsi here must b«
tested by their harmony with words in the context
" The life that I have given shall not always rule (oi
abide) in man." This does not seem to suit well
with cbisb. Shall not long rule, &c., would hav(
been consistent. The word forever makes it tht
same with the original sentence of death pronounced
upon man : he shall not live forever — he shall die,
"jWy spirit shall not strive with man" (morally)
makes a good sense in itself, but has little congruity
with the reason given: "because he is flesh," or if
inchned to the flesh, whether we take the old or the
later interpretation of D3i:;3 . That alone would
seem to be a reason why it should continue to strive;
since man had been flesh, or inclined to be flesh,
ever since the fall. Unless we take it, as Pareui
does, as denoting a feeling of hopelessness, ratio ab
inutili : it is of no use ; but this would be a form
of the anthropopathism the least acceptable of all
that are presented ; unless it be that of some
of the Jewish interpreters: "My own mind, or
thought, shall no longer be occupied or troubled
with him " — 1 will have no more care about him.

There is another view that may be offered, and
which would seem to harmonize tliese difficulties.
Some of the Jewish interpreters approach it, but do
not come fully up to it. " My spirit," meaning
man's spirit (the spirit that I have given him), but
in the higher sense of Tipevfja as distinguished fiom
i//ux^> according to the trichotomic view. The reaaon,
wherein appears the image of God, the spirit in man
as something higher than the animal nature, the
(ppSi^Tjt^a TTVivt^aros as distinguished from the tpp^jvrj^a
<TapK6!, may, with a high propriety, be called "my
spirit," as nearest to the divine, or, that in man
through which, or in which, the Holy Spirit strives,
or comes in connection with the human. It is not
always easy, even in the New Testament, to deter-
mine whether irnifj.ci, in certain passages, means the
rational spirit of man, or the Spirit of God, or both
in one joint communion. Von Gerlach has no right
to say that " the contrast of spirit and flesh in the
moral understanding, as in the Epistles of Paul, does
not occur in the Old Testament," unless it can be
shown that this is not a clear case of it.

When nn is thus regarded as the spiritual, a
rational, in man, in distinction from the carnal, thr
sentence becomes a prediction, instead of a declard-
tion of judgment — a sorrowing prediction, we may
say, if we keep in view the predominant aspect or
feeling of the passage. The spirit, the reason, that
which is most divine in man, will not always rule in
him. It has, as yet, maintained a feeble power, and
interposed a feeble resistance, but it is in danger of
being wholly overpowered. It will not hold out
forever; it will not always maintain its supremacy.
And then the reason given suits exactly with such a
prediction : He is becoming flesh, wholly carnal or
animal. If allowed to continue he will become
utterly dehumanized, or that worst of all creatures,
an animal with a reason, but wholly fleshly m its
ends and exercises, or with a reason which is but the
servant of the flesh, making him worse than the
most ferocious wild beast — a very demon — a brutal
nature with a fiend's subtlety only employed to
gratify such brutality. Man has the supernatural,
and this makes the awful peril of his state. By
losing it, or rather by its becoming degraded to be
a servant instead of a lord, he falls wholly irta
nature, where he cannot remain stationary, like th»

«86

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

uiimal who does not "leave the habitation to which
trod first appointed him." The higher being, thus
utterly fallen, must sink into the demonic, where
evil becomes his god, if not, as Milton says, his
good. In this sense of the reason in man^ or the
(pp6i>rma irpfi/xaTO!, ruling over the flesh, there is a
most appropriate significance in ■'IT' , as denoting
the judicial power of the conscience, or of the
reason as the imperative, the commanding faculty.
On these deeper aspects of humanity, consult that
most profound psychologist, John Bunyan, in his
Holy War, or his History of the Town of Mansoul,
its revolt from King Shaddai, its surrender to Dia-
bolus, and its recovery by Prince Immanuel. Bun-
yan was Bible-taiight in these matters, and that is
the reason why his knowledge of man goes so far
beyond that of Locke, or Kant, or Cousin.

The whole aspect of the passage gives Ihe im-
pression of something like an apprehension that a
great change was coming over the race — something
BO awful and so irreparable, if not speedily remedied,
that it would be better that it should be blotted out
of earthly existence, all but a remnant in whom the
spiritual, or the divine in man, might yet be pre-
served. Thus regarded, too, as a prediction, it is
the ground of the judgment rather than a sentence
of judgment itself. It is in mercy to prevent a
greater catastrophe; like the language used in re-
ference to the tree of life (see page 241, and note).
Men, left to themselves, might have realized upon
earth the iri-ecoverable state of lost spirits, or that
combination of the brutal with an utterly degraded
reason that makes the demon. In this view, too,
the divine sorrow appears heightened in such a way
that we can better understand what is meant by
God's " grieving," and being " pained in heart." A
generation of men is to be removed to prevent the
utter deliumanizing of the race. It was this neces-
sity that made the intensity of the sorrow.

Delitzsch has a similar view, but it is strange
that he did not see how it is in conflict with his
angel-hypothesis. According to that, the deangel-
izing, if we may use the term, and the consequent
dehumanizing, was confined to these higher beings
and some of the daughters of men. And yet they
are not mentioned as having any part in the catas-
trophe, or in the immediate evil that occasioned it.
Men alone are involved in it, and they because of
an excessive sensuality that had made it inevitable.
This, however, was purely human ; it was man that
was in danger of becoming wholly flesh, and it was
man for whom God grieved with a divine sorrow.
It was man who was in danger of descending into a
lower grade of being, even as the ante-Adamic
angels who kept not their first estate. The antedi-
luvians were drowned for the salvation of a race,
but for some of them, at least, 1 Pet iii. 19, 20,
gives us the glimpse of a hope that their condition
was not wholly Irrecoverable. — T. L.]

2. Ver. 4. There were giants.— The csibsr ,
from b"'S3 , used only in the plural, Numb. xiii. 33.
All the old interpretations take the word as denoting
giants, yiyavri<;. If we put out of view the mon-
etrous popular representations, there are simply
meant by it stately and powerful men. In this
sense Tuch explains the word as mentioned before,
namely, the distinguished. Keil understands by
the word, invaders, according to Aquila (cirnriir-
TovTis), Symmachus (jSiaioi), Luther (tyrants). De-
litzsch, nevertheless, together with Hofmann, pre-

fers to explain it as the fallen, namely, from heaTen,
because begotten by heavenly beings. Here from
to fall, would he make to fall from, and from this
again, to fall from heaven; then this is made to
mean begotten of heamnly beings ! The sense, caden
tes, defectores, apostatm (see Gesenius), would b«
more near the truth. "There were giants " (I'^n),
not, there became giants, which would have re-
quired ilTl'l for its expression (see Keil). These
giants, or powerful men, are already in near cotem-
poraneity with the transgression of these mesalliances
(in those very same days), and this warrants the con-
clusion of Luther, that these powerful men were
doers of violent deeds. — And also after that
[Lange renders: and especially after that]. —
Keil shows that Kurtz makes trial of three mutually
inconsistent explanations of this verse, all of which,
too, offend against the law of language (p. 89, note).
We take D5 as denoting a climax to the fact already
stated. "There were giants in those days, and
moreover," etc. Here it comes nearly to the same
thing, whether we render "iBX 'iD"''"in!< postea-
quam (2 Sam. xxiv. 10) or postea quum ; the fact
remains established that the Nephilim were already
before the mesalliances. — Came in unto : an euphe-
mistic phrase. — Mighty men [Lange renders it he-
roes'].— A designation, not merely of offspring from
the mismarriages, but referring also to the Nephilim
who are earlier introduced, as it appears from the ap-
pended clause. The author reports things from his
own standpoint, and so the expression: "tliey were
of old, men of renown," aifirms their previous exist-
ence down to that time. Of these men of old, men
of renown, Cain was the first. But now there are
added to the Cainites the Cainitic degenerate off-
spring of these sensual mesalliances. It was true
then, as it has been in all other periods of the
world's history, the men of violent deeds were the
men of renown, very much the same whether called
famous or infainous. Knobel will have it that there
are described here postdiluvian races of giants.

3. Vers. 5-8. And God saw [Lange correct-
ly : And Jehovah saw]. — This increase and uni-
versal predominance of evil through the mismarriages
gives occasion now for a more decided sentence of
Jehovah upon the incurably lost race. The wicked-
ness of man in deeds had not only become great, but
the thinkings of the purposes (the phantasies oi
Imaged deeds) of his heart, were wholly evil all the
day. Judging from the singular 'ias , we hold here,
as intended, a concentration of the sentence against
man. For this reason is it singular.

[Note on the Doctrine or Total Depravitt.
Gen. vi. 5. — Every imagination of the ifioughts of hia
heart, ials niailjna •ns;^ ba. The Scriptures, it is
said, were not given to teach us mental philosophy,
nor do they affect a philosophical language, but here
is certainly a psychological scala going down as deep-
ly into the human soul as was ever done by any
scholastic treatise. Here are the three stages of the
great original evil : the fashioned purpose, the thought
out of which it is born, the feeling, or deep mother
heart, the state of soul, lying below all, and giving
moral character to all. Or, to reverse the order of
the statement, there is, 1, the tohu vabohu, the
formless abyss of evil, 2. the thought (the ivvom, see
Heb. Iv. 12), by which this rises into generic form,
8. the imaged or specific purpose (ivSivii7]at^), through
which, again, this thought makes itself m^nifeBt in

CHAP. VI. 1-8.

281

the objective sphere of the active life. In other
words, as the thouglii is the form of the feeling, so is
the shaped purpose, or what is here called the imagin-
ation, the form of the evil tliougkt. Our Saviour
gives the same gradations, Matt. xv. 19 : " Out of the
heart proceed evil thoughts " (Sta\oy iirfiol Troi/Tjpol, evil
thinkings, reasonings, subjective, not yet shaped into
outward intent), and then follows the awful brood of
the later born, tpSvol, fMOtx^^o^t^ KAoirai, ^Xampriuiaty
•'murders, adulteries, thefts, blasphemies." They
are all in the thought ; they are all in the mother-
heart, that deep seat of moral character that lies be-
low the formative consciousness — that is, the con-
scious thought and still more conscious purpose.
Take the worst one apparently of these hideous
births ; a man may not have formed the purpose of
murder, fear may have kept him from this extreme
stage ; he may never have entertained the thought
consciously, the habitual educating power of law, or
other influences of a social or of a gracious kind,
may have prevented even this objective form of evil
from rising in his soul ; but it may lie in his heart
nevertheless, and even be active there, for this dark
place is not a mere blank capacity, or receptacle,
but has its processes, its choosings, its willings, and
even its unconscious reasonings. Our Saviour de-
clares neither more nor less than this when he makes
it the procreative source of evil thoughts (5ia\o7irrMol),
and so does the Apostle, 1 John iii. 16: "Whoso-
ever hateth his brother is a murderer." This idea
of the unconscious heart, as underlying all moral
character, is deeply grounded ia the Hebrew lan-
guage. Hence the peculiar expression ab bs nbs ,
to ascend, come up, in the heart, or above the heart.
See Jer. iii. 16 ; 2 Sam. xi. 20, with other places.
One of the most striking is in Ezek. xi. 5 : " Thus
shall ye say to the house of Israel, DSH.^T f^ibsa
n^nsi'^ i:i< , the upgoings of your spirit, I know
every one of them," — implying how deeply unknown
they might be in their source, even to those who were
the subjects of them.

oi'n bs sn p-i : Only evil, nothing but evil,
ail the day — every day, and every moment of every
day. If this is not total depravUy, how can language
express it? There is an intense aversion to the
phrase in some minds. It is shared by many who
would admit that human depravity is taught in the
Bible, and that it is great. This term, however, of
our older and more exact theologians, shocks them.
The feeling comes, in some measure, from a misap-
prehension of its true meaning. It is a terra of ex-
tensity, rather than of intensity. It is opposed to
partial, to the idea that man is sinful in one moment,
and innocent, or sinless, in another, or sinful in some
acts and pure in others. It affirms that he is all
wrong, in all things, and all the time. It does not
mean that man is as bad as the devils, or that every
man is as bad as every other, or that any man is as
bad as he possibly may be, or may become. That is,
there are degrees of intensity, but no limit to the
aniversality orea!fe««of the evil in the soul. So say
the Scriptures, and so says the awakened conscience.
There seems to be an allusion to the psychologi-
'cal division of Gen. vi. 6, in Heb. iv. 12. The extent
and depth of human smfulness are kept from the ob-
jective consciousness by the ignorance or denial of
the threefold distinction here conveyed — the pur-
poses, the thoughts, and the heart. According to
the Apostle, it is the office of "the living word
(i \6yos iai/ Kai (nepyTfSjVivid and iuworking), sharp-

er than a two-edged sword, and piercing even to th«
dividing (the division hne) of soul and spirit " {-Kvediia
and ij/uxJ)) to make these distinctions, and bring them
home to the human conscience. Hence it is called
KpiTiKbs ir^ufj.iia€wv Kal 4vvomv KapSi'ay — "a critical
discemer (and exposer) of the purposes and the think-
ings of the heart." In this language ivSivixr]iTii corre-
sponds locally to 1S7 , and Uvoiai to nijtjrna . The
terms are no mere redundant tautology, any more
than those used above for soul and spirit. The bare
dichotomic view fails to explain the language of the
Scripture, whether as given in its Greek or Hebrew
terms. The Greek words, however, are less precise
than the Hebrew, since both ewom and ii'di'fir)(ri!
may be used for the purpose or the thought. — T. L.]
And it repented the Lord. — Most truly, aa
Keil rightly remarks, is this sentence so pronounced
on man alone, directly against the angel-interpreta-
tion. On that hypothesis the angels must have been
the original authors of the corruption ; and so in con-
sistency with Gen. iii., where the serpent is first sen-
tenced, ought the tirst doom here to have been pro-
nounced upon the sinning angels. — It repented
Jehovah. — A peculiarly strong anthropopathic ex-
pression, which, however, presents the truth that
God, in consistency with his immutability, assumes a
changed position in respect to changed man (Ps.
xviii. 27), and that, as against the iuipenitent man
wiio identifies himself with the sin, he must assume
the appearance of hating the sinner in the sin, even
as he hates the sin in the sinner. But that Jehovah,
notwithstanding, did not begin to hate man, is shown
in the touching anthropomorphism that follows,
" and it grieved him in his heart." The first kind
of language is explained in the flood, the second in
the revelation of Peter, 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20, and ch.
iv. 6. Against the corruption of man, though ex-
tending even to the depths of his heart, there is
placed in contrast God's deep " grieving in his
heart." But as the repentance of God does not take
away his unchangeableness and his counsel, but
rightly establishes them, so neither does God's
grieving detract from his immutability in blessed-
ness, but shows, rather, God's deep feehng of the
distance between the blessedness to which man was
appointed and his painful perdition. Delitzsch does
indeed maintain it, as most real or actual truth, that
God feels repentance, and he does not equate this
position with the doctrine of God's unchangeable-
ness, unless it be with the mere remark that the pain
and purpose of the divine wrath are only moments
in an everlasting plan of redemption, which cannot
become outward in its efficacy without a movement
in the Godhead. And yet movement is not change.
— I ■will destroy man. — To man in the wider sense
pertains the human sphere of life ; therefore it is said
that the beasts too shall be destroyed. Of any cor-
ruption that had entered into the animal there is no
mention (see ver. 12). The perishing of the beasts,
therefore, can only have meaning as a sharing in the
atonement for human sins (Jer. xii. 4 ; xiv. 5 ; Hos.
iv. 3 ; Joel i. 18; Zeph. i. 3. Knobel). It is rather
as a consequence of the dependence of the animal
world upon man that it is joined with him in joy and
sorrow. We are not to think of it as something per-
sonified together with man, but as the synibohc im-
personal extension of his organism. — But Noah
found grace. — " In these words there breaks forth
from the dark cloud of wrath the mercy which gives
security for the ■•reservation and restoration of hu-
manity." Keil.

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

[Note on the Divine Repenting, Gen. vi. 6. —
We do not gain much by attempts to explain philo-
Bophically such states or movements of the divine
mind. They are strictly S/J/5jjTa — ineffable. So the
Scripture itself represents them : " For my thoughts
are not your thoughts, saith the Lord ; as the heav-
ens are high above the earth, so high are my ways
above your ways, and my thoughts above your
thoughts," — that is, my thinking, my mode of think-
ing, above your thinking. And then these same
Scriptures, so far transcending all philosophy in the
abstract declaration of the ineifable difference, fur-
nish us helps by means of finite conceptions, human
representations, anthropopathisms, as we learnedly
call them, condescensions, " accommodations." Let
us not vainly attempt to get above them, as though
they were made for lower minds, whilst we, from
Borne higher position, as it were, can look over them,
or see through them, and are thus enabled to dis-
pense with their aid. If they arc accommodations,
let us be accommodated by them ; since here all hu-
man minds are very much on a par. Our right feel-
ing is much more concerned in this than our right
understanding. We cannot rise to God, and we
should reverently adore the eflbrt, if we may so call
it, which he makes to come down to us, to enter into
the sphere of the finite, to think our thinking, and
thus to converse with us in our own language.
Without this there can be no intercourse between
the infinite and the Unite mind. God's putting him-
self in the place of man is the idea and the key of all
revelation. In this sense, even nature itself has an
anthropopathic language. We must put our feet
upon the lower rounds of this ladder thus let down
to us,. — in other words, we must use these accommo-
dations, use them reverently, honestly, thankfully,
or have in the mind a total blank in respect to all
those conceptions of God that most concern us as
moral beings. Talk as we will of impassibility, we
mtist think of God as having -nd^t], affections^ some-
thing connecting him with the human, and, therefore,
human in some aspect or measure of agreement.
We must either have In our thoughts a blank intel-
lectuality making only an intellectual difference be-
tween good and evil (if that can be called any differ-
ence at all), or we are compelled to bring in some-
thing emotional, and that, too, with a measure of
intensity corresponding to other differences by which
the divine exceeds the human. Without this, the
highest form of scientific or philosophic theism has
no more of religion than the blankest atheism. We
could as well worship a system of mathematics as
such a theistic indifference. The emotional in view
of the true and the right, the evil and the false, is a
higher thing than the intellectual perception of them,
even could we suppose such separable cognition.
We do not rightly see the true, or truly see the
right, unless we love it; we do not truly see the evil
or the false, unless we have the opposite affection.
It belongs to the very essence or being of the ideas.
iBuch emotional is the highest thing in man, and is it
rational to suppose that all this is a blank in the
higher being of God? Reason may sometimes go
Bafely in affirming what it cannot di;fine, and recon-
cile with other and lower affirmations. Thus here,
an mtellectual and a moral necessity may compel us
to say that the idea of the emotional in the divine has
a veritable existence, though the conception utterly
fails to reach it ; just as reason truly affirms the infi-
nite in mathematics, and with as clear a certainty as
that of any finite ratio, though sense and imagina-

tion are both transcended by it. It may know ttal
a thing is, that it must be, though not how it is. So
here, a moral necessity compels us to hold that there
is such a region of the divine emotional, most iit
tensely real, — more real if we may make degrees,
than knowledge or intellectuality — the very ground,
in fact, of the divine personal being.

If we would carefully examine, too, our own feel-
ings, we would find that it is not alone a supposed
repugnance to reason that is the ground of the diffi-
culty. We do not raise the objection of acthropo-
pathism when love is ascribed to God, and yet it ia
as strictly anthropopathic as the divine indignation,
or the divine sorrow. An unemotional love is utterly
inconceivable. It is inseparable, too, from the other
elements. Love for the good has no meaning except
as icvolving displeasure at the evil ; and sorrow, ta
speak humanly, is but the blending of the two emo-
tions in view of the loss or marring of the lovely, and
the predominance of the unloved. And in this we
have the thought so fearful, whilst so attractive and
sublime : the intensity of the one must be the meas-
ure of the intensity of the other. Depart in the least
from the idea of indifferentism, and we have no limit
but infinity. God either cares nothing about what
we call good and evil — or, as the heaven of heavens
is high above the earth, so far do his love for the
good, and his hatred of evil, exceed, in their inten-
sity, any corresponding human affection.

The great business, therefore, of the interpreter
of Scripture is to determine philologieally the nature
of the emotion expressed by these words, and then
the theologian is to take them in their highest inten-
sity, and in such a way as shall not be in contradic-
tion with other divine attributes, whether given to
us by clear reason, or revealed to us in the" Scrip-
tures. Thus it will bo found that this word, en:,

rendered in Niphal to repent, has a dual relation, the
first and primary to the feclincj^ the second to the
purpose. The first connects itself with what may
be called the onomatepic significance, to »ig\ to
draw tJie breath ; hence ingemuit, doluit, as Geseniua
gives it. Hence poenituit eum, it repented him, in
the sense of sorrow. The anthropopathism thus ex-
pressed is the more touching form, and the whole
context shows that it is the one predominantly in-
tended here. It is no change of purpose, no confes-
sion of mistake, but a most affecting representation
of the divine pity and tenderness. The language
following shows this : " and he was grieved at the
heart," when he saw how this fair world, which he
had once pronounced "good, exceeding good," had
become marred and full of evil. In the course of
Its applications the word naturally gets also the other
or more secondary, yet quite common sense of change
of purpose. It is thus used, 1 Sam. xv. 29: "God
will not lie, neither does he repent ; he is not man
that he should repent" — literally, "man to repent,"
— that is, he does not repent like man with change
of plan or purpose. The other, and more primary
idea, comes also in this very passage relating to Saul,
as appears ver. 35 ; unless, contrary to all rules of
criticism, we would bring the writer in immediate
and palpable contradiction with himself See also
Ps. ex. 4. The repenting of sorrow is the anthropo-
pathism that is always to be supposed when the lan^
guage is applied directly to Deity ; as Ps. cvi. 46,

TTIDrt -Hs OH!^?, "and he repented according to

the greatness of his mercy;" Ps. xc. 13, "Keturo

CHAP. VI. 1-8.

289

Jehovah— rhow long ! — and let it repent thee concern-
ing thy servants."

As an instance of the way in which words branch
out into various meanings, till they sometimes get al-
most a reverse sense, it may be noted how this word,
in this very conjugation, gets the meaning of reveng-
ing, or rather of avenging. It comes from the prima-
ry idea of breathing, finding relief from the letting out
of pent-up indignation. Wlien thus applied to Deity
the anthropopathism is terrific, and yet the context
always shows that no other term could so express
the vehemency of the indignation ; as in Is. i. 24
''"iSB oriiS, well rendered, to the letter, "I will
ease me of mine adversaries ; " yet even here there
is something touching in the anthropopathism, from
the greatness of the long-suffering that appears in the
verses preceding. Compare Ezek. v. 13; xxxi. 16;
xxxii. 31. More nearly allied, however, both to the
primary, and to the sense we have traced in Gen. vi.
is the Piel idea of consolation. It is the sympathiz-
ing sorrow, as in Gen. 1. 21, where Joseph comforts
iiis brethren by palUating their guilt. Its primary
sense, as well as its tenderness, appears in what is
immediately added, Dab bs -an^l onis cn3"D,
"and he soothed them, and spalie to their heart."
Compare Is. xl 1, " Comfort ye, comfort ye my peo-
ple," and especially Ps. xxiii. 4, where it expresses
the soothing care of the shepherd for the wearied,
panting sheep. It is this sense of sympathizing sor-
row that makes the exquisite beauty of its tender-
ness.—T. L.]

BOOTEINAI- ASa ETHICAL.

1. The character of the Alexandrian Judaism, as
inclined to the Gnostic and the apocryphal, needs to
be recognized in order that we may estimate its in-
fluence upon the old and traditional exegesis of this
passage, and on the passage itself as given in the
codices of the Septuagiut.

2. There is a difference between the biblical and
apocryphal measure of the doctrine respecting the
demons, analogous to the difference between faith
and superstition, or the difference between the sensus
communis of a sound theology and the hankering
taste of a mere theosophy.

3. The Scripture distinguishes between corrupt-
ing mixed-marriages of the pious and the godless,
winch, according to their point of departure (that is,
sensual satisfaction), draw down the nobler part into
community with tlie base, and unlike marriages
among those of different religious communions,
which may draw up those of lower standing to the
stand-point of the more elevated. It is because there
lies originally at the ground of the latter a moral
motive. To the first class belong, next to our his-
tory, the marriage of Esau, the Midianitic connec-
tions (Numb. XXV., yet only in conditional measure,
since, in this case, there is mention only of licentious
amours), the marriages of the Israelites with the Ca-
naanitish women (Judg. iii.), the Delilah of Samson,
the foreign wives of Solomon, Jezebel in Israel,
Athaliah in Judah (both having a fearful efficacy for
the corruption of the people), the daughters of San-
ballat (Neh. xiii. 28), who gave occasion for the false
worship on Gerizim. To these, if we regard the
essence of the matter, we may add the case of Hero-
dias in the New Testament, and connect with them
analogous examples in the history of the church and
»f the world, even to our own day. To the other

19

class belong such cases as that of Thamar, the niaiv
riage or the marriages of Moses, the case of Eahab,
the marriages of the sons of Naomi (see Book of
Ruth), the cases mentioned by Paul, 1 Cor. vii. 13,
the case of Eunice, 2 Tim. i. 5, and many examples
from old church history, where Christian princesses
have been the means of converting heathen husbands
and, through them, of the conversion of whole n»
tions. Prom this contrast it appears that a mere
zeal in the abstract against mixed marriages is not
grounded on the Bible, but that it depends on this
whether the motive for the contraction of marriage
is the instruction of the one who occupies the lower
position, or a religious apostasy of the higher. And so,
too, the political and civic conception of mesalliances
is to be determined by fundamental positions of a
moral and religious kind. In the universal treatment
of this question, there comes also into consideration
the moral predominance and the social priority of
the man, as weU as the great religious influence of
the wife, especially of the zealous, or of the bigoted
wife.

4. Between the moral and ennobling satisfac-
tion in female beauty, as, for example, in the love
of Jacob and Eachel, and the satisfaction of sensual
desire, there is a specific difference. Beyond a
doubt, a satisfaction of the latter kind is meant in
our text, as plainly appears from the expression:
" they took them wives of all (that is, without ex-
ception) that pleased them." Such a wide choice ia
unknown to the moral love. The language appears,
too, to hint at a Cainite polygamy. The expressiot
m3B , as used of the daughters of men, is to ba
thus determined.

5. Tfie Bible conception of whoredom, as it
becomes a symbolical designation of a falling away
from God into idolatry, determines itself — not solely
by the outward mark, that is, as lacking the ritual
of marriage — but also by the inward evidence as to
whether the spirit-life sinks into sensuality through
the sensual connection. And such a sexual life is
here evidently intended. As the true marriage be-
comes a symbol of the connection between Jehovah
and his people, because in its looking to the eternal
it coheres with it in the generic bridal idea, so does
the impure sexual connection become a symbol of
apostasy, because it has in common with it the
cliaracl^eristic feature of unspirituality and carnality.
It lies, therefore, in the very nature of the thing,
that the first kind of sexual intercourse conducts to
lawful marriage (the marriage-law), and conforms to
the true and faithful in the chastity of the spirit,
whilst the latter hates chastity and loves change.

6. Lust and cruelty are psychologically twin-
forms, like despotism and mesalliance, or the harem
life in all its forms. Jezebel, Athaliah, Herodias,
are world-historical types. Women like these have
shown themselves to be murderesses of the prophets.
So, too, the authoress of Nero's persecutions had to
be his wife Poppsea, a bigoted Jewish proselyte
(see Lehman: "Studies in the History of Apostolio
Times." Greifswald, 1856). In this tendency of
lust can we explain the common disobedience of
degenerate sons towards their pious parents, the
disowning of modest Sethite maidens in favor of
Cainite beauties, the existence of polygamy and
licentious disorder, and, everywhere, what is called
"the emancipation of the flesh." Therefore is it
that this nice is a prefiguring example of the antino-
mists of " the last time " (Matt. xxiv. ; Epistle of
Jude ; 2 Peter ii.) From the violence of action,

290

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

moreover, can we explaiD the oppression of the
weak and miserable, and the spreading of infinite
Borrow.

7. A physiologist might find it very conceivable,
that the offspring of such unbridled lust, as exhibited
in the intercourse of the hitherto unimpaired Sethites
with the Cainite women, might be a race in whom
bodily strength would present itself in an unusual
degree, in connection with spiritual savageness.
This, however, is doubted by Kurtz (Part 1, p. 82).

8. The first mention of the divine judicial office
of the Spirit of God, ver. 3.

9. The first mention of worldly favor in instruct-
ive and warning significance, ver. 4.

10. In respect to God's repentance, see above
(eomp. Numb, xxiii. 19 ; 1 Sam. xv. 29). A well-
known school does not hesitate to bring into the
idea of the divine being the conception of muta-
bility, even in its relation to other questions (for
example, the doctrine of Comniunicatio idiomatum).
We should, however, always distinguish between
symbolic and dogmatic anthropopathism. Besides,
we must not confound the judgment of God, ver. 5,
with the judgment of God, ch. viii. 21.

11. Noah found grace. As innocent children
died in the flood, and as, moreover, there may have
been always individuals less guilty who nevertheless
fell under the judgment, so does the grace in the
exception of the pious Noah become still more con-
spicuous. But in Noah, moreover, the kernel, or
root-stem of humanity, still remaining comparatively
sound, was the subject of the divine mercy. The
^n , the gracious, fair, and saving condescension,
appears here for the first time in full distinctness.
This .showing grace to Noah in this world casts a ray
of light upon the destiny of the innocent infant-
world that sunk with the guilty, and of the race
generally, as judged in the other world (see 1 Pet.
iii. 19; ch. iv. 6).

HOMILBTICAl AND PEACTICAI,.

The fall and perdition of the first human race in
its detail: 1. Ungodly lust; 2. wanton deeds of
violence ; 3. the lawless commingling of the pious
with the godless; 4. disdain of all warnings from
the Holy Spirit, and impenitent obduracy in their
sensual course. — How the warnings of God die away
unheard in a sinking race. — The higher the stand-
point the deeper the fall. — The sanctifying of the
true feeling of beauty in contrast with the wanton
disposition. — The sanctifying of the true hero-power
in contrast with the wanton love of violence. — The
deep connection between carnality and cruelty. — The
sanctifying of marriage. The corrupting effects of
unchastity. The contagious power of evil, especially
of lust and injustice. — God's beholding it at all
times. — -How the divine repenting reflects itself in
the heart of the pious Noah. — The godly mourning
of the pious over the corruption of these times; its
high significance: 1. as an animating sign of the
divine compassion ; 2. as a terrifying sign of the
divine judgment. — How man draws with him, in
liis doom, the surrounding nature — even in his cor-
ruption.— The sufferings of children on account of
their parents. — The suficrings of the animal world
on account of man. — Noah the cliosen of God: 1.
As the prophet of the divine spirits and of its judg-
ment upon the earth ; 2. as the priest of his house
md of a new humanity ; 3. as a kingly hero in his

steadfastness against a whole race. — The grace of
God, how it excepted one man, Noah, out of (he
common judgment. — Grace for the one, in its efifec)
grace for the many, that is, for the whole coming
humnn race. — The second ancestor a child of grace
in the most special sense.— The grace in its first
manifestation, how all-powerful, and how wondrously
saving. — Noah found grace ; therefore he must have
sought it, as it sought and found him. — "/« Am
eyes ; " consciousness of the grace of the all-knowing
God as ever beholding him ; this through his com-
munion with God.

Starke : Ver. 2. Luther : It is s great m^cy
when the Holy Spirit through its word punishesi,
and strives with, men; on the contrary, the highest
disfavor and punishment when it is withdrawn and
leaves the world unpunished. — Ver. 3 : After the
time God gave also to the Amorites four hundred
years (ch. xv. 16), to the Jews also, after the death
of Christ, forty years, to Nebuchadnezzar one year
(Dan. iv. 29;, and to Ninevah forty days, for repent-
ance.— Ver. 4 : Tho security and carnality of men ifl
a sign of God's judgments drawing nigh (Matt, xxiv,
83-38).— Evil exiimples (Book of Wisdom iv. 12;
Sirach xiii. 1). Reckless and anlike marriages
draw after them only clear perdition. — The contempt
of the divine word is the most grievous sin, for from
it all others have their origin. How great the
patience and long-suffering of God ! The oppression
of the poor and wretched is a great sin, and draws
God's judgment after it. — Ver. 7 : Though the little-
ones are comprehended in the calamity, we must
not, on that account, charge God with unrighteous-
ness (he might have foreseen that they would tread
in the footsteps of their parents, or he may have
taken them without prejudice to their soul's blessed-
ness).— Ver. 8. Luther : This way of speaking ex-
cludes merit and extols faith. — Schroder; The fall
first begins its course in the sphere of Adam and
Eve's single ^lersonality, then, by and with Cain it
enters into the family life, thence showing itself in
the members of a whole line, it now reaches its last
stage of antediluvian development; it advances to
the fall of a world. — Vers. 1, 2. Herder : The more
intimate they are, the nearer they live together, the
more do they infect each other with their breath,
and defile each other with their disease ; each be-
comes to the other the instrument of a more multi-
plied and subtle evil. All great kingdoms, states,
and cities are still mournful evidences of this fact. —
Calvin : By such a title of honor (sons of God)
Moses upbraids them with their unthankfulness, in
that, forsaking their heavenly father, they become
outcasts, as it were, and expose themselves to ruin,
— Luther: The flood comes not on this account
merely, that the race of Cain was corrupt and evil,
but because the race of the righteous, who had be-
lieved God, had fallen into idolatry. So God does
not hasten the last day because heathen, Jews, and
Turks are godless, but because, by means of the
Pope, and the fanatics, the church itself has become
full of errors. — From all, that is, whom they loved,
took they to themselves wives. That would be the
love of diversity. Or, before all, namely, that to
them the female race (the sex without discrimination)
had become everything. The worth or unworthi-
ness of the person came not into consideratioa
Probably it was incest ; it was certainly polygamy
Ldtiiee : They disdained the simplicity, seriousness,
and modest deportment of their young women,
which had attracted the holy patriarchs, not amor

CHAP. VI 9— Vm. 19.

291

onsly, but chastely, and suffered themselves to be
pleased with the fondlings, the adorning, and the
wantoning that proceeded from the latter (that is,
the Cainite) race. — Ver. S. Caltin: Moses repre-
BentB God himself as speaking ; thereby would it be-
come more certain that tiiat punishment was as
righteous as it was fearful. — Ldthek: (The judging
(or striving) of the spirit relates to a public office in
the church, or the preaching of the truth, perhaps
to a censure pronounced by Methuselah or Lamech).
They are the words of an anxious heart ; according
to the language of Scripture, God is troubled, that
is, the heart of the holy people which is full of lore
to every man. Such sorrow is properly the sorrow
of the Holy Spirit (Eph. iv. 30).— The same: When
the spirit of doctrine is gone there departs also the
spirit of prayer. — Calvin: As long as God holds
bacls punishment he contends, to a certain extent,
with men, espepially if he would draw them to re-
pentance by threatenings, or with light chastenings
by way of example. Now he declares, as though in
weariness, that he desires no longer to contend. —
Berlenburger Bible: Where the Spirit of God is,
there it condemns sin. His presence and his disci-
pline are inseparable (Book of Wisdom xii.) — The
same: Let no one believe that he can do without
such a chastening of the Almighty. We see it in
little children. — Calvin : This contempt of God
gave birth to pride, and, pride full blown, they be-
gan to hreak every yoke. They glorified themselves
in their deeds of shame, and became robbers of
renown, so called. — -The same: That was the first
nobility in the world ; so that no one might please
himself with a longer or more renowned series of
incestora. — The same : There is nothing in itself
to be condemned in the desire of celebrity, it is
useful that rank should have place in the world ;
yet, as inordinate ambition ever deserves blame, so,
when there is added to it the tyrannical cruelty of
the more powerful, in their seorn of the weak, it
becomes an intolerable evil. — Vers. 5-7. Roos : Be-
fore, the flood of sins ; after it, the sin-flood. With-
out a doubt has God impressed this feeUng upon his
saints, though no one in a human way is capable of
it, according to its true divine nature. Wrath is
proper for a king and a magistrate, but pain (for

sin) is peculiar to the Creator, who has love for hii
creature, and before whose eyes that creature stands
as one utterly corrupt, unthankful, and apostate.—
The same: A destruction of man and beast mn.s(
be their end. But, whether this destruction is t»
be through water or through fire, God has not yet
in these words revealed.

Gerlaoh : The Sethites are here presented as a
warning to the Israelites. God allows no one of
his greater judgments to take place without giving
a respite for repentance after its announeemenl;
Luther's interpretation takes the repentance and
the grieving as the same with that which precedej
in the genuine children of God. (Examples which
Luther presents ; Abraham's prayer for Sodom ;
Samuel's sorrow for Saul; Christ's weeping ovei
Jerusalem.)

Lisoo : Flesh ; that is, a people wholly sunk in
sin. Despise not thy day of grace.

Calver {Manual) : When members of the true
church become degenerate, the judgments of God
are not distant. — The Nephilim : Despising God
above ; exercising violence and oppression towards
their brethren below. Now are these names un-
known, like the names of many others who have
sought for empty fame. In the heathen world there
are such people as heroes, men honored as demi-
gods ; and truly there lie in these and other early
indications of Moses, the fountains of many of the
heathen legends concerning the gods. (The demi-
gods of the heathen are, in fact, the heroes of
humanity, such as Hercules, for example ; but they
have, doubtless, an original national origin for the
most part which does not go back beyond the flood.)
— Noah, the one righteous man in an entire corrupt
world. — The eyes of the Lord are upon those who
fear him. — Taube (p. 48) : The judgment of God
upon the first world a warning example for our
time : 1. In respect to the first world being ripe for
judgment ; 2. in respect to the manner in which
God executed this sentence. — Miohow : This is the
very climax of corruption, when men will not suffer
themselves to be reproved by the spirit of God. The
repenting of God (see Numb, xxiii. 19). It denotes
God's deahng with men, which, though at all times
just, must correspond to the behavior of men

THIRD PART.

THr, GENESIS OF THE WOELD'S JUDGMENT AND OF THE WORLD'S RENEWING BY MEANS
OF THE FLOOD. THE FLOOD AND THE DROWNED RACE. THE ARK AND THE SAVED
HUMANITY. (THE ARK AS A TYPE OF THE PIOUS FAMILY, OF THE PIOUS STATF*
AND OF THE CHURCH). (Chap. VL 9-Chap. VIH. 19.)

FIRST SECTION,

The Calling of Noah. The Ark.

Chapter VI. 9-Chafter VH. 9.

9 These are the generations [thoiedoth] of Noah ; Noah was a just' man and perfect in
10 his generations [in his times], and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three soiiE^

29a <}ES 5SIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

11 Shem, Ham and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt" before God [in relation to God], and

7 2 the earth was filled with violence- [in relation to men]. And God looked' upon the earth

and behold it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted^ his way [walk or conduct] upon th?

13 earth. And God said unto Koali, the end of all flesh' is come before me ; for the eaitb
is filled with violence through* them [tefore them] ; and behold I will destroy ' them with the

14 earth. Make thee an ark of gopher-wood [cypress— a resinous wood]; rooms shalt thou make

15 in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion
which thou shalt make it of; the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits,

16 the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window [a eky-Ught]
shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above [downward— not above

on the side, hut from (he top surface downwards through the different stories] ; and the door of the ark shalt

thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second and third stories shalt thou make it.

17 And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh,
wherever is the breath of life under heaven ; and everything that is in the earth shaL'

18 die [expire— yield the hreath] : But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shall

19 come into the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. And
of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep

20 them alive with thee ; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and o{
cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every

21 sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. And take thou unto thee of all food
that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee [for a store], and it shall be for food for thee

22 and for them. Thus did Noah according to all that God commanded him.

Ch. VII. 1 And the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark ; for

2 thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou
shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean

3 by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the

4 female ; to keep seed alive upon the earth. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to
rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights ; and every living substance that I have

5 made will I destroy from the face of the earth. And Noah did according to all that

6 the Lord commanded him. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of

7 waters was upon the earth. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his
sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood [from before, or from

8 the face of the waters]. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and

9 of every thing that creepeth upon the earth. There went in two and two [by pairs] unto
Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God [Eiohim] had commanded Noah.

\} Ver. 9. — p^'nST, primary sense, fiddity, trvihfulness. D'^iori, primary sense, soundness, integrity. That the
terms are comparative is shown by the qualifying word that follows, T^HI^il^ , in Ms generati(ms. The langunge
gives no countenance to the opinion of Knobel, that Noah is represented as a man of spotless innocence, and that thQ
author of thif account knew nothing of any tall. So the Jewish interpreters take it, some of whom, as Hashi and Majmonides
both tell us, go so fer as tosaythat he would not have been socalledin comparison with Abraham, "nbrim Q"riPJ<n rX :
Bee remarks on this phrase as used in the account of Enoch. — T. L.] .. - : . • ■: r

[5 Ver. 11. — rnlKn^ , primary sense, depression, sinking down. Hence, corruption, destruction. — T. L.]

[* Ver. 12. — X"^*! . "And God saw the earth" — looked at the earth, and lo. Some would render: "saw that the
earth was ; " but the other mode is the more literal, as well as the more expressive. It may be called anthropopathic, aa
expressing something like surprise, but it is all the more striking on that very account. "Had corrupted its way."
'i3"l^ PN rTIlirri. This maybe taken physically as well as morally. *5~'^. its way, its mode of life. Men were
becoming monsters, sinking down into brutality — becoming dehumanized through lust and cruelty, "itl'a P3 , aU JksK
Dr. Murphy well remarks, that "thin should teach us to beware of applying an inflexible literality to such termn as all
when thus used ; since the mention of the whole race "does not preclude the exception of Noah and his family." Com'
nentary on Qen. p. 210. — T. L.]

[< Ver. 13. — 1TI33 b'Z Vp. ** The end of all flesh is come up, "^SSS , before me (to my face)." Or it may be rendered
in the present, comes up before me, giving it more the sense of a prediction (or an event seen to be inevitable unless pre-
vented soon) than of a threatened judgment. The language ia remarkably graphic ; as though the events of 4ime, as it
moves on, .or the roll uniolds itself, come up before the immovable, unchanging God, and the last periods of a long aeriee
were drawtngnigh in their development. In this view, 53 of ver. 13 would be taken in its universality. Through human
wickedness and corruption there will be an end of man (of the whole human race without exception) unless means an
taken for the preservation of a sound humanity, in the destruction of those who are becoming dehumanized. Cfl/^DDTS ,
another most graphic expression — filled with violence before the face of them. Wherever they spread, violence and corrup-
tion goes with them, and before them. Oompare the description of Leviathan, Job xli. 14, n^frfn V^ID T^DB? , "terrol
moves swiftly before him." "Lo, I am destroying them (with) the earth" ^^TKri-nN nn"'rii;j'3. Another view takei
yMiir "rX as in apposition with the preceding pronoun, and as explanatory of it. It sounds harsh in rendering, but u
«on vhat fe-vored granynatically by the fact that HX , where it is occasionally to be rendered with, always dene tee th(

JHAP. TI. 9— VII. 9.

293

(losest and most essential union, and, on this ground, it is tbat it comes to denote the nearest and most direct object of tha
verb — "will destroy them, the very earth," as the means of their dostruction. Other renderings are, up&n the earth
(rS for bi"), with reference to 1 Kings ix. 25; Ps. IxviL 2; and from tfte earth (PX for nXTS), 2 Kings xxiii. 35; bul
theexamples cited for these fail to bear out the intei-pretatiou. See RosenmuUer. It may be offered as a conjecture entitled
to some attention, that the Hiphil participle D'^nm'D may have the permissive sense which sometimes belongs to it Cse«
Deut. ii. 28 ; Gen. xxiv. 17 ; xxv. 30 ; Is. Ixiii. 15 et al. ; Glassii Phil., p. 836), instead of the causative^ and then it
would be a case of double government : " And lo I am suffering them to corrupt the earth ; " in which case rx would
aave its usual sense of the direct object, and there would be no need of the sudden change in n'^nll^'O irom the sense (A
e&rrupUng to that of destroying, although they are nearly allied ; as though it were a reason for the interposition instead
•f a threatening of it. Lo I am letting them ruin the earth, if they are permitted thus to have their way. The interpre-
tations generally are against this, but it may be grammatically supported, and has some grounds in the context as giving
the merciful and remedial aspect of the passage the predominance over the retributive. It may at least be otFered as a
conjecture. The P^niisn of ver. 1 seems to be against it, but even that may be rendered, " all flesh is letting its way
become corrupt upon earth." — X. Tj. i

[8 Ver. 14. — IS? "^SS' . Itend»red gopher-wood. The word occurs but once in the Scriptures. It is, however,
etymologically the same with the Greek jcvn-apta-tros {cypress, the same radical consonants, g p r — k p r), and may also
be regarded as related to the Latin juniperus (g(n) pr). It may denote any resinous wood which is at the same time light
and firm.— T.L.)

[« Ver. 17. — b^iaSan : used only of the Great Deluge, except Ps. xxix. 10, where it comes in as a hyperbole in the

description of a great storm and inundation. Lange, Gesenius, and others, derive it from b^"^ , to which they give the
sense fiuxit, though it occurs only in some noun derivatives, the Hiphil sense being remotely secondary. The sense oJ
flowing, however, in b^"^ , if it has it at all, is quite different from the conception we have of the deluge. It is the flowing
of streams, rivers, rivulets, as seen in the derivative 53^ , flumen, rivus. Aben Ezra gives us the views of the older
Jewish grammarians. One class of these make it from ^33, comparing it with Is. xxiv. 4, ^"ISf} '^^J^J '^??'J )
" in mourning and . desolate is the earth," — giving to b 33 the sense of ruin and wasteness. This accounts for the dageah
in 3. Itisdageshcompen8ative,they say, forthes«;a??ou)ed 3, or b^3Ta for p.133'0 , just as TIS'O (from 3!33) for2?!123?a .
It is certainly much easier, etymologically, to account for it in this way, than by making it from 53"', which would rather
give the form b3T13 . Others make it from bb3 confundit, and regard it as equal to 5^5313 , the dagesh arising from the
swallowing, as the Jewish grammarians call it, of the first b following. They compare it, in its full foim, to b^bC^S
from bbo , Is. XXXV. 8, or b!)b3'j , Ps. Iviii. 9. Either of these conceptions of ruin, desolation, and confusion, suits better
with the idea of the great catastrophe than simply that of flowing, especially regarded as the flowing of a river. And
then, according to these acute authorities, we have a reason for the addition of C^O , "the mabbul of waters," which
would be a mere tautology, and, in this case, a feeble tautology, if the word simply meant flowing. It was a wasteness,
a nttrt, a desolation, a confusion, or mingling togi-ther of all things ( bib 3), by means of waters. Hence the special
descriptive term used only of this great event, and intended to show that it was sui generis, so that it comes to be used
like a proper name. — T. L.1

[' Ver. 18.— r ■'12 . Lange makes it from r 13 , a root not found ; and the metathesis from ln3 is harsh and
nnexampled. The Jewish grammarians and lexicographers make it from ni3 ^ S13 , primary sense, to cut, referring
to the severance of the victim in sacrifice on the making of a covenant. See Ps. 1. 5, n31 ''bs Tl^13 "'PIS , "who
have made (cut) a covenant (with me> by sacrifice." Further on this word and idea, see Exegetical and Notes.— T. L.]

THE FLOOD. PEELIMINAE.T REMARKS.

1. The lAterature. — See Com. on Matthew, p. 6.
The present work, p. 119. Walch. : Bibl. Theol., iii.
D. 100. Danz: "Universal Lexicon," p. 918. "Winek,
Reaf. Lexicon, article, Nuah. Heezog, Real Ency-
clopedia, axiide, Noah. Kdrtz: ■' History of the Old
Testament," i. p. 81. Knobel, p. 81. — [Article, Del-
uffe, KiTTo : " Bib. Encyc." vol. i. p. 642. — Article,
lioah. Smith's " Bib. Diet." vol. ii., p. 662.— T. L.]

The Hebrew name of the Great Flood (bisc)
Luther rendered by the word Sin-fiut, or Sindftut.
The latest edition of the German Bible contains still
this designation. Through a misunderstanding of the
expression it became afterwards Siindjlut. Pischon
in the " Theological Studies and Criticisms," 1 834, III.
Delitzsch, p. 628. In old German the word sin is
found Only at the beginning of compounds : it has
the meaning ever, everywhere, complete. For exam-
ple, sin^grUn means ever-green.

2. The Stories of the Flood No fact of Sacred
History reflects itself in a more universal and mani-
fold manner throughout the heathen legendary world
than the Noachic flood. Compare here the copious
account of Litcken : " The Traditions of the Human
Race," p. lYO; also Knobel, p. 76; Delitzsch, p.
242 It is especially interesting to study how the
different nations have heathenized, mythologized, in
other words, nationalised or localised the sacred and
umvei'sal tradition (since by the very nature of

heathenism the patriarch of the flood belongs to
particular nations who received the account from
him, and who also regarded him as their national
middle point), and how they have confounded it
with the story of Paradise, or of the creative days.
From this comes the varied deification of this flood-
patriarch. Delitzsch distinguishes, \. i\i& West Asior
tic stories of the flood. The Babylonian flood of
Xisuthrus: "the last of the ten antediluvian chiefs,
as given by Berosus and Abydenus, and the Phoeni-
cian story of the victory of Pontus over Demarus,
the earth sphere, as given by Sanchoniathon."
With the Babylonian story of the flood he compares
the narrative of the flood as given in the first of the
Sibylline books, which, in its ground features, has
some resemblance to the biblical. Next " the Phry-
gian story of King 'Awaxos or NairaKiis (that is,
Enoch) in Iconium, who, when over three hundred
years old, announced the flood, and prayed with
lamentation for his people ; with which are connected
coins of Apamea of the times of Septimius Severus,
Macrinus, and Philip, representing a floating ark
and bearing the partial inscription, Nn." So also
the Armenian, which, as might be expected, agrees
in its locality with the biblical (Nicol. Damascen.,
Strabo). Then a Syrian legend of which Luciab
makes mention {De Syra Bea, ch. 13). 2. Ea^t
Asiatic stories of the flood. The Persian, the Chi^
nese; the Indian of Menu, to whom Vishnu, taking
the form jf a fish, announces the flood, and whoa*

294

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

sUip, drawn by this fish, lands upon Himarat. It
presents itself to ua in many forms. The oldest,
yet the hi test known to ua, ia the story in ^atapatha-
Brahmana( Weber, "Indian Studies," 1850). Next to
that ia the story in Mahabharata (Bopp, " Diluvium,"
1829), and in the Purilna ; its latest form is present-
*i in the Bh^gavata-Purana (ed. Bournout, 1827),
which, according to Wilaon, does not go back of the
twelfth century after Christ. (In respect to all these
forms of the story, see Felix Nate : La Tradition
Indie nne du Deluge^ Paris, 1851.) 8. Grecian sto-
ries of the flood. " In the first place the story of
Ogyges (Plato, in the Tim<eus,)* and the more en-
larged account of Deucalion and Pyrrha (fii-st in
Pindar, then by ApoUodorus, brought nearer to the
biblical account, also given by Plutarch, Lucian,
and Ovidjf — both, in their ground features, stories
of one and the same flood, but wholly Hellenized."
4. The stoiies of the people who were outside the
commerce or intercourse of the Old World. The Cel-
tic story of Dwyvan and Dwyvach, who, in the flood
that arose fi om the outbreaking of the sea of Llion,
and which swallowed up all men, made their escape
in a bare boat (without sails), and again peopled
Britain. More remote still, the flood-stories of the
Mexicans, of the island inhubitants of Cuba, of the
Peruvians, of the races on the upper Orinoco, of
the Tahitians, and other insulai' peoples of the So-
ciety Islands Archipelago. To make an arrangement
according to the facta narrated, we may diatinguish,
1. Stories of the flood which identify it with the cre-
ative catastrophes, namely : the Germanic story of
the blood of the slain Ymer, which deluged the earth,
and destroyed the oldest giant race. The Persian
Btory of the rain of Zistar, which flooded the earth,
and cauaed the death of the beaats of Ahriman. The
Chinese story of Riuhoa (Luckkn, p. 193; see on
the other hand Bunsen, vol. ii. p. 61). 2. Stories
of the flood in which the Bible flood is specifically
and diatinctly reflected, such as the Babylonian, the
Phrygian, the Indian, the Chinese story of Jao, the
Celtic stories (Lucken, p. 204). S. Stories of the
flood which seem to connect or to confound it with
the deluge accounts of later floods. The stories of
the Egyptians and the Greeks (Lijcken, pp. 209, 196).

[* For a more direct and significant mention by Plato of
the flood, see tbe Dialogue, Z>e Lpgihus, lib. iii. p. 677, A. B.,
where he supposes that there may have been many such
catiistrophes in the immense past time, but speaks specially
of one as well known — rau-nj*' -njc t<? KATAKAYSMn ttotc
yefoijLevyjv. After which he speculates upon the condition
of those who may have escaped, and then- subsequent cul-
tuie.— T. L.]

[t The description of Ovid (although he takes the Greek
names) is nearer to the Scripture account than that of Pin-
dar or ApoUodorus, and it may be inferred that he had ac-
cess to other traditional sources, Hebrew perhaps, or Syrian.
The moial ground in him is more prominent ; and the
** righteous man" who "found grace" is brought out with
ft clearer emphasis —

His manner, too, of describing the subsidence of the waters,
ftnd the becoming visible of the mountains, is strikingly like
that of the Scriptures, and makes it not extravagant to sup-
pose that he may have had some knowledge of the Hebrew
acoount, and its graphic language, C'Tnfl "^lasi "K^J .

■TV -. T J ■ '

PlumlDa sulisi^ant; ooUei cxlre vidintur;

SurRlt huniuB; oresount loca decresceutibus UQdia;

PoBtque diem longam nudatn cacumina mantium,

^' All the high hills under the whole heaven were covered."
The Latin poet gives the same optical appearance, though in
iiiiferent language :

Jamc^uc mare et telloB DullQm disorlmCTi b&bebant ;
Omnia pontQH eract; deeiant quoque Htora ponto. — T. L.J

In the submersion of the island Atlantis, as given in
Plato's Timmus, there seems to be reflected likewise
the tradition of the lost Paradise. In respect to the
facta that lie at the foundation of the latter stories,
compare the pamphlet of Ungee, entitled " The
Sunken Island of Atlantis." Vienna, 1860. The
fundamental view here indicates revolutions of the
earth, upheavings and depressions of its surface,
whose effect is also of importance in the history of
the Bible deluge. 4. Stories of floods in which the
Bible flood forms the central point, towards which
all traditions and legends of early terrestrial catas-
trophes flow together, and in which the original
tradition cannot always be separated from later
modification through Christian and Mohammedan
elements. Interior African and American, or insular
flood stories. It is well worthy of remark, that the
ethical interpretation of the flood, according to which
it comes as a judgment upon a condemned human
race, everywhere prominently appears in the stories
of the deluge. The purest copy of our Bible history
is given in the Chaldaic narrative of Berosus, the
ancient priest of Bel, about 260 years before Christ.
Xiauthrus, the laat of the ten primitive kings, beheld
ill a dream the appearance of Cronos (in Greek rhe
same as Bel or Baal), who announced to him, that
on the 15th day of the month Dasio, men would be
destroyed by a flood. It was commanded him to
write down all the sciences and inventions of man-
kind, and to conceal tlie writings in Syparis, the city
of the Sun ; thereupon he was to build a ship, and
to embark on the same with all his companions, kin-
dred, and nearest friends ; be was to put in it pro-
visions and drink, and to take with him the animals,
the birds, as well as the quadrupeds. If any one
should ask him whereto he was bound, he was to
answer: To the gods; to implore good for men.
He obeyed, and made an ark five stadia in length,
and two in breadth, put together what was command-
ed, and embarked with wife, children, and kindred.
As the flood subsided, Xisuthrua let fly a bird, which,
when it neither found nouriahment nor place to
light, returned back into the ark. After some days
he let fly another bird ; this came back with slime
upon its foot. The third bird sent forth never re-
turned. Then Zisuthrus perceived that land was
becoming visible, and after that he had broken an
opening in the ship, he sees it driven upon a mount-
ain, whence he descends with wife, daughter, and
pilot, and when he had saluted the earth, built an
altar, and offered sacrifice to tlie gods, he disappeared.
Those who were left in the ship, when they saw that
Sisuthrus did not return, went forth to seek bim, and
called him by name. Xisuthrus was seen no more,
but a voice sounded from the air, bidding them to
fear god, and telling them that on account of hia
piety he had been taken away to dwell with the gods ;
and that the same honor was given to his wife,
daughter, and pilot. (This disappearance has rela-
tion to his deification, or probably to his translation
among the stars, where the forms of the waterman,
the young woman, and the carrier (the wagoner) still
present themselves to us). They were commanded
to return back to Babylon, where it was appointed to
them to take the writings from Syparis, and imparl
the knowledge they contained to men. The country
where they found themselves was Armenia. In re-
spect to the ship, which had landed in Armenia,
Berosus adds that there was still a portion of it on
the mountains of Kordyaer (or the Kurdistan mounb
ains) in Armenia, from which some persons cut off

CHAP. VI. 9— vn. 9.

295

pieces, took them to their houses, and used them as
mnulets (according to Liicken). Amid all the simi-
larity which this story presents to the Bible history,
there is no mistaking the mythological coloring ; for
example, in the huge size of the ark. Just as little
do we fail to hear the echo of the history of Enoch.
3. The Fact of the Flood.— The narrative of the
flood, like the history of Paradise, has in a special
measure the character of all the Bible histories — that
IS, it is at the same time fact and symbol ; and it is
the symbolical significance of this history that has
foiTued the significant expression of the fact. In re-
gard to the fact itself, the view la rendered in a high
degree difficult by reason of the mingling with it of
the following representations, resting solely on the
literal interpretation : 1. the supposition that the
history narrates not merely the extermination of the
firat human race, and, therefore, the overflowing of
the earth according to the geographical extension
of that race, but an absolute universal submersion
of tlie whole earth itself; 2. the idea that the terres-
trial relations were the same at that time that they
are now, that the mountain elevations were com-
pleted, and that the mountain Ararat was just as high
as at the present time ; 3. that the branching of the
animal species had become as great at that day as it
is now : add to these a 4th, the ignoring of every
symbolical imprint in the representation. As to what
cOQcerns the first two points, it is argued by Ebeaed,
for example (" Belief in the Holy Scriptures," p. 73).
that Ararat was 16,000 feet high. The waters stand
fifteen cubits above Ararat; consequently must the
whole earth have been covered, tliough it may still
remain a question whether single peaks, Uke the
Dhawalagiri, might not have projected above the
water-,surface (in a literal construction of the text,
however, such a doubt cannot remain), since a bank-
ing limitation of so high a flood would be inconceiv-
able. This conclusion depends upon a supposition
wholly uncertain, namely, that the peak of Ararat
was in that day 16,000 feet high. In regard to the
flrst point, the remark of Nagetbaoh (Art. " Noah,"
Herzog's Real-Encyclopedie) coincides wholly with
the view of Delitzsch, namely, that the theological
interest does not demand the universality of the flood
in itself, but only the universality of the judgment
that was executed by it. In respect to the second
point, it is to be remarked, that the mountain forma-
tions of the earth had been, indeed, begun in the
creative period, but were not yet fully completed.
The history of the deluge is, without doubt, the his-
tory of a catastrophe in which the terrain of the earth
experienced important modifications through the co-
operation of fire. The deep sinking of the laud in
the neighborhood of the Armenian paradisaical re-
gion, which is denoted by the Caspian Sea, might alone
have brought on a deluge catastrophe analogous to
that which must have had a connection with the ruin
of the legendary island of Atlantis. In respect to the
third representation, the Darwin theory of the pro-
gressive origin of races, though in itself untenable,
does nevertheless contain an indication of the truth
that the countless unfolding of organic memberships
in the animal life goes back to great individual anti-
types, as science theoretically sets forth. For each
species, perhaps, there may have been a ground type
in the ark, out of which all varieties of the same
have proceeded. In respect to the fourth false repre-
sentation, which confounds the style of the Holy
Historj with the notarial expression of a worldly
pragmatism, we refer to the latroductioo.

On the side of the mythologizing of the Jelugl
history there are similar untenable representation!
that call for remark. 1. The apprehension in respec*
to the possibility of building the ark. It is histori
cally established that, at all times, a necessity fun
dameutally perceived, has, under the guidance of
God, brought to discovery the helps required for th«
accomplishment. Necessity learns to pray, learns t*
build, i. The difficulty of assembling such a multi-
tude of beasts in the ark. In reply to this, allusion
has been made to the instinct of animals, which, in i
presentiment of natural catastrophe, seek an asylum,
sometimes, almost in violation of their natural hab-
its. Birds, in a storm, fly to the ships ; wolves come
into the villages, etc. 3. The difficulty of the animal
provisioning. Answer: This would be of least weight
in respect to animals like those of the marmot and
badger species, whose winter torpor in the easiest
maimer keeps them through the wintry storm-period.
But the deluge, in like manner, supposes, in the
main, a slumbering, dead-like transition from the
old existence into the new. Darkness, the roaring
and rocking of the waters in so peculiar a manner,
must bring on a benumbing torpor, and, in the case
of many animals, a winter sleep, whereby the feed-
ing would be rendered unnecessary. The ground
ideas of the deluge history are as high above the
popular representations on the right, as they are be-
yond the scholastic thinking on the left. "Chey may
be regarded as something like the following : 1. At
the moment when the first human race, through the
commingling of an angel-like elevation of the Sethie
line with the demonic corruption of the Cainitic, is
ripe for judgment, there is a corresponding cat;is-
trophe, having its ground in the earth's develop-
ment, forming an echo to the creation catastrophes,
and, at the same time, imposed by God as a judgment
doom upon that human corruption. 2. The pro-
phetic spirit of a pious patriarch, in whom there is
concentrated the heart of the old world's piety, takes
into its belief not only the revelation of the impend-
ing judgment, but also the deliverance which out of
that judgment is to go forth for this world itself as
represented in his person, and in his family, whilst it
denotes thereby the progress of faith in revelation,
from the assurance of salvation in the other world
(which Enoch already had), to the confidence of sal-
vation in this. 3. The inspiring of necessity teaches
him, under the divine guidance, to build an ark,
which, in its commencement, is to be a preaching of
repentance to the cotemporaries of the builder, but
which, in its completion, is distinguished neither by
oar nor lielm, but only by its great spaciousne.»3 and
water-tight construction. 4. In this use of the ark,
as a common asylum, the instincts of the beasts act
in harmony with the prophetic presentiment of chosen
men, whilst the rest follows through God's care and
a pecuhar success. 6. The history of the flood is at.
aTraf \fj6lxevoii in the world's history, analogous to
the creation of Adam, the birth and history of Christ,
and the future history of the world's end. Even
BiTNSEN (ii. p. 63) affirms, in general, the historical-
ness of the biblical tradition.

Therefore is this unparalleled fact in the highest
degree symbolic or ideal, whilst it is, at the same
time, a typical prophecy. 1. It is a prophecy of the
deliverance of Israel as the people of God in the
passage through the Red Sea ; 2. a prophecy of th«
deliverance of the Christian church from the corrup-
tion of the world, through the washi ng of baptism
(1 Pet. iii. 21); 3. a prophecy jf the deUverauce of

?,96

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

the congregation of Christ, at the world's end, out
of the fire-flood of the world 'i judgment. The ark
ia especially reflected in tha ark of Moses, in the
ark of the covenant which w is carried through the
Jordan, in the household of the church, and in the
congregation of faith at the end of the world. Kno-
bel thinks that in the narration before us there is
to be recognized an Elohistic foundation which the
Jehovist must have elaborated, not without a con-
tradiction of its fundamental ground. Thus the de-
Bcription of the corruption, in ch. vi. 11, 12, he
Bays, doe<! not agree with the Jehovist, who repre-
sents the wickedness in human life as having com-
menced at a much earlier day. As though the origin
of evil and an incurable corruption were not two
distinct grades ! So, according to the Jehovist, it is
(as Knobel would have it) that the human life-period
after the flood sinks down to one hundred and twenty
years — an idea that rests upon a false interpreta-
tion. Moreover, it would seem not to agree with the
ground-scripture, that of many kinds of beasts Noah
took more than a pair (ch. vii. 2, 3, 8). Knobel
supposes, therefore, that the special enlargement
was a contradiction to the more general appoint-
ment. In regard to the fact itself, says Knobel :
Unanswerable are the questions, how Noah came to
expect the great flood, and was led to the building
of the ark. So also would it be incapable of an
answer, how at any time one could attain to a pro-
phetic prevision. The question he regards as still
more difficult to answer : " How he was enabled to
produce such a structure," — that is, such a great
quadrangular box. Further : " How he got the
beasts in his power ? " Experience shows, that in
extraordinary catastrophes of nature, the wildest
animals take refuge with men. Lastly : " How could
they all, together with the necessary provisioning
for a whole year, find room in the ark 'i " This
point carries us back to a primitive time, when, as
yet, the species were comparatively less divided, and
to a stormy death of nature, which intensified to its
moat extreme degree the phenomenon of the winter's
sleep ; to say nothing of the point, that to the sym-
bolical expression there is needed only tlie general
fact of the saving of the animal world, along with
man, by means of the ark. When Ebrard admits
that possibly the highest mountain-peaks may have
projected above the surface of the waters of the del-
uge, it would allow the consequence of an Alpine
fauna existing outside of the ark. The point mainly
in view is the destruction of the human race, and the
saving of the Noachian family, in the deluge. Not-
withstanding his objections, Knobel supposes an
actual ground of fact in the narration, even as an
after-piece to the great earth revolutions of the crea-
tive period (p. 78). This last point of view carries
us beyond the supposition of mere partial historical
inundations. A concussion of the earth permits the
conclusion that a displacement occurred in its conti-
nental lelations, whence there might have arisen a
deluge of a very wide character, without our having
lo assume a corresponding inundation of the whole
earth's surface. Stormy deluges do not obey the
law of standing waters. Such a deluge might have
passed over the whole inhabited part of the earth,
without making a like height of water as standing
over the whole sphere.

"The groundfi," remarks Delitzsch, "on which
the Thora (the Pentateuch) dwells so emphatically
upon tlie flood, consist in their significancy for the
history of God's kingdom in general, and the history

of the Old Testament theocracy in particular. Th«
flood is an act of deepest significance, whether re^
garded as one of judgment or of salvation. It is a
common judgment, making an incision in history so
deep and so wide, of such force and universality
that nothing can be compared with it but the final
judgment at the extreme limit of this world's history.
But the act of judgment is, at the same time, an net
of salvation. The sin-deluge is, at the same time, &
grace-deluge,* and so far a type of holy baptism
(1 Pet. iii. 21), and of life rising out of death ;
therefore it is, that old ecclesiastical art was so fond
of distinguishing chapels of burial by a representa-
tion of it. The destruction has in view the preserva
tion, the drowning has in view the purification, the
death of the human race has in view the new birth ;
the old corrupted earth is buried in the flood of
water, that out of this grave there may emerge a new
world. In this way Ararat points to Sinai. The
covenant of Elohim, which God then made with the
saved holy seed, and with the universal nature, points
to the covenant of Jehovah."

4. TJie Geological Effects of the Deluge. — In
earlier times, the traces of earth revolutions that
took place in the creative days (for example, the
mountain formations, the shells on the highest hills,
and similar phenomena) were brought forth as proofs
of .the flood. Such a mode of reasoning must now
be laid aside by those who would reconcile revela-
tion with science. Neither can the assumption be
proved, that it rained for the first time in the flood,
and that, with the change in the atmosphere, human
life suddenly sunk in its duration, nor the supposi-
tion that at that time a sudden transformation took
place in the animal world, or that new anim.ils were
originated. The following suppositions, however,
may be regarded as more or less safely entertained :
1. As the great flood denoted an epoch in the life of
humanity, so also must it have done in the life of the
earth; and through this epoch the giant-like in the
human natural powers seems to have been moder-
ated, whilst, on the contrary, the development in the
earth's hfe becomes more conformable to law. 2. The
historical indications and signs of great changes in
the earth's surface, such as volcanic mountain forma-
tions, surface transformations (Caspian Sea, and ii^land
Atlantis, for example), may be conneced, in some
special measure, with the catastrophe of the flood.
3. The flood in itself may, perhaps, have been par
tial (see F. Pfaff, " The Creative History," p. 646),
but the earth-crisis, on which it was conditioned,
must have been universal. With the opening of
the fountains of the deep stands the opening of the
windows of heaven in polar contrast. An extraor-
dinary rain-storm and fall of water over the Noachian
earth-circle, was probably conditioned by an extra-
ordinary evaporation in other regions of the globe.
This must have been followed by an extraordinary
congelation on the same side. Does the " ice-period,"
the period of the wandering boulders, stand in anj
relation to this ? As an earth-crisis, the flood wai
probably univer«ai.

EXEGETICAL AND CIlITIOA.i,

1. Noah and his House, in contrast with the Con
temporaries of Noah (ch. vi. 9-11). The hist<iry that

[♦ Lange tolls us (see p. 293), that Sundflul li id not origin-
ally menu in Gorman a sin-deJuge, hut there is no other reu«
dering that will preserve his intended contrast. — T. Xj.j

CHAP. VI. 9— Vn. 9.

291

follows is distiuguished by the name Tholedoth, or
Generations of Noah. For Noah is not only the last
of the Sethio patriarchs, as the end of the antedilu-
vian period ; he is, moreover, the first of the new,
through the patriarchal line that goes on in Shem,
aod, in this representation, is he also a type of the
future Christ, the finisher of the old, the author of
the new, world. In a typical sense, Noah is the
second ancestor of the human race, as Christ, the
Man fiom Heaven, is such in a real sense (1 Cor. xv.).
As a continuer of the old time, ^oah is virtually a
repetition of Adam ; as a begiune of the new time,
he is a type of Christ. He was a righteous man.
According to Knobel, the author (nf this account of
the flood) knew nothing of any fall of Adam. One
might deduce a like conclusion from Luke in his ac-
count of Zacharias and Elisabeth (ch. i. 6). But
evidently the righteousness here meant is that which
represents him as justified in view of the judgment
of the flood, by reason of his faith (Heb. xi. 7).
Therefore was the explanation added : he was D'^SH ,
guiltless, perfect, blameless among his cotempora-
ries who perisiied in the judgment. The ground of
this was: he walked with Grod as Enoch did. That
he begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, is here
again related, as in oh. v. 32, because in them the
continuance of a new race is secured ; with Noah,
therefore, must his family also be saved. But, more-
over, to Noah, and his house, there is formed a con-
trast in the race of his time, and in the old form of
the earth that had been corrupted by it. — Ver. 5. To
represent the wickedness of man, our text goes fur-
ther, and expresses the incurable perdition of the old
earth itself, as having been produced by it. It was
utterly corrupt, in that it was filled with wickedness,
acts of violence, and pride. But it was corrupt be-
fore the eye of God in its most manifest form, so
that its judgment was imperatively demanded. —
And God looked upon the earth, and lo. — De-
litzsoh correctly points out the contrast of these
words to ch. i. 31. " Everything stood in sharpest
contradiction with that good state which God the
creator had established." God's looking (or seeing)
denotes a final sentence. The earth was incurably
corrupt because all flesh had corrupted its way, that
is, its normal way of life, upon the comipted earth.
Herein lies the indication, that as men grew wild and
savage, the animal world also threatened to become
wild. If, however, we suppose, with DeUtzsch, an
universal corruption of the animal world, whence
could Noah have taken the good specimens for his
ark V Moreover, it cannot be concluded, from ch. ix.
i, that men, in their greediness for flesh, cut out
pieces from the yet living animaL According to
Knobel, the text denotes the beasts, inasmuch as
they originally Uved upon vegetables, but now had
partly degenerated into flesh-eaters. This, however,
would be all the same as introducing a representa-
tion into the text, just as Dehtzsch maintains, that
the eating of flesh had not yet been permitted. KeU
understands the words in question as referring gen-
erally to men only. Thereby, however, there is
loosened that organic connection of man, beast, and
earth, on which the text lays stress. More correct
is the emphasis he lays on the words " all flesh: "
humanity had become flesh (ver. 3).

2. The Announcement of the judgment, and the
Direction for ihe Building of the Ark (vers. 13-22).
— And God said to Noah. — The revelation of the
divine displeasure with the human race, which ap-
pears first, ver. 3, as a conditional and veiled threat-

ening of judgment with the granting of a space foi
repentance, and which, in its second utterance, has
already become a resolution to destroy the human
race (ver. 7), becomes here an absolute announce-
ment of approaching doom. There had, perhaps,
been previous revelations, in the form of a preaching
of repentance, made by other patriarchs (such as
Methuselah and Lamech), as they, one after the
other, left the world. These had been gradually ex-
tended in time ; but now are they all concentrated
in the one revelation made to Noah. With thia
there was, at the same time, connected the promise
that Noah and his family should be saved. As
God's acts of deliverance are connected in time with
his adH of judgment (since his judgments are ever
separations of the godly from the ungodly, and, in
this sense, salvations and deliverances), so also are
the revelations of judgment at the same time revela-
tions of deliverance, and the faith of the elect which
corresponds to them is, at the same time, both a
faith in judgment and a faith in salvation. — The end
of all flesh. — An expression which strongly conveys
the idea, that the positive judgment of God is indi-
cated through a judgment immanent in the corruption
of men. The self-abandonment in this corruption,
the clearly visible end of the same, is so fearfully de-
picted, that the positive end which God is about to
impose takes the appearance, not of a judgment
merely, but of redress. Still is the first conception
the predominant one, as appears from the expression
which tells us that God saw the end, the extreme
end of the world's corruption (Keil). — Is filled with
violence through them (Lange renders more coi -
rectly, from their faces, or, before them. Vulg.,
a facie eorum). As it is said, in immediate connec-
tion, '■^before the face of Ood" we hold if. unsatisfac-
tory here to render oniJSa from, them, or through
them. The flood of wickedness that comes up before
God's face goes out from their face ; that is, it is a
wickedness openly perpetrated ; the moral judgment,
the conscience, goes utterly out in the direct behold-
ing and approbation of evil. — I vrill destroy them
'vrith the earth. — Destruction as set against cor-
ruption (1 Cor. V. 5). The earth as such can, indeed,
suffer no penal destruction. As one with man, the
destruction becomes to it a total destruction, which
comes upon men along with their earth. And so in
the renewal of humanity must the earth also receive
a renovation of its form. — Make thee an ark. —
An indication of the mode of salvation, in which he
himself must co-operate. Baumgarten : " He must
be not only the preserved, but also the preserver."
nan , according to Delitzseh, probably (if the word
is siiemitic), from am = aist , to be hollow.* Chal-

r* The etymology of Delitzscli cannot be sustained, aj
no eucli formation can be grammatically made from SIX ,
The reasons Eodiger gives for its Egyptian origin are in-
conclusive, and if something like it existed in the old Egyp-
tian, that would not prove that it had not come into it from
the still older language of Shem and Noah. Fuerst regards
it as Shemitio, from nan , to which he gives the sense ex-
cavare, hence hollowness and capacity — cognate to the Latin
tuba, faberna. Kimchi makes it from an , but this is not it
all easy. The Word is doubtless the one used ii the time,
— a peculiar archaic term for a very unusual thing, like
bia^, the term lor the flood itself, — though afterwards
transferred to any smaller vessel. It is not likely that it
would be ever lost, or another used for it by way of trans-
lation, in any subsequent version of the tradition. It might

be conjectured to be cognate to the Syriac uS3-j , redun
davit, svpematavit (Heb. ^IIS), or the Arabic UUO ,

298

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

daic, xn^n^n, Sept. ki^mtSsj Vulg. area (other
meanings see in DelitzscbV Keil and Rodiger con-
jecture that the word i» of Egyptian origin. So
Knobel : "In Egyptian, boat is called tept.^^ It is
likewise used of the small ark in which Moses was
saved (but which in the Septuagint is rendered
SfiQis or ^L&Tj. — Of gopher-wood [Lange, resinous
Wood]. Hieronymus: liffna bUuminata* "Proba-
bly, cypress-wood." Keil ("iS£, cognate to "iSS and
KVTTdptaaos). — Rooms shalt thou make [Lange,
cells]. — Properly in cells, as cells (literally, nests —
little cabins), or cell- containing. — With pitch. —
Sept. aiT^aATrts, Yulg. bitumen. — And this is which
(what) thou shalt msike it. — " The most probable
supposition is, that the ark was built, not in the form
of a ship, but after the manner of a box, without
keel, with a flat deck, more like a four-sided moving
house than a ship, since it was destined not ibr sail-
ing, but only for floating upon thn water. Thus
regarded, the measures 300 cubits long, 50 cubits
broad, and 30 cubits high, give a ground -surface
of 15,000 cubits square, and a cubical content of
450,000 cubits solid, taking the usual measure of the
cubit (Deut. iii. 11), as the length from the elbow
to the end of the middle finger, or about 18 inch-
es." Keil. Knobel remarks: '*The building sur-
passes in magnitude the greatest ships-ot -the- line.
Its arrangement, however, according to experiments
made in Holland, would be found in harmony with
its design." In the year 1609, at Hoorn, in Holland,
the Netherlandish Menuonite, P. Jansen, produced
the model of a vessel after the pattern of the ark,
only in smaller proportions, whereby he proved, that
although it was not appropriate for a ship-model, it
was well adapted for floating, and would carry a
cargo greater by one third than any other form of
like cubical content.* See Dehtzsch, p. 250. —

elaius fuit supra aquavi, were it not that the change of
Z> for B is 60 very rare a thing in Hebrew, although they

are letters of the same organ. It may be difficult to trace
it to any Hebrew root afterwards in common use ; but that
the word is Shemitic is rendered almost certain from its
being BO constant in all the branches of that family. Thus
the Chaldaic &<n^Il"t^ (the Targum word for n^Fl), the

Arabic 5»_jlj>' -^thiopic U'l'T, and even the Maltese

lebut. The Syriac Version, instead of the old Shemitic root,

uses j ZaOl^, or | ^^g r, which is simply the Greek

ictjSwTos Gesenius regards the word as Shemitic, though he
expresses some doubt about it. — T. L.]

* [The difficulty which some have in respect to the mag-
nitude of the ark, and the greatn^-ss of the work, arises from
overlooking the extreme simplicity of its structure, the
length of time allowed, the physical constitution of the
fabricators, and the facilities for obtaining the materials,
which, it is easy to suppose, may have existed in abundance
in their near vicinity. Four men of primitive gigantic
strength, to whom the architects of Stonehenge, the raisers
of Cyclopean walls (structures found in Greece and in other
parts of Europe, which, to our modem eyes, seem almost
superhuman), the lifters and drawers uf the immense stones
of the pyramids, and the diggers of the deep granite caverns
of Upper Egypt, were junior and inferior, — four such men
Cto saynothmg now of any other probable hel^with iron
tools, simple perhaps, yet well adapted to cutting, splitting,
and hewing (see (fen. iv. 22), and surrounded by forests of
the gopher-pine, firm and durable, yet light and easy for
working— could certainly have built such an ark in much
less time than is al lowed for it in the Scripture. It is noth-
ing incredible, nothing even strange, that they should have
laid such a flooring, 300 cubits long (450 feet), and 50 wide,
and that they should have raised upon it walls and a roof 30
oubitb high,— thai they should have strengthened the whole
with wedges, spikes, and girding timbers (see the construc-
tirn 3f Ulysses' Schediu, Odys. v. 243-261),

yofxi^urw 5" apa rqvyi koI a.piJiovLiQ(riv apitiptv —

A window shalt thou make in the ark. — ^ns ,

not in the roof (Rosenmiiller and others), but a light'
opening (C^i^fiS, dual, a double light): see ch. viii
6. Baumgarten supposes that it must be regarded
as a light-opening of a cubit's breadth, extending
above the whole upper length of the ark ; Knobel
and Keil, on the contrary, suppose that the window
was fixed on the side, to the extent of a cubit, under
the ridge of the roof. Then, indeed, according to
Tuch, would only one cabin have received light, per-
haps that of Noah ; at all events, only the highest
story would have had a dim twihght. We suppose,
therefore, with Baumgarten, that it must be regarded
as a hght-opening in the deck, which was continued
through the different stories. Against the rain and
the water dashing, must this opening have been
closed in some way by means of some transparent
substance ; for which purpose a trelhs, or lattice-
work, would not have been sufficient. The expres-
sion " to a cubit," denotes also precaution. In this
view of the case, moreover, it is not easy to take
ins collectively, as is done by Gesenius and the
Syriac, and to fancy a number of light apertures,
although it might be that one light-opening in tne
deck could be divided into a number of light-open-
ings for the interior.* — The door of the ark. —

making it like a large dry-dock rather than a ship— and then
have rendered it water-tight by a copious use of the r( >sin
and bitumen that abounded in that region. "What is there
incredible in it, or even strange, we say 1 Add to this the
considerations mentioned by Lange, the feeling of necessity,
the conviction of a divine impulse, together with the in-
creased vigor that ever comes from the consciousness of a
great work, and the difBculties which at first appear so start-
ling are immediately diminished, if they do not wliolly dis-
appear.

There is more force in the objection arising from the
stowage of the ark, if we take the common estimate of the
animals. But here, again, evciything depends upon the
theory with which we start. Throughout the account the
several alls, as already remarked in the text-notes, become
universal or specific, widen or contract, according to our pre-
judgment of the universality or partiality of the flood itself.
See remarks on this in the Ilxcutsus, p. 318,

Had the narrator been more guarded and specific in his
language, it would have justly impaired his credit. It would
have been an afl'ectation of knowledge he could not have
possessed. In giving hifl divine convictions, as derived from
visions, or in any other manner, he presents them acconimg
to his conceptions as dependent on his knowledge of things
around him. Greater care in his langnaage would have
looked like distrust in himself— like an anticipation cf ca^'il,
and an attempt to get credit for accui-acy. And this is the
peculiar character of the narrative. Precise is it even to
minuteness in things that fall directly within the observa-
tions of sense; here the narrator gives us numbers, dates,
and even cubits of meaeurement ; whilst he is general, even
to the appearance of hyi)erbole, in what was beyond such
range. It is the characteristic of a truthful style,— that is,
truthfiil to the conception and the emotion. — T. L.]

* [In interpreting the expression, "to a cubit ^alt thou
finish it above, nb^iablD nS^DH n:a5< ^Nl, much de-
pends on getting the right sense of the preposition, or ad-
verb, np^'TDPTS . The Hebrew language, eo tense in other
parts of speech, rejoices in double, triple, and even quad-
ruple forms of its particles. Thus, bs upoUf by?S above,
(nbs"!3 with local n ^upward, ilP3"3P to upward, or ioahove^
ty^V'oh'Ofrom above to above. Thus, in Gen. vii. 20, I'^SS
C^S^n the waters prevailed nbi'TDbia from higher to high'
er, from the top of the mountain to the summit of the flood,
or in the other direction, as in Josh. ili. 13, 16. There is an
exactness here which is not to be disregarded : from Ihd eav«
of the ai-k up toward the lidge of its roof, thou shnlt Jtvish it
to a cubit ; that is, leaving a cubit unfinished, open, or un-
closed. There is also an emphasis in the Piel verb nSVsri ,
especially if we regard its objective pronoun as referring io
the ark itself, or the roof of the ark. Thou shalt make it
complete, all except a cubit space which was to be left. II
is not easy to uuderBtand how this vac^it cubit could be in

CHA?. VL 9 — Vn. 9.

299

Here can only be meant an entrance which was after-
wards closed, and only opened again at the end of
the flood. And since there were three stories of the
ark, the word is to be understood, perhaps, of three
entrances capable of being closed, and to which there
would have been constructed a way of access from
the outside on the outside. " Is it held that so
eolossal a structure as the ark would have been im-
practicable in this very early time ; the objection
may be met with the answer, that some of the most
gigantic structures belong to vn immemorial anti-
quity." Baumgarteo (compare also Keil, p. 93 ;
Delitzsch, p. 250). — And behold I, even I, am
bringing. — Noah must make the ark, for He, Jeho-

the Bide, or at the eave. In the other way we get the idea
which would seem to be given by Aben Ezra, that "the
roof of the ark was triangular, C?ll'''a PSITS^ID, (that is, in
its section) with a sharp top, ^^ ilI3X"|i , £ind so also its
oomei-s or angles, ITii'lSCjr'Ta, bo that it could not turn up-
side down C^Snr'''^ ^^)' whilst its door was on one side."
That is, the roof was not flat, but made by two planes, m*e
or less inclined. " To a cubit shalt thou finish it." That is,
it was to be left open (or unfinished) on the ridge, to the
breadth of a cubit extending the whole length, Thia was
the ins (Zohar), a word whose strong piiraary sense is
lighty splendor, the ligM of heaven^ or of the meridian sun ;
like the similar Arabic words, t\^ j or S-L^? . So it
was emphatically to the ark. Their light was from above.
This "in 21 showed the open sky, or heaven, through its
whole length, like a meridian line, and this suggests, and
is suggested by, that other use of the word in the dual,
07^*^^ > ^0^ noon, or the midday light (see Gen. xliii. 16.
25 ; P's. xxxvii. 6 ; Cant. i. 7, etc.), like another Arabic word,
' --O , still more closely resembling it. Its dual form in

j^'

Hebrew denotes exact division, or the no(m splendor when
it divides the day (meridieSt jae<rv)/nj3pt»'o?), or the time the
Greeks called irroidepbv ^/Mopf when the daj appears station-
ary, or evenly balanced. It may be also said that the Hebrew
dual denotes not only what includes two things, bnt likewise
what is exactly between two things. As for example, TIJ^K
D^SSn 1 Sam. xvii. 4, 23, an epithet applied to Goliath. It is
the dual of "|^3 , as though we should say, a man of belweens.
The LXX. have well rendered it 6 axojp o juecratos, and the
Vulgate, most absurdly, vir spurius. It denotes one who
comes out, as a champion, in the middle space between two
armies, like Homer's eirl irroAejuoto ye^upp, the bridge, or
ridge, of the battle. The Hebrew aud the Syriac ascribe
number to these prepositions, and to this mode of conceiv-
ing is also due the double use of "p3 , as in Gen. i, 4, "be-
tween the light and between the darkness."

The "li^S , thus regarded, was a dividing, meridional
line to the ark itself. It very probably served, also, as a
means of knowing the astronomical meridian, when the solar
light fell perpendicular, showing the noon, or the shadows
falling in the line of the ark's longitudchelped to ascertain
the course. The same information might have been ob-
tained from observing the line of stars that appeared through
it at night. In this way it may have imperfectly answered
Borne of the purposes of a dial, or chronometer, and of a
compass. Such a view will not appear extravagant, when
we bear in mind that the observation of the stars for time
porpoaes, annual and diurnal, was peculiar to the earliest
penods, and that the very names now given to the constella-
tions are lost in the most remote antiquity. The necessity
of some such guide for the year and its seasons, made these
early men more familiar with the actual aspect of the heav-
ens than many in modem times who learn astronomy solely
from books. The ^HS was evidently something different
from the ^isn, also rendered window. Gen. viii. 6. "We
need give ourselves no difficulty about the covering of the
■ins , when it rained. Noah, doubtless, found some method
for that purpose, whenever it was needed. The Vulpate
rendering of Gen. vi. 16, comes the nearest to the views
stated, although it does not exactly express them : Fenes-
trom in area udes, et in cabito consummabis smnmitattm
^na.— T. Ii]

vah, is about to bring a flood upon the earth, but at
the same time to make a covenant of salvation with
Noah, blan from ^2'^ or il3, to undulate, t«
swell — an antique word, used expressly for tha
waters of Noah (Is. liv. 9), and which, out of Gene-
sis, occurs only in Ps. xxix. 10." Keil. Therefore
Keil and Delitzsch take for its explanation the words
that follow : " waters upon the earth," regarding it
as in apposition. Enobel, again, explains it ai
meaning the flood of water, whilst Miohaelia and
others have changed c^a into D^a (from the sea)
without any ground, although in this conformation
of all collections of water to make the flood, the
co-operation of the sea comes into account. The di-
vine destination of the flood : to destroy every living
thing under the heaven. In a more particular sense:
whatever is upon the earth. The sea-animals cannot
be destroyed by water. In respect to them, more-
over, the symbolical relation in which the beasts
stand to men, does not come specially into considei
ation. — But with thee will I establish my cov
enant. — rii"l3, Sept. SiadijKr), Vulg. fcedus, in tht
New Testament, testamentum (Rom. ix. 4). The re-
ligious covenant-idea here presents itself for the first
in literal expression ; although the establishment of
God's covenant witli Noah presupposes a previous
covenant relation with Adam (Gen. ii. 15; iii. 15;
Sirach xvii. 10). In the repeated establishment of
the covenant with Noah (eh. vi. 18; viii. 21 ; ix. 9 ;
vers. 11, 16; Sirach xliv. 11), with Abraham, ch,
XV. 18; xvii. 9-14; xxii. 15 ; Ps. cv. 8-10; Sirach
xliv. 24 ; Acts iii. 25 ; vii. 8), with Isaac (ch. xxiv.
25), with Jacob (ch. xxviii. 13, 14), with Israel (Ex.
xix. 6 ; xxiv. 7 ; xxxiv. 10 ; i)eut. v. 3), there are
unfolded the different covenants, or covenant forms,
which bring into revelation the ground-idea of the
covenant between God and humanity in Adam,
whilst they are, at the same time, anticipatory repre-
sentations of that true covenant-making which is
realized in the new covenant of God with believing
humanity through Christ (Jer. xxxi. 32, 33 ; Zach.
ix. 11 ; Matt. xxvi. 28 ; 2 Cor. iii. 6 ; Heb. vi. IV,
18), and which finds in the perfected kingdom of
God its last and conclusive development (Rev. xxi).
The covenant of God with Noah, and that with Abra-
ham, form a parallel ; the first is the covenant of
compassion and forbearance made with the new hu-
manity and earth in general ; the last is the covenant
of grace and salvation made with Abraham and his
believing seed, as a more definite covenant-making
on the ground of the Noachian covenant. The pa-
triarchal covenant which, in its specialty, embraced
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. iii. 6) as the cove-
nant of promise, takes the form of a law-covenant
for Israel ; this latter is the old typical covenant in
the form of an anticipatory representation of the
new covenant, and which, therefore, as the older and
more imperfect, must give place to the new ; where-
as the covenant with ffoah and that with Abraham,
as beginnings of the covenant of faith, become one,
finally, with the new covenant of Christ, which, in
its stricter sense, embraces the children of faith aa
partakers of salvation, but, in its wider sense, tha
children of men as called to salvation. But the cov-
enant of Christ carries on the foundation covenant
made with Adam to its perfect realization in the eter-
nal covenant-life of the new world (Rev. xxi). The
revelation and recognition of the divine covenant
rests on the revelation and recognition of the fad
that God, as the absolute personality, plac^ hiuieell

300

GENESIS OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

!n a personal, ethically free, covenant-relation of love
and tnith lo man as personal, and to the human
race. That the covenant of God has its root in the
personal relation is evident from the fact that in its
different forms such covenant ever goes out from a
pei'BOn, as from Noah, Abraham, etc. Therefore it is,
that ever within the universal covenant relations, as
they widen from the centre out, there are the making
Df special covenants, such as that with Moses, with
Phineas (Numb. xxv. 13), with David. It is a con-
eequence of the etliical significance of God's cove-
nant as forming the personal foundation of the
chosen kingdom, that the assaults of the kingdom
of darkness are in like manner comprehended as
covenants or conspiracies against God (the troop of
Korah, Ps. ii. ; Ixxxiii. 6 ; Luke xxiii. 12 ; Acts iv.
27). The word ni-ia from n"a, to cut, divide, is
derived from the sacrifices of animals that are cut in
twain in the formation of a covenant ; and in this is
the pecuUar explanation of the word. Gen. xv. 10,
17. — And thou shalt come into the ark. — God
makes his covenant personally with Noah, but there
is included also his house, which lie represents as
paterfamilias, and with it the new humanity medi-
ately, as also, in a remoter sense, the animal world
that is to be preserved. "The narrator supposes
that the beasts of themselves (as is held by Jarchi
and Aben Ezra), or at the instigation of God (ac-
cording to Kimchi, Piscat.), would come into the
ark." Knobel. Rather was it through an instinctive
presentiment of catastrophe, which was, at the same
time, God's ordering and an unpulse of nature. The
collection of the provisioning is distinguished from
the gathering of the beasts, so that the ark repre-
sents a perfect economy of the Noachian household.
Noah's obedience in faith makes the conclusion of
the section (see Heb. xi. 17).

3. 2'he approach of the Flood, and the Divine
Direction to Noah for entering into the Ark (ch. vii.
1-9). And the Lord said unto Noah. — Here
Elohim appears as the covenant-God; therefore is
he named Jehovah. — Come thou into the ark. —
The signal of the approaching judgment. Enter, my
people, into thy chamber (Is. xxvi. 20) for thee have
I seen righteous / In the divine forum of the judg-
ment of the deluge, Noah is justified before God by
mcai}S of the righteousness of faith through the word
of the promise ; therefore is he saved, together with
his whole family, because his faith is imputed for
their good. — Before me (Heb. before my face)
denotes the divine sentence of justification. — In his
generation, denotes the opposite sentence of God
against that generation. — Of every clean beast —
by sevens. — This appointment is a special carrying
out of the more universal one, ch. vi. 20 ; it is, there-
fore, wholly in correspondence with the advancing
prophecy, and not in contradiction of it, as Knobel
thinks. Of the unclean beasts it says, " by two, a
male and a female ; " according to the analogy of
this expression, the number seven (as used of the
clean beasts) would denote also the number of indi-
viduals (Calvin, Delitzsch, Keil, and others), not
Beven pair (Vulgate, Aben Ezra, Miohaelis, De Wette,
Knobel). The prescription, therefore, is three pair
and one over. This one was probably destined for
% thank-offering. " The distinction between clean
and unclean beasts is not first made by Moses, but
only becomes fixed in the law as corresponding to it,
though existing long before. Its beginnings reach
back to the primitive time, and ground themselves
on an immediate conscious feeling of the human spi-

rit not yet clouded by any iin.iatural and ungodly cul-
ture, under the influence of which feeling it sees in
many beasts pictures of sin and corruption which fill
it with aversion and abhorrence." Ked. But such a
tiistinction, so grounded, might make an analogoua
division a permanent law tor Christendom. The
contrast of clean and unclean cannot, surely, have
here the Leviticiil significance. More to the purpose
would be the contrast of beasts tame and wild, — of
beasts that are utterly excluded from the society of
men, and roam about independent of them, although
this contrast is limited by the physiological concep-
tion of cleanness and uncleanness (see IJelitzsch, p.
256). The interchange of the divine names Jehovah
and F'ohim in our section makes trouble, as might
well •• inferred, for the documentary hypothesis (see
Ke. p. 94, and the opposing view of Delitzsch, p.
2t)6). — For yet seven days. — After seven days
must the flood break out ; there is appointed, there-
fore, a week for the marching into the ark- — Hain
upon the earth forty days and forty nights. —
TDiis is more widely expressed, ver. 11, where the
phenomenon of the deluge is referred back to its
original cause, the breaking up of the fountains of
the deep. — And Noah was six hundred years
old. — According to ch. v. 32, he was five hundred
years old at the beginning of his married life. The
120 years, therefore, of ch. vi. 3, go back beyond
this. — And Noah -went into the ark.— That the
members of his household went in with him, denotes
their connection with him in obedience, and in theit
fitness to be saved; with which the behavior of
Lot's sons in-law, and of his wife, forms a contrast.
That the beasts follow him into the ark, shows a
wonderful docility proceeding from their instinctive
presentiment of the catastrophe.

[Note on the Bible Idea of Covenant. — It
is a most important remark of Dr. Lange (p. 299),
that " The revelation and recognition of the Divine
Covenant rests on the revelation and recognition
of the fact that God, as the absolute personality,
places himself in a personal, ethically free, covenant-
relation of love and truth to man a.s personal, and to
the human race." It is strange, indeed, that our
philosophy should have so overlooked the glory of
this covenant-idea, whilst our more ordinary worldly
Uterature has so often treated it as a narrow dogma-
tic of an almost obsolete theology. God raised man
above the animal by endowing him with moral, ra-
tional, and religious faculties. This lifts him above
the plane of nature, and prepares him for a still
higher relation. His Creator makes a covenant with
him as being, though finite, a supernatural person-
ality. He is placed upon higher ground than that
of natural law, or natural right, as deduced from
man's relation to the universe, or what might be
called the universal nature of things. He is taken
out of this, and raised to a higher spiritual glory. No
longer an animal, however richly endowed, yet bound
in the chain of cause and effect, but under the free
law of the promise, — living not by bread alone, but
by every word that proceedeth from the Lord. Child
of dust as he is physically, God makes a covenant
with him, and thus gives him more than a natura.
right, — a legal or forensic right — ^making him a son,
an heir of glory and immortality. Man has an un-
derstanding with his Maker ; he is elevated to a
platform on which the finite and infinite personality,
the finite and infinite intelligence, converse together,
and become parties in the same voluntary, spiritiia
transaction. True it is, that in the Bible even naiu

CHAP. VL 9— Vn. 9.

301

ral law is sometimes calleil a covenant, as in Jer.
xxxiii. 20, 25, but in such cases the language is evi-
dently figurative, and derived, by way of analogy,
from the higher idea. With man it is a real cove-
nant, a convening, or coming together, of the Divine
and human mind. The transaction belongs to a
higher world. It brings in a higher class of ideas.
In nature, and natural relations, there are forces,
gravities, attractions, affinities, or, as we approach
ns department of life and sentiency (thoi'gh still na-
ture), there are appetites, instincts, susi iptibilities,
having some appearance of freedom, yet Jtill bound
fast under the fatality of cause and effect ; in the
covenant, on the other hand, there are parties, prom-
ises, agreements, oaths, conditions, imperatives, ful-
filments, forfeitures, penalties, rewards. In the ten-
dency of our modern ethics to become converted into
a system of physics — ^making all duty to consist in
the study and observance of natural law — we lose
sight of this higher glory of positive law, covenant,
or promise ; we fail to see how it is the very dignity
of the human soul, that, unlilie the animal, it can,
through faith, be in this forensic or covenant rela-
tion to the universal Lawgiver. The opposite of
this is the tendency, now so common, to place the
relations between God and man on the general basis
of " the nature of things," and to determine the hu-
man place therein as made out by science or philo-
sophy. In distinction from, if not in opposition to,
that express revelation which is itself a carrying out
of the covenant-idea. When carefully examined, the
former process will be found to be a tracing of man's
obligation to the universe, rather than to God the
free, personal, sovereign lawgiver of the universe.

The word covenant is not in the first three chap-
ters of Genesis, but the spirit of the word is there,
and the term itself is expressly predicated of the
transactions there recorded when referred to in other
parts of the Old Testament ; see Hos. vi. 7. Imme-
diately after the inspiration that made the human
creation, we find thLs language of con-vening, of mu-
tual intelligence, showing that God is now speaking
to a supernatural being, and in a style different from
that which had been used in the commands to na-
ture The expression Ti^'ia nx ^nispn Gen. vi.
18, "I will establish my covenant, "jPIX wi^AiHEE"
(literally, I will make it stand), evidently implies
something preceding that had been impaired — the
raising up of something that had fallen down. It
was the obis ri^^a of Is. xxiv. 5, or covenant of
eternity, originally made with man as an immortal
being, and itself an evidence of his designed immor-
tality; or, as it may be rendered, world-covenant,
intended to last througli the world or aeon of human-
ity ; or it may have that still higher sense of the
covenant made " before the foundations of the world "
with him who was to be the second Adam, and whose
delight, during the aeons of creation (see Prov. viii.
31), was " with the sons of men " who were to crown
it all. The remarks of that profound critic and
philosopher, Maimonides, on this expression, are
very noteworthy. He regards PCia as, from its very
form, in the construct state (like ITniS'i), and where
there is no other expressed, the word with which it
Is in regimen is obiS or D''Bb5> , being thus equiva-
lent to CBiJ ni"l3 , the covenant of eternities,
"because, before we were, he commanded that it
should stand, D'priC, and be forever with the
oghteouB."

The word Pi^a has been derived from the sense
of cutting in 6<"I2 , as Lange explains it, but there ii
another verb of cutting (n-iD) usually joined with it
making the common phrase exactly like the Homeria
opKia Taixveiv, derived, doubtless, from the same ides
of dividing the victim by whose death the covenant
was made. It is better, therefore, to derive it, ai
Maimonides seems to do, from the creative sense of
K^a. It is making anew thing in the moral and
spiritual world, as the physical creations were in the
world of matter ; and so, says this Jewish commen-
tator, insi-i3 laS' T-na, "my covenant, as it
were, my creating."

There is no religion without this idea of a person-
al covenant with a personal God, and, therefore, all
such views as those of Comte, Mill, and Spencer are,
for all moral or religious purposes, wholly atheisticaL
They acknowledge no personality in God ; they can-
not u^e the personal pronouns in speaking of him or
to him. It may, in truth, be said that all religion is
covenant, even when religion appears in its most per-
verted form. It has some appearance of being in
the very etymology of the Latin word. Cicoro
makes it from relego — religiosi ex relegendo — but a
better derivation would seem to be from religo, to
bind, bind back, — religio is a positive bond (higher
than nature) between straying, fallen man, and his
Maker. We find traces of this idea of covenant even
in the heathen religions, as in fT'ia bsa Baal berith,
mentioned Judg. viii. 33, whom the children of Is-
rael, in their apostasy, took instead of their covenant
Jehovah. It seems to characterize certain peculiar
epithets which the Greeks attached to Ztv^, their
supreme God. It was the mode they took to inti-
mate more of a personal relation between the deity
and the worshipper than was afforded by the general
or merely natural view. Or it denoted a greater
nearness of the divine in certain peculiarly sacred re-
lations which men held to each other, as though im-
parting to them a more religious sanction. Thua
Zeus JeVios, who calls specially to account for the
violation of hospitality. More closely still suggest-
ing the idea of the Hebrew covenant God, or that of
the Phoenician Baal berith, is the Greek epithet Zsi/j
ipKios, Zeus, the God of the oath, as the special pun-
isher of perjury, or violation of covenant, whether as
against himself, or as a breach of covenants mec
make with each other, as though there were a special
guilt in it, greater than that of any natur.d injustice,
or ordinary impiety. The very essential idea of the
oath itself is that of covenant, and it is, therefore,
that part of religion to which our politico-naturalists
exhibit the most deadly opposition. The same ide.1
may be traced in other epithets, such as Zeiis cTaipems,
the God who avenges treachery to friendship, ta
though the obligation of fidelity were grounded on a
special and mutual relation to something higher and
more positive than mere human likings. Similar to
this Zeos eifeVrios, the protector of the hearth. So
also Zeus kpKfio? (Jupiter Herceus), the God of the
family enclosure, or of the sacred domestic relations,
as founded on positive institution, transcending any
mere natural or individualizing rights that may ha
claimed against it. These precious ideas are akin lo
that of covenant as the everlasting ground of the
church. The divine covenant, the obis n'^'a, was
confirmed with Noah, to be transmitted bj him aa
the root of all that is most sacred in the ro.latiom
of man to God, or to his fellow-men. — T. I- ]

S02

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

DOCTunsrAi and ethioai.

1. The flood makes a division between the Adamie
antiquity and the primitive time — between the first
(throughout symbolical) and the second symbolical-
traditional primitive religion, as well as between the
anomustic and the uomistic or superstitious forms of
heathenism. In like maru"'- is there a division be-
tween the old (aiitediluviau; antiquity and the post-
diluvian or the Noachian human race. It is a type
of the hiatorical incisions, epochs, and periods that
follow.

2. The flood was indeed a sin-flood (Siinrf'lut), or
rather, a flood of judgment, and as the flrst world-
historical-judgment, it was a type of all following
judgments, aspecially of the world's last judgment.

3. The flood is a synthesis of judgment and de-
liverance, forming a type for every following synthe-
sis of judgment and deliverance, especially for the
double effect (of judgment and deliverance) of the
exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt — for the
middle point of the world's history, the cross of
Christ, and for the final deliverance brought out by
the final judgment at the world's end. To the judg-
ment by water corresponds the judgment by fire as
the higher potency of judgment ; to the baptism by
water corresponds the baptism by fire as the second
potency, or the power of baptism for salvation.
Thus the judgments are deliverances, inasmuch as
they separate the salvable from the lost, or incura-
ble ; and so the salvations are judgments, inasmuch
as they are ever connected with some separation of
this kind.

4. The universal tradition, among men, of the
great flood, and its ethical significance, stands in
connection with the universal expectation of human-
ity that at the world's end there will be a world-
judgment.

6. The flood at the same time fact and symbol.
See the previous remarks. No. 3.

6. The meaning of the name Noah. See the
Exegetical annotations. No. 1.

7. The announcement of the flood, or the whole-
some destruction, as a means of salvation from the
incurable corruption. " The end of all flesh," not
80 much a judgment of condemnation as a remedy
against it (see 1 Pet. iii. 19 ; ch. iv. 6). Thereby
does the expression: "the end of all flesh," denote
the fact that the immanent judgment of natural cor-
ruption has for its consequence the positive judg-
ment. " Wherever the carcass, there are the eagles
gathered together."

8. The right belief in the judgment is, at the same
time, a belief in the deliverance. A presentiment of
the flood and a preparation of the ark went together.

9. The plan of the ark was imparted to Noah by
God. The Spirit of God is the author of all ideal or
pattern forms of the kingdom of God. So, for ex-
ample, the tabernacle, or ark of the testimony. —
The building of the ark was not merely a means of
salvation for Noah and his race, but also a sermon
of repentance for his cotemporaries.

10. The ark was not a ship (in form), but yet it
was the primitive ship of humanity ; God's teaching
men navigation, his word of blessing upon it, and a
symbol of deliverance in all perils of the deep.

11. Noah was not only saved, but also the savior
or the mediator of the divine salvation for his house.
He was a type of Christ, the absolute mediator.

12. Noah was comprehended with his household
in the (me baptism of the flood. Already in Noah's

history there conspicuously appears the theocratic
significance of the household (Matt. x.).

13. The rehgion of revelation is alone the reffi-
gion of covenant. It alone has the idea of the <xrT»-
nant. On this grand and peculiar feature, compare
Bltchnee's " Concordance," art. Bund. But it is a
covenant religion because it is the religion of a per-
sonal God, and of his relation to personal men (se«
the Exegetical annotations, No. 2). Here we are
reminded of the covenant-theory of Cocceius. The
divine covenant is truly a divine instituting, not
merely a contract (n"'^3 "(ins he gave a covenant);
but this instituting is also a covenanting. We oblit-
erate the personal ethical relation between the personal
God and personal man^ when we obliterate the cove-
nant idea. This has special force in respect to the
sacraments of the covenant. Through them man re-
ceives the promises of God, which he appropriates
along with the obligations of the faith. This applies
to the tree of life given to Adam, to the rainbow of
Noah, to the stars of heaven as shown to Abraham,
and to circumcision, to the passover of Moses, as well
as to the Christian sacraments. When we leave out
of view the obligations of the covenant, as, for ex-
ample, that of the initiation of children in baptism, we
profane the covenant (compare Baumgakten, p. I(i9).

14. The difference between the clean and the un-
clean animals (see the Exeget. annot.). The con-
trast between the cattle and the wild beasts is not
the only thing determined, but, at the same time, the
contrast between an animally pure, and an animally
impure, physiologically-physical, disposition (see
Lange's Leben Je-iu, vol. ii. p. 662). Correctly does
Keil remark (p. 252), that the reception by pairs of
" all flesh" into the ark, may be reduced to a certain
relativity. The measure, however, of this relativity
cannot be particularly determined : for the suppo-
sition of Ebrard (p. 85), that the beasts of the field
that were upon the earth after the flood did not come
out of the ark, but were originated anew by God, has
no support in our history.

HOMILETICAI, AND PRACTICAL.

See the Exegetical notes, and the Fundamen*^
Theological Ideas. The great flood as a miraculous
sign of God : 1. In nature, as pointing back to the CTe-
ation, and forward to the end and renovation of the
world. 2. In the world of man ; pointing backward
to the fall, forward to the last apostasy. 3. In the
sphere of the divine righteous government ; a copy-
ing of the first judgment of death, a prefiguration of
the end of the world. 4. In the kingdom of grace ;
pointing backward to the first deliverance in the
first judgment, forward to the completed salvativjn
in the complete and final judgment. — The world of
that day an object of displeasure in the eyes of God.
— Noah's righteousness of faith. — Noah, standjiig
alone in the generation of his day. — In the time of
greatest corruption, there are the chosen of Go<i> —
Noah comprehended with his house. — A witness Ifor
the significance of the family in the kingdom of
God and in the Church. — The covenant of God with
Noah in its significance, and the unfolding of this
covenant. — The covenant of God with Noah a cove-
nant of salvation for himself and his house, and for
the preservation of the human race. The direction
for building the ark, or the sacred archetypes of the
kingdom of God.— "The ark in its figurative signifi
cance : 1. An image of a house consecrated te> God,

CHAP. Vn. 10-24.

SOS

I. of the Church of Christ, 3. of the Christian state.
—As the arl£ floats on in the great flood, so does the
ship of ^he Church sail on amid the storm-judgments
of the lyorld's history. — As the arii never goes under,
■iO never sinks the Church. — The ark a sermon:
1. In its own time, 2. for all times, 3. for the last
times, and especially, 4. for our times. Ham, too,
was in the ark, so also the unclean beasts (in oppo-
sition to the Donatist extravagances). — In the one
person, Noah, were both his house and his future
race delivered ; therefore is Noah a type of Christ
(b. v. 18) : " Go thou into the ark," thou and thine
house, that is, thy sons. Noah as the middle mem-
ber of the line between Enoch and Abraham (with
reference to Hcb. xi.). — The distinction between the
pure and the impure animals, or, that which is proper
for an offering to God is also proper for the enjoy-
ment of men. — How the instinct of safety brings to-
gether man and beast into the asylum of deliverance.
— Through death to life.^The judgment of God on
the first world in its still enduring efficacy : 1. as a
sign of light for the understanding of the course of
the world ; 2. as an everlasting sign of warning ;
3. as a sign of salvation full of the blessing of salva-
tion. The humanity baptized to humaneness. The
heart in the covenant of Elohim is the covenant of
Jehovah. ' Through faith is humanity saved.

Stakes, ch. vi. 9 ; The ground of Noah's piety
was grace on the side of God, ver. 8, but this was
obtained, in no way, through his chastity, as the
Papists allege, on account of which he remained five
hundred years unmarried. Grace went before all
his worlds. On his side, faith in the Messiah was the

ground of piety — faith in the God of tht promise,
and his word of promise. He proved it in foff
ways : 1. He was possessed by a holy fear, in which
he held for true the threatening of God ii} respect to
the flood, although the event was yet fiir off; 2. he
prepared the arlj according to the divine command,
although he had to contend with the ridicule of the
Cainites on account of the judgment being so long
delayed ; 'i. he preached righteousness to others
(2 Pet. ii. 5), whilst, 4. he himself walked irreproach-
ably.— Noah walks with God. — What God says to
Noah has three parts ; the first is the announcemput
of the flood, the second the command to build the
ark, the third a promise relating to the preservation
of his life.
• Lisoo : Noah's life deliverance includes in it that
of the whole human race ; to this also does the cov-
enant of God with Noah have relation in its widest
sense. — Calwer, Handhuch: Noah, with those that
belong to him, is to bring from the old into the new
world, not merely naked life, but the pure worship
of God, to which the offerings pertained. — Schroder,
V. 13 : God speaks to Noah in his relation to him as
creator and preserver. And so his covenant with
him has in view the whole human race. The whole
of creature-life is embraced in this voyage from the
old to the new world.

Calvin, ch. vii. 6 : Not without cause is the
stiitement of Noah's age repeated ; for among otlief
faults of old age, it renders men sluggish and obsti-
nate; therefore Noah's faith comes more clearly into
view, in the fact that even at sucti an age it did not
fail him.

SECOND SECTION.

The Flood and the Judgment.

Chapter TH. 10-24.

10 And it came to pass after seven days [literally, seven of days] that the waters of tlie flood

1 1 were upon the earth. In the sixth hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month,
the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep

12 broken up,' and the windows^ of heaven were opened. And the rain' [bitj, heavyrain,

13 imter, cloud-bursting] was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In the selfsame day*
entered Noah, and Shera, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife,

14 and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark. They, and every beast" after
hia kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon

15 the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And
they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of

16 life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had com- .
IV manded him ; and the Lord shut him in. And the flood was forty days upon the earth ,

18 and the waters increased and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And
the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and tb<? ark went

19 [drove here and there] upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly
upon the earth ; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered.

20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail ; and the mountains were covered

21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast,

22 and of every creeping thing that; creepeth upon the earth, and every man ; , Vll in whosf

304

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

23 nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land. And every li-ving thing
was destroyed [Lange reads na^ m Kal, and renders, Ae dcs(roy«?] which was upon the face of the
ground," both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven,
and they were destroyed from the earth ; and Noah only remained alive, and they that

24 were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and
fifty days.

I' Ter. 11.- iyp~3 , a very strong word. Sudden cleaving; used of the earthcinake or earth-cleaTing, Numb, iri
II ; Zaoh. xiv. 4. Hence the noun iiyjra , a valley, as though the Hebrews had some notion of valleys having theil
origin in fissures or violent separations' of the earth. Comp. Hah. iii. 9, 1'"1S< SiSSn ni^>13 , "Thou didst cleave th«
earth with rivers " — or floods. — T. L.]

[2 Ver. 11. — rS"lN windows, openings — general sense very clear from parallel passages, such as Is. Ix. 5 and Eccles.
xii. 3, though in the latter passage it is used metaphorically of the eyes as the windows of the body. LXX., KaTappoKToi,
Syriac, | ^ w ^ , or pourers, — T. L.]

[^ Ver. 12.— DUJy , the very great rain, that which comes down in a body, as it were. "IS^'S denotes the common rain,
except when this word is joined with it, as in Job zxxvii. 6, DllJJ "lar , and in Zach. x. 1,— when it is intensified. In
the Arabic, ,^ u^ '^ is never used for the rain, but it keeps the primary sense of magnitude, weight, density, pinguit,
crtusvs. — T. L.]

[* Ver. 13.— Dl'n DSJ3, in ipso die, in that very day. It denotes a statistical particularity, which takes thia
account entirely out of the legendary or mythical view. It is most exactly true, or it is the boldest of forgeries in everv
unit and decimal employed in its reCKonings. — T. L.]

I' Ver. 14.— ff7?"lil bsl n*nn bsV It need only be remarked that all the ans,heie and elsewhere, in

this account, are to be taken as unlimited, or as' specific, according to the view we are compelled, from other considera-
tions, to form of the universality or partiality of the fiood itself. Elsewhei-e only the nisri 2 are mentioned, as is noticed
by Dr. MuRPHT, p. 212, and there is good reason to regard it here as specifically limiting the more general word
n^n before it. Their coming to the ark by parrs was evidently supernatural, but this in no respect afiects the other

question. — T. L.] ,

[8 Ver. 23. — illl^sn ^33 bSJ . Rendered in our Version, " on the face of the ground." Rather, "on the feice
of the Adama?i,^' the word, in the chapters before, used for the inhabited territory in distinction from y^H , as in Gen.
iv. 14 ; — VTX , in that connection, being used for the wide, unknown earth, into which Caio feared he should be driven,
as a wanderer and a vagabond. The use of n^*ll< here certainly seems to imply some territorial limitation. Even
when V"lS occurs, it may be better rendered land, indefinitely, than with that idea of totality which our modem knowl-
edge makes us attach to it. See further on this in the Excursus, at the end of the account. — T. L.]

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAl.

1. T/ie Time of the Flood. — The beginning of the
flood is first determined in reference to the age of
Noah. It was in the sixth hundredth year of Noah's
life, that is, in the year when the six hundredth year
of his life would be completed. The number BOO
appears here to have a symbolical meaning, as also
the week for his going into the ark. Six is the num-
ber of toil and labor. Next there is fixed the date
of the beginning: on the seventeenth day of the
second month. According to Knobel, must this date
be reckoned from the first day of the six hundredth
year of Noah's life. For this there appears no ground
here, if we assume that the narrator had in view a
known and determined numbering of the months.
The question is this — -whether the months are to be
determitied according to the theocratic year, which
the Jews kept after the Exodus from Egypt, and
which began with Nisan in April (so that the begin-
ning of the fiood would have fallen in the month
Ijar, or May), or whether it was after the ceconomio
years' reckoning, according to which Tisri (September
and October) made the end of the year (Exod. xxiii.
16; xxxiv. 32). Rabbi Joshua, Lepsius, and others,
are for the theocratic time-reckoning. According
to this, the flood began in the month that followed
Nisan. Keil and Knobel, on the contrary, are for
the oeconomic reckoning, according to which the
uecond month would have fallen in our October or
November. " Josephus (Antiq. i. 3, 3) has in mind
the month named by the Hebrews Marhezvan, which
follows after Tisri ; so the Targum of Jonathan, as

well as Jarchi and Kimchi. The continuous incrense,
then, or swelling of the waters from the I'Zth of the
second month, to the 17th of the seventh month, a
period of five months, or 160 days, would fall in the
winter months." Knobel. Instead of this, we hoI(^
that in a cosmical catastrophe, such as the fiood ap-
pears to huve been, the regard paid to the season ol
the year becomes fallacious; and then we are not
here to think of any usual climatic events, such aa
took place in the case of the Egyptian plagues,
though miraculously effected. It appears, there-
fore, to us, to have no bearing on the case, that the
Euphrates and the Tigris fall towards the end of
May, and in August and November reach their low-
est point, or the consideration that, for the ancients,
the winter season was a mournful time of de.'olation,
etc. Knobel. It would seem from ch. viii. 22, that
the fiood broke through all the ordinary constitution
of nature. In the first place must we endeavor to
set ourselves right with respect to the connection in
the dates as given in our narration. On the 17th
day of the second month, then, came the fiood, and
it rained, from that time on, forty days and forty
nights. The consequence was the height of water
in the flood which continued for 150 days (ch. vil
24). Then began the waters to fall, and, on the 17th
day of the seventh month, the ark rested upon the
mountains of Ararat. Thus far five months have
passed. On the first day of the 1 0th month, that is,
after about eight months, the tops of the mountains
appeared. Finally, in the six hundred and first year
of Noah's age, in the first day of the first month, th«
ground was becoming dry, and on the seven-iuid-

CHAP. VII. 10-24.

305

twentieth day of the next month, it had become
wholly dry (ch. viii. 14). From the statement that
fchis ensued in the six hundred and first year of
Noah's age, it cannot follow that his birthday fell on
New Year, but only that about one year had elapsed.
The extreme end of the flood, however, was ten days
after the full year which the flood had continued.
Knobel conjectures that the flood was originally reck-
oned according to the solar year of 365 days, but
that the Hebrew narrator, reckoning by lunar years,
transposes the account to one year and eleven days
(p. 81). That would make the solar year to have
been before the Innar year, which seems to us im-
possible. It would seem to aid, to some extent, in
getting a right view of the times of the year, to bear
in mind that the dove which Noah let fly the second
time brought back a fresh olive-leaf in its mouth
(ch. viii. 11), That was probably forty days, and
fourteen days, after the first day of the tenth month,
and therefore, at all events, towards the end of the
eleventh month. If we must regard this fresh olive-
leaf as belonging to the spring season, then the be-
ginning of the flood may have well fallen eleven
months before, or in the time of May. But this con-
clusion is insecure, because the olive-leaf, in its bud-
ding, is not confined to the spring. Tor the opposite
view, Delitzsch (p. 'iST) presents something that is
ppecially worthy of notice, namely, that the observa-
tion of the earlier oeconomic reckoning of time con-
tinued among the Jews after the introduction of the
theocratic computation. If, however, the flood be-
gan with the autumnal rainy season, it must have
ceased exactly as the rainy season of the next year
commenced. In regard to the reckoning of the year,
Knobel remarks that the Hebrews reckoned it ac-
cording to lunar months, 351 days, other nations by
solar montlis, makinj; 36.'> days, — for example, the
Egyptians and the Persians, and also, in astronomi-
'"-al matters, the Chaldaeans.

In regard to the world-year of the flood, the cita-
tions of Delitzsch (p. 244) are worthy of attention.
The mythologically enlarged numbering of the Baby-
lonians, Delitzsch and others, reduce to the 2500th
year befofe Christ. In respect to the day when the
flood commenced, the Babylonian legend gives the
15th of Dasios.* This statement favors the Bible
reckoning of the year from Nlsan (that is, according
to the theocratic reckoning), not from Tisri. For a
table of the different monthly suns, see Delitzsch,
p. 246.

2. Vers. 10-16. The opening of the Flood the
Shutting up of the Ark. — All the fountains of the
great deep were broken up. — The Niphal or pas-
sive form of JJpa is to be noticed. It denotes violent
changes in the depths of the sea, or in the action of
the earth, — at all events, in the atmosphere (see the
preceding Section). Dinn , the deep of the sea,
whose fountains (Job xxxviii. 16 ; Prov, viii. 28) or
origins are conditioned by the heights and depths of
the earth itself. This fact is placed first. The rain
appears to be mentioned as a consequence. ''Simi-
lar views of water in the interior of the earth found
place among the Greeks and Romans ; from this, too,
many sought to explain the ebb and flow of the
tides." Knobel. Only, here there is expressed no
distinct view respecting the fountains of the sea-

* \p.xsio8 was the eighth month of the Bahylonian
tnd Miicedonian year. See the Table of Delitrech, p,
M6.-T, 'j.l

20

deep.* The expression, too, *' the windows of
heaven," is not to be too literally pressed. — In the
selfsame day entered Noah, etc. — That is, by the

[* " The great deep^" iHS^ Dlnn , vil. 21. Oomp. Gun.
i. 2 ; Prov. viii. 27, 28 ; Job xxxviiil 16 ; Ps. civ. 6 ; Jonah
ii. 6 ; Is. 11. 10, and other places. Sometimes iehom is
joined with D"^ , and seems to he used as synonymous with
the great sea, as in Ps. civ. 6 ; Jonah ii. 5 ; but foi the pri-
mary idea we must look to Gen. i 2. In creation, it was all
watcT, or fluid (so conceived). Afterwards the land (tho
solid) is commanded to appear, and the waters are gathered
to one place, iriK oipia , whether it means the sm-fac«
sea, or the supposed great abyss beneath. In the poetical
parts of the Bible, the conception is that of the earth (the
land or ground) as built upon the waters lying below. It
was tbe contrast to the heaven , or skies above, as in Prov.
viii. 28, Dinpi Pla"*? tlTSS '- -:53^ °^Pr"^ i:£^i<^ .
In regard to all this, it may he said, that the Bible' is reeponsi-
ble neither for Neptunian nor Plutonian theories. Pacts are
given, but they are presented according to the cnnceptiOTU
of tbe day. Water gushed from the earth, and tbe writer
describes it by saying that the foui^tains of tbe iehrrm- rabha,
the great deep, were broken up. Aside from the traditional
creative account, nothing could have been more natural tban
the idea that tbe interior earth, or the space under the earth
(whatever notions might have been had of the earth's shape
or support), was a region of water. It was a direct deduc-
tion (true or false) from the phenomena of springs and
wells,— and that, by a process strictly Baconian. After-
wai'drt, but very early, the sight of volcanoes (see Ps. civ.
32) must have given also the idea of interior fire. We know,
even yet, hardly any thing about it. Kesearches on the
surface, or shell, of the globe, have given us much curious
knowledge as to its progressive eurf ace-formation, and the
great periods which it indicates ; hut beyond this, our know-
ledge of the vast interior is about as great as that which one
who had pierced half through the shell of au egg, would, by
such means alone, have obtained of that most curious struct-
ure. Ho might conjecture that there was heat and fluid
there, but that would be all. Perhaps it is well that wo
have so little means of penetrating this vast unknown. "Wo
could not rest very securely if we knew all that was going
on insidff the earth, or had even a glimpse of the surging,
boiling, or burning, that may be taking place fen miles, or
even ten furlongs, right beneath oiu' feet. There is a tehom
rahha there, filled with something that might make a rapid
ruin of our earih, if we had nothing to trust to but the un-
known nature, and no other insurance :igainst it but our
much-lauded science. Our only secure trust is in One in
whom we believe, as having a higher than a physical purpose
in the continuance of the earth, — one who "binds the floods
from overflowing," and the fires from yet bursting forth.

This conception of the iehom. rabha is most graphically
presented G-en. xlix. 25. It is there called PSn'^ cinn
rrn. "the abyss couchant below," like a wild beast
crouching down and ready to spring upon hisi prey, just aa
in Gen. iv. 7 sin is described as Vl:"! , ready to spring upon
a man at any moment. — In the Arabian tradition the waters
are represented a? coming out of an oven (tbe vaulted interior
earth), and iis being boUing hot. See KoraUt Surat xi. 41,

^•iXJ| \U« Wwol ^L^fc lOf J "when our com-
mand went forth, then boiled the furnace." This came
trora the idea of Geysers, or hot springs, and may have had
some truth in it, since it does not detract from Scripture to
suppose that there may have been other minor facts respect-
ing the flood, preserved in other and independent accounts.
Sale says that the Arabians got this from the Jews ; and 3o
also Rcckendorf states in the Introdnction to his Hebrew
translation of the Koran, citing from the Talmud (Sanhe-
drin), but this does not hear them out, since the word nm~t .
there used, means simply the efi'ervescence or tumultuona
boiling motion which Maimonides says came from the vio-
lence of the eruption, and not from heat. It is by him, and
the Talmud, compared with the violent fermentations and
eruptions of sensuality that hrougiit on such an outbursting
flood as a fltting judgment ; and so says Rabbi Hasada, in
the passage quoted from the Sanhedrin: " They corrupted
everything (■pnri'(^3), in the boiling sensuality of their
transgression, and by the boilings of an all -destroying
water were they judged." Such a mode of interpretation is
peculiarly Rabbinical, but the fact of hot eruptions (like
those of the Icelandic geysers) may well have been, or of
hoilinK water, as the Arabian account states it.— T L.1

506

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

lame of the breaking out of the flood was the di£B-
cult embarkation accomplished — happily accom-
phshed. ilin denotes here the wild beast. All
birds, all winged creatures, Knobel takes as synony-
mous. But since the kind is named before, there
would seem to be intended a subdivision of the kind,
and that what is said relates to birds in a narrower
and in a wider sense. — As God had commanded
him, and the Lord shut him in. — Here most dis-
tinctly presents itself the contrasting relation of
these two names. Elohim gives him the prescription
in relation to the pairs of animals for the preserva-
tion of the animal world, but Jehovah, the covenant
God, shuts him in, that ia, makes sure the closing
of the ark for the whole voyage, and for the salva-
tion of his people. This inclusion was, at the same
time, an exclusion of the race devoted to death.

3. Vers. 17-24. — TTk full Development of the
Flood and its Effect, the Destruction of every Living
7%ing. And the flood was forty days upon the
earth. — The first forty days denote the fuU develop-
ment of the flood, which lifted up the ark and set it
in motion. The advance of the flood is measured by
reference to the ark. It is Ufted up ; it is driven on.
With the waves she sails, and over the high hills.
The last is said in a general acceptation, as a meas-
urement of the height of the flood by the height
of the hills. The estimate that seems to be expressed
by saying, "fifteen cubits did the waters prevail over
tlie high hills," would neither give sense if taken lit-
erally, since the high hills have very different heights,
nor could it mean that the flood was fifteen cubits
above the highest mountain on the earth. But since
now Noah could hardly have sailed directly over the
highest mountain of the earth, much less have known
the fact, we must suppose that this exact estimate
was imparted to himself, or to some later writer,
through direct revelation — to idea which is little in
harmony with the true character of a divine revela-
tion. We must, therefore, suppose that the epic-
symbolical view according to which the flood rose
high over all the mountains of the earth, became
connected with the tradition that Noah found out
the measure denoted, by some kind of reference to
the mountain on which the ark settled. Knobel:
" The representation may amount to this : since the
ark drew about fifteen cubits water, its first settling
on Ararat in the falling of the flood would give
that measure. The 150 days, within which the de-
Btructioa was accomplished, include the forty days
of storm at the beginning. According to ch. viii. 2,
the rain continued all through these 150 days. Still
must we distinguish its more moderated continuance
from the first storm of rain in the forty days." In
respect to the universality of the flood, see Keil,
whose judgment about it is similar to that of Ebrard,
whereas Delitzsch is unwilling to insist upon it as an
article of faith, especially the geographical univer-
sality (p. 260). Compare the preceding Section.

DOCTEINAIi ASD ETHICAIk

1. The threatenings of God are as certain as his
promises ; for God's word is certain. As sure, how-
ever, as is the word of God, so sure is faith in its
holy fear, its holy confidence and joy.

2 As God has provided help and deliverance for
men by means of exposed infants, or abandoned
oiphans, so also through old men, as in the case of

Abraham, Moses, Noah. The like wonders happen

in all times.

3. When the necessity is greatest, then is th«
help at the nearest, and the highest. When sin
(and the fiood) become most powerful, then grace,
and the miracles of grace, become most mighty foi
deliverance.

4. The safe embarkation of a little world in the
ark before the breaking out of the flood. A -won-
derful instinct, a still more wonderful procession, a
wonderful peace as the consequence of a wonderful
terror.

6. The animal-world in the ark, type and symbol
of the animal-world in general : the mention of man
and woman, man and wife, presents prominently the
fact that the ark was to become the point of depart-
ure for new generations.

6. Jehovah shut him in. — The innermost motive
for the salvation of every living thing is God's cove-
nant with his own. Christ is here the head and star
of history.

7. The ark, with its souls, in the waters of the
great flood (sintflut), which was at the same time a
sin-flood (siindflut), a destroying flood of wrath and
judgment ; in hke manner Moses in the ark upon the-
Nile, and Christ on the cross and in the grave. —
There are moments in which the kingdom of God
seems lost, or in the most fearful peril, and yet is
it all the more securely hidden and protected in the
truthfulness of God himself, in the everlasting love
he has for his people.

8. The terror of judgment in the flood immensely
great, and yet not equal to the terror of the last
judgment-day (1 Pet. iii. 4).

9. The waters of the flood as a symbol of the
judgment of redemption, of the baptism at the
world's end, and generally, of the passage of believers
with Christ through death to life (Ps. Ixix. 77), is to
be distinguished from the waters of the sea as the
symbol of peoples and nations, their births and rev-
olutions, as compared with the kingdom of God (Pi",
xciii; Dan. vii; Rev. xiii. 1).

10. The most fearful sorrows are measured by
comparing them with the height of water in the
flood, and the hardest days of sorrow are reckoned
as the days of the deluge.

11. The symbolic of the forty days. Four is the
number of the world, ten the number of the con-
pleted development. It therefore denotes the fulnesk
of the world-times, and of the world's judgment.

12. God's dominion as great as God himself.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAI..

See the preceding — The embarkation into th<
ark. — Jehovah's shutting in. — The measured deeps
of terror, the numbered days of trouble. — The ark as
the cradle of the new human race rocked by the bil.
lows : 1. a frail chest, an infinitely precious content;
2. fearfully threatened, securely protected ; trem-
bling in the deep abyss of waters, hfted high on the
wave of consecration. — The help of God in the floods
of distress. — The watery grave : 1. deep for the hu-
man eye ; not too deep for the eye of God. — The sea,
too, shall give up her dead. — Noah's faith ; its grand-
eur: as in contrast, 1. to the universal apostasy,
2. to the impending judgment, 8. to its once great
task and labor, 4. to the sport of the world, 5. to
the terrors of the flood, 6. to the terrors of the ani-

CHAP. Vm. 1-19.

301

mill world inclosed with him — the ark a lion's den. —
Noah in the floating ark, and Moses. Both, though
seeming lost, preserved for the greatest things.

Starke : As God suffered the waters to increase
tradually, so had the ungodly time for repentance ;
a thing which may, periiaps, have happened in the
case of many, so that the soul was saved in the de-
struction of the flesh. According to this, it would
be false what the Jews say of the men who perished
in the flood, that they have neither part in the eter-
nal life, nor in the resurrection of the dead, — a con-
clusion which they draw from an improper interpre-
tation of ch. vi. 3. It may be easily beheved that
the fish in great part died, not because the waters
were seething hot, aii the Rabbins say, but because,
with the fresh water, there mingled itself the salt,
which is contrary to the nature of many kinds of fish.

Lisco : God shut Noah in ; so was the pressure
into the ark prevented as against the godless, whilst
Noah was made safe.

GifiLACH : The clean beasts. Before their use as

food they were offered in sacrifice, devoted to God
partly because in each enjoyment thanks should be
offered to God, and partly because thereby even the
enjoyment itself becomes sanctified.

Calwer, ffandbuch : The first judgment of th"
world through water, the last through fire (2 Pet
viii 6). — So sinks the old world in its grave. Jeho
vah, the trusted, shuts him in.. So, too, watches ovei
us the shepherd of Israel, who slumbers not no/
sleepeth. — SoHRonER : There seest thou that all th«
words of God have the power of an oath (Val. Her-
berger). — A night of death reigns over a world
abandoned to its doom. Because the earth was cor-
rupt, morally, the Lord destroys it — (that is, gives it
up to physical corruption). So Luther. To say the
fountains were broken up, and the flood-gates were
opened, is a biblical mode of speech whereby is ex-
pressed the fact, that the waters were not suffered to
flow in their wonted manner (Calvin). — The Lord
preserved the ark and Noah therein as a, treasur*
(Verleb. Bibel).

THIED SECTION".

The Ark, and the Saved and Renewed Humanity.

Chapter THI. 1-19.

1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was
with him in the ark ; and God made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters

2 assuaged.' The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stop-

3 ped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. And the waters returned' from oft"
the earth continually [to go and letum, aiBi Tibn] ; and after the end of the hundred and

4 fifty days the waters were abated. And the ark rested ' in the seventh month, on the

5 seventeenth day of the month, upon the 'mountains of Ararat. And the waters de-
creased continually until the tenth month ; in the tenth month, on the first day of the

6 month, were the tops of the mountains seen. And it came to pass at the end of forty

7 days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. And he sent fortli
a raven which went to and fro ' until the waters were dried up from off the earth.

8 Also he sent forth a dove from him to see if the water.s were abated from off the face
"i of the ground [ibptl, had become light or shallow, not had disappeared, aa Lange says]. But the dove

found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the
waters were on the face of the whole earth ; then he put forth his hand, and took her,

10 and pulled her in unto him into the ark. And he stayed (injl) yet other seven days,

11 and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the dove came in to him in the
evening; and lo, in her mouth was an olive-leaf plucked off; so Noah knew that the

12 waters were abated from off the earth. And he stayed [in;? Niphal] yet other sevei.

13 days' and sent forth the dove; which returned not again to him any more. And it
came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the
month, the waters were dried up from off the earth ; and Noah removed the covering

14 of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. Aiid in the second

15 month, on the seven-and-twentieth day of the month was the earth dried. And God

16 [Elohim] spake unto Noah, saying. Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy

17 sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every hving thing that ia
with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl and of cattle, and of every creeping thing, that creep-
eth vpon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and ba fruitful and

30?^ GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

18 multiply upon the earth. And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and hia

19 sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whai'
soever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.

t» Verl,— ilSJ'^. E. V. assuaged. It differs from "iGH, to ebb or fail (as used in ver, B). ^'^'C refer* to t<M
(luieting, ot becoming calm, ofthe waters after the ebullition that followed their eruption from the earth, and the heavy prnr
ingof the water-spouts (LXX. KarappaKTat) from above. Its primary sense appears Esth. ii. 1 ; vii. 10, TlZZ^i^ ^--lan T'XiTS
the wrath of the king was calmed. So in Hiphil, Numb. xyii. 20, where it denotes the quietinff of popular commotiot.
LXX. eKOTTarre to vSu>p, and the water grew tired. The Vulgate confounds it with ^DH , imminulse sunt aguse. The Syiiu

a j»*JZZ|, **the waters rested;" the late Arabic Translation (Amer. Bib. Soa), very beautifully and significartly

■£■
Ji\j^\ icjIiXJC ; ^J^ waters became quiet. The distinction between this word and IDH is important in determininj
tlie stages of the flood. — T. L.]

[2 Yer. 3.— ^l.^'l"^ . Began to turn, or to return. It denotes the turning-point after the waters had become calm
At first this turning was very slight, and the whole decrease for 73 days (compare vers. 4 and 5) was only fifteen cubite, o.
from the L;rouucliiig of the ark, when the hills disappeared (as is evident from vii. 20), and their coming in sight again o»
the first day of the tenth month. This may be called the turn of the flood ; so that we have three stages, 1. the becora
ing cairn o{ the waters, 2. a period almost stationary, 3. the more perceptible, but still gradual subsiding expressed bj

the peculiar Hebrisw idiom -ItUI Tp?"7 • — I'* ^-1

[8 Ver. 4.— n; n"' . The ark's grounding on one of the mountains of Ararat in the very height of the flood (whether
one of the lower, or on its highest peak), is so inconsistent with the idea of the flood's having covered mountains known
to be more than two miles higher, that some have maintained that nin here must mean resting over, as though it were
suspended quietly, and remained stationary at that distance, directly above the top of Ararat. If there wei'e lo other
objection, the decisive answer to this is that the word, as it appears in evt-ry such connection, means resting tif>on, like
the lighting of a bird Thus it is followed by bs-', which cannot here be rendered over or above. Comp. Ex. x. 14 ; Numb.
X. 36 ; xi. 25, 26 ; Isaiah si. 2. There is an example of the noun thus used immediately following, ver. 9 : " and the dove
found no rest (n'13'3) for the sole of her foot," — T. L.]

[* Ver. 4. — L;"'~t^ ^^1^ hy. The subject here being in the singular, this can only be rendered, among the mount-
ains of Ararat, or upon one of the mountains of Ararat. The force of the language, if there were no other objection, is
against the idea of it.-^ having been upon that high peak of Ararat that towers so much above everything around it. The
diversity in the old Versions is also opposed to so definite and marked a view. The Vulgate has, super montes AmienisBi
LXX. eirl TO. opTf TO. 'Apapar ; Targum of Onkelos, Jl~np "^^^W 53? , upon the mountains of Kardu, or the Karduchian ;

the Syriac the same, oSj-jj ^^a4 ^>-^, as also Arabs Erpen. 0« >-Jiji U'-^-^' lV*^ • ^1^® Koranic Arabic hasit

constantly (<4^%^i » -Ad Judi. The Samaritan Version (not the Hebraico-Samaritan) has the strangest of all. It says

the ark rested on the mountains of Serendib, which is in the island of Ceylon. These various renderings are only im-
portant as shou-ing, ihat ancit-ntly the place was regarded as in a measure unlcnown and indefinite. The old translators
did not consider themselves as bound by the Hebrew L3^~li< to confine it to the peak which afterwards solely acquired
that title. The name might have been transfc rred to Armenia, or to other countries, just as the story of the flood itseli
wa-; transferred, and located i.i different parts of the earth, according to the ancestral traditions of the various migrations.
The place where the ark prounded could not^ at the time, have had a name to Noah and his sons, since, before this, there
are no geographical distinctions recognized in the Bible except Eden, the names of the Paradise rivers (if they are not
subsequent), and the land of Nod, or of the wanderer, which is clearly metaphorical. It is to be noted, that of all proper
names in the Bible, there la no one that has lees of the Shemitic form than this word l3*i*^N . As it occurs 2 Kings xix.
37 ; Jer. li. 27, it may have been a much later transfer, just as the old Pelasgi earned cei-tain names through Asia Minor,
Greece, and even Italy, or as the early sons of Gomer left traces of their ancestral name thi'ough Europe. In like mnn-
ner the names of the old ark-mountain, like the story itself, may have been transferred to different countries ; so that, il
we had nothing to ^ide us but the literal face of ihe Hebrew account, tlie direction of the ark's moving, and the place
where it rested, would be as indetei-minable, geographically, as the land of Nod. The Samaritan Strtndib would have
as good a claim to be regarded as a right translation of a"ilS , as the Armeniaof the Vulgate, and the ^areZw (or iantd)
of the Targums and the S^Tiac. The argument, however, for the region now commonly lecognized, hag a good support
in the concuiTence of the Chaldaean and Syrian traditions. — T. L.]

[» Ver. 7.— 3111"; N^^S';' ^"^T.^ ■ *' -^^dH went back and forth.'* The LXX., Vulgate, and Syriac, render it, " and
did not return," as though they had read 31!) K?^ . There can be, however, no doubt of the Hebrew text, fortified as it
is by the Targums, the Samaritan Codex, and tbo Samaritan Version. The LXX., etc., may have derived the negative
paraphrastically — the going back and forth being regarded as evidence that it did not re-enter the ark. Bochart, in hi*
MierozoHcon, vol. ii. pp. 209, 210, makes a labored attempt to reconcile them.— T. L.]

[8 Ver. 12 — " And he waiVed yet seven days." bn*'* , as here pointed, is the regular J^Tip/wi? of DH^ , whereas bn'l
Ver. 10, has the form of the Hiphil of P^n or PTI , and is so regarded by the modem commentators and lexicogrscheit
generally. From -sIH , doJuit, they get the sense of waiting anxiously, painfully. It seems strange, however, thatirher*
the connection is so precisely similar, the word should be assigned to two distinct roots, though they are of forms that
sometimes interchange senses. It is safer, therefore, to follow the Jewish authorities, who make them both from bn^ .
The first, says Rashi, is Piel ( --SS"^), as though he regarded it as equivalent to bn*^^*! (contracted into bri'i), and the
second Hithpahel (b"Eri^) or bp.'^n';' , becoming by assimilation bri'=^'^ , like N3S';' for JtSSP"^ . Aben Ezra, however,

makes the second a regular JV(j57m;, which is to bo preferred, since there Is a passive or deponent sense in, the idtaol
waiting, as is seen in the Latin mornr., demoror, prue staler ; Gi'eek, eicS^x"'**') irposSe'xojLtai. In regard to the first, it ia
easy to tiee how bri"^^ would become bfT^ (yya-hel = ya-hel), since to the ear there is hardly any perceptible difference in
the pronunciation (the sounds la, iya, and ya, being organically the same). So Eabbi Judah would read b'^b^^ , Isiiiali
xr. 2, 3 ; xvi. 7, for b">b^1' (or y/'-Ul for yyi-lil), as stated by Jona hen Gannach in his Hebrew Grammar flately edite/
to riebrew), p. 28.— T. L.i

CHAP. Vni. 1-19.

309

EXEGETICAL AND OEITICAL.

1. Stages of the Floud as taken in their Order,
i. To its highest point: 1. Seven days, the going
In to the ark ; 2. forty days of the flood-storm ;
S. one hundred and ten days, thereupon, of steady
rain, and of the steady rising of the flood — so in
general one hundred and fifty days. Threefold
grade of advance : 1. The ark is lifted up from the
ground; 2. the ark's going upon the face of the
waters ; 3. its rising fifteen cubits high above the
mountains, b. To the disappearance of the waters:
In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the
month, that is, after five months, or one hundred and
fifty days, just as the waters begin to fall, the ark
rests on Ararat. On the first day of the tenth month,
that is, after two months and about twelve days
(Knobel: seventy-two days after the settling of the
ark), the mountain-peaks project* above the surface
of the water. Alter forty days Noah opens the win-
dow aud lets fly the raven. Next goes forth the
dove. It is not directly said how long after tlie
flight of the raven was the first flight of the dove.
The second flight of the dove, however, was seven
other days after the first, and therefore it is inferred
that there wore seven days between the flight of the
raven and that of the dove ; the third flight, again,
was seven days after the second. We must either
reckon in here an unnamed portion of time, or the
tune between the flight of the raven and the flight
of the first dove must have been longer than seven
days. Hereupon follows the last section of time,
from the first day of the first month to the seven-and-
twentieth day of the following, or the period of the
fuU drying of the earth. In tlie six hundred and first
year, etc. Luther, following the Septuagint, and by
way of explanation, adds, " of Noah's age."

2. Vera. 1-4. The first Decrease of the Flood
to the Resting of the Ark upon Ararat. And God
remembered Noah and every living thing. —
God's remembering must be understood in an em-
phatic sense. God has always remembered Noah ;
but Tiow he remembers him in a special sense — that
he may accompUsh his deliverance. There comes a
turn in the flood, and the ground of it lay in the
government of God. To the rule of judgment upon
the human world, succeeds the rule of compassion
for the deliverance of Noah and humanity, as also of
the animiil-world. It is his compassion, not simply
his grace. For God remembered also the beasts.
Thus did he remember them all, as Elohim, in his
most universal relation to the earth. Had there
been a longer continuance of the flood, there would
not only have been want in the ark, but the ark
itself would have been destroyed. A wind must
Wow to disperse and dry up the flood, whilst, on the
other side, the fountains of the flood were closed.
With the shutting of the fountains of the deep, or
with the restoring of the continental tranquillity of
the earth, and of the equilibrium of the atmosphere,
there ceases also the extraordinary rain ; and be-
sides, the wuidows of heaven were closed. It is an
hiexaotness of the narration, but which gives it an

* [The Hebrew JIX*! 3 here, in Kipkal, would seem to liave
• more emphatic sense — became dUiinctly visible. It is an-
Dtber example of the remarkably optical style of this whole
narrative. The Yulgate beautifully renders it, apparuerunt
eacumina monlium. They might have projecle 1 before, but
ttow, on this day— perhaps the first clear day that afforded
Noah an oppcrtunity for taking an observation — they stood
brth as conspicuous objects, in open sight,— T, I/.]

unmistakable historic character, that the time of tht
flood's advance is given as one hundred and fifty
days, and that the point of time when the ark settles,
and when, therefore, the actual sinking of the waters
must have commenced, faUs in like manner at the
end of the one hundred aud fifty days. For Noah,
indeed, the first turning-point in the sinking of the
waters, which had commenced already before the
running out of the one hundred and fifty days, could
not have been a matter of observation. For him, the
first sure sign of the sinking of the waters was the
grounding of the ark. — And the waters returned.
— Here is the whole process prelintinarily described
— how the waters, in their undulations here ano
there, kept steadily settling more and more. Then
follows the indication of the first decrease. — ^Upon
the mountains of Ararat. — '' B"ins is the name
of a territory (2 Kings xix. SI) which is mentioned
Jer. li. 27, as a kingdom near to Minni (Arr-jenia), —
probably the middle province of the Armenian terri-
tory, which Moses of Chorene calls Arairad, Araratia.
The mountains of Ararat are, doubtless, the mount-
ain-group which rises from the plain of the Araxes
in two high peaks, the Great Ararat, 16,254 feet, and
the Leaser, about 12,000 feet, above the level of the
sea. This landing-place of the ai-k is of the highest
significance for the development of humanity, as it
is to be renewed after the flood. Armenia, the
fountain-land of the Paiadise rivers, a ' cool, airy,
well-watered, insular mountain-tract,' as it has been
called, lies in the middle of the old continent. And
so, in a special manner, does the mountain of Ara-
rat lie nearly in the middle, not only of the Great
African-Asiatic desert tract, but also of the inland or
Mediterranean waters, extending from Gibialtar to
the sea of Baikal, — at the same time occupying the
middle point in the longest line of extension of the
Caucasian race, and of the Indo-Germanic lines of
language and mythology, whilst it is also the middle
point of the greatest reach of land in the old world
as measured from the Cape of Good Hope to Behr-
ing's Straits — in fact, the most peculiar point on the
globe, from whose lieights the lines and tribes of
people, as they went forth from the sons of Noah,
might spread themselves to all the regions of the
earth (compare Von Eaumer, ' Palestine ')." Keil.
See also Delitzsch, p. 266. The Koran has wrongly
placed the landing-place of Noah on the hill Judld*
in the Kurd mountain-tract ; the Samaritan version
locates it on the moimtains of Ceylon ; the Sybilline
books in Phrygia, in the native district of Marsyas.

* [There is no evidence of any hill so called among the
Kurd mouDtains, or in any other region. In a note on the
Koran, xi. 46, Sale regards it as a corruption for Jordi, or
Giordi, but there is no trace of this in the Arabic. In
the Koran and elsewhere, wherever the Arabian tradition

appears, it Is constantly written i<t^%^' 5 ^"^^ is evi"

dently a descriptive name from OL^ , prmstanSf h&nia
fuit. It is, therefore, an epithet denoting goodness, liber-
ality ^ or mercy: i^Oy^) iJ^J*^ , the hill of Mercy, ox
mount Mercy, as we say, the cape of Good Hope. Com-
pare the Hebrew appellative, Deut. iii. 25, miSH "iil , and
especially such epitf.etg as we find in Q-en. xxii. 14,
nX"!"^ nin^ "in » Mount Jehovah Jiraeh, Mount in which
the Lord appears. On Al-jude, see Herbelot, Bil). Oriew,
375. A. He calls it Ginuda, and finds a difficulty in locatrng
it, but conjectures it to be near a village called Thamanin^
from the eight persons saved i:i the ark, as ie si'pposed.-
T. L.]

310

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

The Hindoo story of the flood names the Himalaya,
the Greek Pamassua, aa the landing-place of the de-
liTered ancestor." KnobeL Delitzsch and Keil agree
hi the supposition of the Armenian highlands.

3. Vers. 5-12. The time of the Signs of Ddiver-
ance^ and of the increasing Hope^ from the first De-
crease wntil the Disappearance of the Flood. The
first sign of deliverance was the resting of the ark
upon Ararat. Now it continues still until the first
day of the tenth month (Tammuz), or from seventy
to seventy-three days, when there appears the second
sign : the peaks of the Armenian highlands hecome
visible ; at all events, the ark, on their summit, had
become free from the influence of the water. Noah,
however, is not satisfied, until after forty days more,
that the flood will not return; and then he opens the
window Cllin) of the sky-Hght (^fiS). Fresh light
and air awaken, or rather gradually reanimate, the
torpid animal-world, and Noah's longing desire sends
^forth the raven through the opened window. (It is
to be remarked that the ark had only one male ra-
ven, because from the unclean animals there was
taken but one pair. From the staying out or return-
ing of the raven Noah might, at all events, draw
inferences ; but this bird is noted for his appetite,
that which makes all life in the ark strive for free-
dom. The raven, therefore, may be first ventured
on this craving flight, since he can find food from
the dead bodies left by the fiood upon the moun-
tains. " In the ancient world, the raven was regard-
ed as a prophetic bird, and was therefore held sacred
to ApoUo. Something of this appears (1 Kings xvii.
4, 6) in his connection with the prophet Elias. He
was thus esteemed among the Arabians, who as-
sumed to understand the voice and flight of the
birds. Especially was he regarded as a prophet of
the weather, as inferred from his flight and cry.
Phny describes him as a wild and forgetful bird,*

• [This is rather from Servius, in his Note on Virg. Gear-
gic. lib. i. 410, and who incorrectly ascribes it to Pliny. See
Bochart, Hieroz. ii. 207. B. The idea, however, may have
come from the tradition of the raven's not returning to
the arlc, as the story is told in other accounts than that of
the Hebrew. There was another wide-spread ancient be-
lief respecting: him, which is given by Pliny, x. 12, by
Aristotle, Hist. Nat. ix. 31, and mentioned by the Rab-
bins, as well as the Christian Fathers, that this bird is
cruel to its young, and early ejects them from the nest
before they are prepared to gather food for themselves.
"Whether true or false, it seems to have furnished the ground
for one of the most touching illustrations of the divine
care for the helpless to be found in the Scriptures. See Ps.
cxlvii. 9, " who giveth to the young ravens when they
cry," Job xxxviii. 41, " who provideth for the raven his
food, when his young ones cry unto G-od, they wander for
lack of meat." The Arabians had the same tradition, and
employ it in a similar illustration of the divine compafsion,
givmg it in almost the very words of the Hebrew. Thus in
averse to be found in Hariri, Seance xiii. p. 151 (DeSacy ed.),

y;_,'i> f

oOIJt

^i';

" O Thou that providest for the young raven in his neet."
On which the Scholiast makes a very singular comment:
*' When the young raven," he says, " or the naahu, breaks
the egg, it comes out white, -which so friuhtens the part-nts
that they fly far away ; for the raven is the most timid and
cautions of birds. When this takes place Alla.h seads to It
the flies that fall into the nest. And so it lives for forty
days, until its feathers are grown, and it becomes black,
■when the parents again return to it,'! etc. The truth or
falsehood of such a belief, or of the fact of abandonment in
any way, does not afEect the force or beauty of the illustra-
tion drawn from it. Our Saviour most tenderly makes
use of it, Lute xii. 24. On the prophetic powers, or the
weather -foretelling powers, of the raven, see the striking
passage, Virg. Seorgtc. i. 410, and the philosophic explana-

who forgets to come back to his nest. And so hi
came not back to the ark ; but Noah could know
from this that the earth was no longer wholly cov-
ered with water." Knobel. We may refer here to
the two ravens on the shoulders of Odin. WithoU
returning into the ark, he flew here and there be^
tween the ark (to which he was bound by fear and
sympathy, the attraction of his mate perhaps, and
on the outside of which he could rest) and the
emerging mountain-tops, where he found food and
freedom. — And he sent forth the dove. — The
raven lights everywhere ; therefore his remaining,
out furnishes no proof of the drying of the lower
places. But the dove hghts upon the plains, and
not in the slime and marsh ; therefore does its flying
abroad give information whether or no the plains
are dry. The Septuagiut translates iriNia by 6iri<r»
avTov, the Vulgate, post eum, Luther correctly, /rom
himself. (So the English translation, /roTn him.) It
is perhaps indicated that he had to drive it from
him. The time of sending away is reckoned by
Baumgarteu, Knobel, and others (after Aben Ezra
and Kimchi), as being seven days after the sending
of the raven; because it is said, ver. 10, he waited
other seven days. The delicate dove finds no place
fit for her lighting, because all the lower lands are
yet covered, and so she turns back. And Noah
drew her back again into the ark. The question
may be asked : Since the top of Ararat was free
from water, why did not Noah go out with the
beasts? It is, however, a truthful characteristic
that he did no such thing ; since a hasty disturbance
of the beasts might have yet brought the whole in
danger of destruction. But the second sending
forth of the dove, after seven other days, brings to
him the fourth and fairest sign of deliverance : the
dove returns with a fresh olive-leaf in its mouth.
■'bn^l int. Niphil fvora b^n,* to be in trouble, to
wait painfully and longingly." Delitzsch. '* The
olive-tree has green leaves all the year through, and
appears to endure the water, since Theophrastus,
Hist Plant. 48, and Flint, Bi^t. Nat. 13, 50, give

tion the poet there attempts to give of the animal signs of
the weather in general.

It might be a question worth studying : how far the
whole science of bird-divination, so prevalent in the an-
cient world, may have had its origin, like that of other
perverted belieis, in the use Noah made of the raven and
the dove in determining {divining, we might say) the natu-
ral signs of safety for himself and the ark, and so the
gracious signs of the divine mercy and promise. So preva-
lent was the belief and the practice, that oturds (.bird) in
Greek becomes a name for omen, or fortune, good or bad.
So the liatin auspicium {avispicium.) — our words auspice^
auspicious., though the latter is generally taken in a favor-
able sense. The Hebrew words pIS, part. "SiS'lS, (de-
noting divination by clouds,) as used Lev. xix. 26,* Deut,
xviii. 10, et al., show the prevalenco of a precisely eimilai
superstition, and furnish some proof of such an origin, in
the perversion of what were originally holy and believing
acts. Just so they perverted the memory of the brazen
serpent Tbere may, however, have been another, or a
concurrent, ground of these bird-divining practices of the
Greeks and Romans, in a primitive notion that the inhitb-
itants of the aii" (the birds of heaven, :ib Scripture calli
them) were nearer to the divine, or that from their super-
earthly position they may have had a superhuman sight
and knowledge of things on the earth. Comp. Jcb Tsviii,
7, "a path which no fowl knoweth, which the eagle's cy«
hath not seen." Also ver. 21, where of the mystercua
wisdom it is said : *' it is hid from the eyes of all livii g,
and concealed from the birds of the heavens" — a poetical
mode of saying, it is beyond all human divining, or human
investigation.— T. L.l

* [See remarks on this derivation in the textual notat,
No. 6, page 308— .T. I*.] •

CHAP. Vm. 1-19.

311

kn account of olive trees In the Red Sea. It comes
early in Armenia (Strabo), thougli not on the heights
of Ararat, but lower down, below the walnut, mul-
berry, and apricot tree, in the valleys on the south
side (RiTTEK, "Geography," 10. p. 920). The dove
must, therefore, have made a wide flight in search of
the plains, and on this account have just returned
at evening time. This olive-leaf, — which was not
something picked up on a mountaiu-pealt, where it
might have been floated by the water, but (1)^0)
something torn off, and, therefore, fresh pluclced
from the tree, — taught Noah what was the state of
things in the earth below. It was the more fitting
here, since the olive-branch was an emblem of peace
(2 Maoc. xiv. 4 ; Dion., Halic, Virg., Liv.), and yet
ID the text it is not an olive-branch (Symm , Vulg.),
but only an olive-leaf." Knobel. — The sign gave
intelligence that at least the lower olive-trees, in the
lower ground, were above the water ; the olive-leaf,
moreover, in the mouth of the dove, was a fair sign
of promise. — Tet seven other days. — This time
the dove returns no more. The attraction of free-
dom and the new life outweighs the desire to return ;
in which it is presupposed that it is an attraction
which the others will follow. " The dove is found also
in the classical myths. According to Plutarch (Be
Solert. Animal. 13), Deucalion had a dove in the
ark, which indicated bad weather by its return, and
good weather by its onward flight." Knobel. It
was, in Hke manner, a prophetic bird at Dodona, ac-
cording to Herodotus and others ; and the ancients
were also acquainted with its use as a letter-carrier,
according to Jjlhan and Pliny. On the significance
of the dove in the New Testament, see the account
of the baptism of Jesus. — In the six hundred
and first year. — This reckoning completes the old
life of Noah. His seventh hundred is the beginning
of his sabbath-time. — In the first month, in the
first day, etc. — This date looks back to the be-
ginning of the flood, in the second month of the
previous year, on the seventeenth day. Now Noah
removes the covering of the ark, and takes a free
look around and upon the new earth. The waters,
no longer flowing back, were evaporating from the
earth, and the ground was in the process of becoming
dry. Yet still he waited a month and twenty-seven
days, that he might not too hastily expose to injury
the living semiuarium of the ark, the precious seed
of the new life that had been entrusted to his care.
But he waited only for the clear direction. — And
Noah removed the covering of the ark. —
nOsa . Because this word is used elsewhere only of
a covering made of leather and skins with which they
covered the holy vessels on the march (Numb. iv. 8,
12), and of the third and fourth covering of the ark
of the testunony (Exod. xxvi. 14, etc.), it does not
follow, as Knobel supposes, that the author had in
view a similar covering. The deck of an ark on
which the rain-storms spent their force, must surely
have been of as great stability as the ark itself. —
And God (Elohim) spake to Noah. — It is Elohim,
because this revelation belongs to the universal rela-
tion of God to the earth. " The time of the flood,
iscording to verse 14, amounted to twelve months
and eleven days, that is, three hundred and sixty-
five days, or a full solar year ; consequently in the
course of one full circuit of the natural change or
period (fljia), does the earth become destroyed and
renewed. In the fact that Noah might not leave the
irk from his own free, arbitrary will, there is ex-

pressed his preservation of the seal of the divm*
counsel, and of the divine work." Baumgarteu
New blessings upon the creatures, similar to thoa«
which were pronounced at the creation, are connect
ed with liis going forth at the divine command; it is
the beginning of a new world. "As in creation the
beasts were blessed before man, so is it here.''
Baumgarten. In the beasts going out of the ark in
pairs there is given to us a clear idea of the stability
of the new order in nature, and of the security for
its continuance.

[Note on the Week, Ajin on the Seventh Day
Observance in the Ark. — " And he waited seven
days," ver. 10. "And he waited seven other days.'"
Dr. Lange gives little attention to the important
question connected with this language, as he passes
over, with a very few remarks, the whole question of
the sabbath in Gen. i. There is certainly indicated
here a sevenfold division of days, as already recog-
nized, whatever may be its reasons. Of these, no one
seems more easy and natural than that which refers it
to the traditionary remembrance of the creation, and
its seventh day of rest, although some of those who
claim to be " the higher school of criticism " reject it.
Had such a reference to a sevenfold division been
found in some ancient Hindoo or Persian book, and
along with it, or in a similar writing closely connecied
with it, an account of a hexameral creation with its
succeeding day of rest, they would doubtless have
discovered a, connection between the ideas. But
here they do not hesitate to violate their own famous
canon, that " the Bible is to be interpreted like any
othSr ancient writings," Now it may be regarded
as well settled that such a division of time existed
universally among the Shemitic and other Oriental
peoples. (See this clearly shown in the article
Week, in Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible.") It is
a fact, too, well established, that a similar division
existed among the Egyptians, as is particularly
stated, with the names given .to the days of the
week, by Dion. Cassids (Hi^t. Rom. xxxvii. 18).
They are the names of the seven celestial bodies,
and yet there are no astronomical phenomena that
could of themselves have given rise to it. It is evi-
dently an after-thought. The things named must
have been known before, and when the original
reason of the division was lost, the planetary series
was adapted to it, although it had to be taken in an
irregular and disproportioned manner. This was to
give it mystery and interest, and to accommodate it
to the astrological superstition, which early came in,
of lucky and unlucky days. The same names came
into the Roman (ecclesiastical) and Saxon calendars.
They could not so readily have found place, had
there not been some previous ground in the Occi-
dental heathen ideas (Roman and Scandinavian),
although they do not appear in classical literature.

But how shall such a division be explained ? The
reference to the lunar phases seems plausible, but
will not bear close examination. It is true that a
lunation (about twenty-nine and one-half days) is
approxunately divisible into four parts, of nearly
seven days each, but the beginnings and endings,,
especially of the second and fourth quarteis, are so
obscure, and incapable of easy determination, that
it could never have been adjusted with the required
practical precision to any settled weekly reckoning
of definite days. Besides, in that case, the week
would have had its series commence and end with
the divisions of the lunation. But we find nowhera
any such reckoning. The week has no reference t»

312

GENESIS, OK 1 HE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

the month. Such a day, of such a month, ia in all
calendars, but first or second week, of such a laonth,
is nowhere found. Again, there were adjustments of
the months to the solar year by admitted inequalities
and intercalations, but there is no trace anywhere of
any such attempts to regulate the days of the week
with reference to the month. A seventh portion of
time computed from an ever-shifting beginning
would have been of no use, or would only have in-
troduced confusion. The week, therefore, must
have had, and did have, its reckoning from some
point entirely independent of any annual, monthly,
or even astronomical calculus. It must, too, have
been from some remote period, fixed In itself (or
Bupposed to be so fixed), just as we reckon our weeks
from the day of Christ's resurrection, in a series
continuing steadily on, though there has been, since
then, repeated rectifications of the month (or moons),
and even a change of style in respect to the year.
The weekly series has been unbroken.

The Jewish reckoning of the seven days, and of
the sabbath, we know, was thus independent. In
Exod. xvi. 23, we find the particular sabbath there
mentioned as coming on the sixteenth day of the
second month (the day after they came to the Wil-
derness of Sin), and on the twenty-third following,
as reckoned without reference to any monthly or
annual beginning. It comes on such a day, but
computed by itself, and seems to have been thus
known as something dating from some ancient, re-
mote period, and kept in remembrance even during
the ignorance and debasement of a servile bondage.
It must have come by tradition from their patriarch-
al ancestors, and was probably the same seventh
day which was recognized by the Egyptians (their
day of Saturn, Remphan, Hebrew "|!|'3 , Arabic

..iIIaj; ^^6 Amos T. 26, Septuagint version, and

Acts vii. 43), although with them the observance
may have lost its original idea and reason, and be-
come wholly idolatrous or superstitious. Therefore
does Moses tell the Jews to remember, and keep it
holy, calling back their minds to the primitive
ground of its institution. So Kimchi and Aben
Ezra, in their comment on Amos v. 26, say " that
"I'S [Kiyun) is the same with "iriaiZJ, Shabhatai
(Saturn, or the sabbath-god), for they made to him
an image, wliilst another interpretation makes it to be
^naa; ZSis , the star of Saturn, and so is he called
IXT'S , Khivan, in the tongue of the Arabians and
the Persians." In the earliest Egyptian mythology,
as in the most ancient Greek derived from it, the
dynasty of Saturn (K.p6vos=zxp6vos, time), or the old
creative, generative power, was before that of Zeis,
the light, or the Sun ; that is, his day (dies Saturni)
was before the dies Soils, or, svM-day, the primitive
dies Jovis.* So does the darkened mirror of heathen-
Ism give to all these early things both a pantheistic
and a polytheistic hue. The Hebrew revelation alone
preserves them truthful, pure, and holy. The silence
of the Scriptures in respect to the pati-iarchal ob-
servance of tlie sabbath, rehgiously or otherwise
(unless this that is said of Noah be an exception),
fiimishes no answer to the strong inference to be
derived from Exod. xvi. and xx. See remarks on
this in Note on the Sabbath, page 197.

* [This name was also given to Thursday, as ruled by
the jtlanet Jupiter, hut in the most ancient mythology it
cuuBt have come directly after Saturn, as dies fciolis. — T. L.j

The more we examine these acts of Noah, the
more it will strike us that they must have been of s
religious nature. He did not take such observations,
and so send out the birds, as mere arbitrary acts,
prompted simply by his curio.sity or his impatielice,
God liad " shut him in," and as a man of faith and
prayer he Ifoks for the divine directions in deter-
mining the times of waiting. Every opening, there-
fore, of the ark, and every sending forth of the
birds, may be regarded as having been accompanied
or preceded by a divine consultation. He " inquired
of the Lord," as the Scripture records other holy
men as having done. What more likely, then, than
that such inquiry should have its basis in solemn re-
ligious exercises, not arbitrarily entered into, but on
days held sacred for prayer and religious rest
When this was done, then the other, or more human
means of inquiry that were in accordance with it,
would be resorted to. In this point of view, the
sending forth of the raven and the dove may be rev-
erently regarded as divine auspications. (See re-
marks in margmal note, p. 310.) They immediately
followed such stated religious exercises, and hence
his periods of waiting would, in the most natural
and appropriate manner, be regulated by them. On
any other view, his proceedings would seem wholly
reasonless and arbitrary. The idea gives an interest
to the fife of this lonely, "righteous man," duiing
his long sojourn in the ark. He did not forget God,
nor God's ancient hallowing of a certain day in
sevi'U, and, therefore, is there the stronger empha.«is
in what is said ver. 1, that " the Lord remembered
Noah." See Lange's most striking and beautiful
remarks on this expression, p. 309.

There must be reasons for such a seven-days'
waiting, and what more natural and consistent ones
could there be than those here stated ? It amounts
to nothing to say that seven is a sacred or mystic
number. How came it to be such ? Though after-
wards thus used in Scripture, tliere could have been
nothii.g of this sacredness at that early day, unless
it had come from the still earlier account of the cre-
ation. It must have been founded on some great
fact ; for, of all the elementary numbers, si'ven may
be said to have the least of any mathematical or
merely numerical interest, such as gave rise to pecu-
liar speculations in the earliest thinking. There
was a mystery about the number one, as the foun-
taiu of the infinite numerical series, or as represent-
ing a point, the principium of all magnitude. Two
had an interest as representing the line, and a^< the
root of that most regular of all series, the binary
powers, lliree was the binding of unity and dual-
ity, and represented the triangle, the simplest or
most elementary plane figure in space. Four (the
letraclys of Pythagoras) represented the tetraedron,
or the most elementary solid. Five was the number
of the fingers on the hand, and thus became the
origin of the universal decimal notation. Six was
the double triad, and so on. But it is not easy to
lind any such mathematical or numerical peculiarity
in seven that could have drawn special attention to
it, as having, in itself, anything mystical or occult.
It is not a square, nor a power of any kind ; it is not
what is called an oblong number, or one that can be
divided into factors. It represents no figure that,
like the hexagon or pentagon, can be geometricallj
prod) ced. Its sacredness, or mystery, therefore,
could only have arisen from some great historical
truth, or institution, supposed to have been con-
nectel with it; and if we "interpret the Hebrew

CHAP. Vm. 1-19.

313

books like other ancient writings," thia origin could
have been no other than a belief in the great events
mentioned Gen. i., as laying the foundation for all
Bubsequeut veneration of the hebdomadal number
and period. — T. L.]

DOCTEINAIi AlTD ETHICAL.

1. The great turning. As the first half of the
flood pictures especially the judgment of death, so
the second half presents the redemption from judg-
ment, as it goes forth in its gradual development,
with its redemptive and anticipatory signs.

2. God remembered Noah. Everything (every
affliction of the pious) endures its time ; the good-
ness of God endureth forever. God's remembering
in a special sense. His righteousness makes a spe-
cial knowledge, and a special beholding, inside of his
general omniscience and omnipotence ; so his mercy
and his compassion make a special remembrance
within liis consciousness, wherein there are known to
him all his works from the beginning. That is, God
is a living, personal God, showing himself to be such
ill his government, and in his revelation which makes
joyful again the believers in his grace, after they had
been exposed to temptation. Each deliverance, each
help, especially each experience of salvation, rests
upon a remembrance of God. God's remembrance of
man and man's remembrance of God meet each other,
as eye meets eye, in the actual manifestation of sav-
ing acts. The compassion of God embraced also the
animal-world, but conditions itself through the grace
that embraces believing men.

3. As the spirit of God moved over the waters at
the beginning of creation, so goes forth here, over
the floods of the deluge, the wind that saved, as an
emblem of the same divine spirit. It was a wind of
life — a vernal wind — for the new earth.

4. As the fountains of the deep were broken up
before the windows of heaven were opened, so also
were they closed before them. In order that the
rain might cease at Ararat, it was necessary that be-
fore this the evaporation in the opposite regions of
the earth should have come to an end.

5. Ararat. The home of Adam, the home of
Noah. Our first home the heights of Paradise, our
second home the salvation hills of Ararat, our third
home Golgotha, our everlasting home the highest
heavens.

6. The salvation is unfolded gradually, and an-
nounced in a gradual series of saving signs : 1. The
restmg of the ark ; 2. the appearance of the mount-
ain-tops ; 3. the flying forth of the raven ; 4. the
olive-leaf of the dove ; 5. the dove's not returning.
Thus it is that the time of deliverance is a time of
patience, and of alternate desire and hope. " Blessed
inhope"(Rom. viii.).

7. The raven and the dove. The sympathy and
the co-operation of the beasts in the kingdom of God.
The unity of the raven and the dove, and at the
same time their contrast, denotes the community of
creaturely interests, as well as the contrast between
the interests of the creature generally, and the king-
dom of God in particular ; for the raven is a figure of
the universal life, the dove an emblem of the church.

8. The signs of hope increase from seven to seven
days — an indication of the idea of the Sabbath and
of Sunday

9. " The fresh leaf from the olive-tree is the first
lign of life from the buried es'^ Ih. A significant sign :

for the oil, as a gentle yet penetrating substance, ii
the symbol of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Tliis
is brought by that purest bird of the heavens, which
even among the heathen is held sacred (see Herod.
2. 55). The green olive-leaf in the mouth of the
dove is a sign that the earth is not merely laid
waste (we may rather say purified), but also conse-
crated by the waters." Baumgarten. . And yet we
must distinguish between the symbolic siguificane*
of the oil, of the olive-tree, and of the olive-leaf
The oil denotes the spirit, the olive-tree (Zach iv.
11-14; Rev. xi. 3, 4) denotes spiritual men, the holy
Israel ; and in correspondence with this the olive-
branch denotes the partakers of the spirit (Rom. xi.),
the blossoms of the spirit, the signs of love and
peace.

10. " If we take the human race and the earth at
a totaUty, the flood is the dividing of the old from the
new. The old earth, witli the humanity that had be-
come flesh, the apx<»'"s xSai^as,* is destroyed, but
even this destruction is the preservation of the right-
eous man, of Noah, in that he is deUvered from the
corruptive community of the flesh. On this account
is it said, 1 Pet. iii. 20, ' eight souls were saved by
water,' and even there (ver. 21), the tiood is named
a type of baptism. The water of tlie flood is, there-
fore, the baptismal water of the earth, which drowns
the old whilst it preserves and quickens the new.
This view of the flood, moreover, has passed over
into the consciousness of the Church. In the prayer
for the consecration of the baptismal water in the
Sacrameniarium Gregorianum it is said : Deus qui
nocentis rnundi erimina per aquas abluens, etc."
Baumgarten.

11. As baptism makes a distinction between the
old and the new man, so did the flood nnake a distinc-
tion between the old and the new humanity, which
were, therefore, types on both sides. So did the Red
Sea divide the children of Israel from the Egyptians,
who were drowned in the same (1 Cor. x. 2).

12. As Noah went into the ark at the command
of God, so also must he, at the same command, go
out. That he was in no perturbation, did not wil-
fully and hastily go forth from the ark, is a sign that
we must not anticipate the hour of God's help, nor
throw ourselves hastily out of the ark of the church
in sectarian impatience, but wait the Lord's time in
which to go out of the ark into a new world.

13. The renewal of the blessing of propagation
upon the creature is a confirmation of the first bless-
ing (Gen. i.), a repeated expression of God's good-
ness, and of his complacency in life. Contrast ae
against dualism and a sickly asceticism.

HOMTLBTICAL AND PEACTICAL.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical. The figures of
the coming salvation. 1. The resting of the ark, the
firmly grounded church ; 2. the emerging of the
mountain-tops, the mountains of God as the sign of
heaven; S. the flight of the dove, "the longing of
the creature;" 4. the dove with the olive -leaf, thj
spirit of life, with the announcement of peace;
5. the remaining out of the dove and the opening of

* [This word koctiuos, 'as used by Peter, does not necesBa-
rily denote the earth as a whole. It means a former stat€
of things as distinguished from the present. As employed,
it has the same generality, and tne same limitation, a4
o'lKov^ievri, when used for the inhabited world, real or sup
posed.— T. IJ.

314

GENESIS, OK THE FIKST BOOK OF MOSES.

the ark, the free intercourse between the church and
the consecrated world ; 6. the going forth from the
ark, the passing over of the church into the new
world.

Starke : It is certain that God had not forgotten
Noah ; but the Scripture is wont to speak after the
manner of men, namely, as man, sometimes, repre-
sents to himself God as speaking. According to this,
God's remembrance denotes the revelation of his
gracious will and pleasure, according to which he re-
Teals to the wretched that help which before was
hidden (Hieronymus). A life of faith is the most
difficult of all, — such a life as Noah and his sons
must have lived, who could only cling to the hope
of aid from heaven, since the earth was covered with
water, so as to give them no ground of trust. It
was, therefore, no vain word when the Holy Spirit
Bays that " God remembered Noah." For it shows
that from the day in which he first went into the ark,
God had not spoken to him, nor made to him any
revelation. He could see no ray of the divine mercy,
but must sustain himself alone upon the promise he
had received, whilst, in the meantime, the waters of
death are raging all around him, as though God had
indeed forgotten him (Luther). The leaf represents
the gospel, for oil denotes compassion and peace, of
which the gospel teaches. — Bibl. Wirt: "0, my
Christian friei)d, hast thou been a long time confined
in a wearisome ark, whether it be of some difficult
calling, or some painful state ; ask not counsel of the
charmer, but wait with patience until God, through
righteous means, shall bring thee help therefrom."

Gkrlach : God does, indeed, remember all his
works, in all times, and in every way, but the prayer
"remember me" (Ps. xxv. 7 ; Luke xxiii. 42) goes
forth from the image of God in man ; and by reason
of this we have no rest until we can rejoice in all the
attributes of God through an inward, personal com-
munion with him. The word here denotes the trials
of Noah, when God hid himself, and the enjojTnent
of his gracious favor, when he again reveals himself.

Caiwer Handbnch : The ohve-leaf has been ever
held as a symbol of peace.

ScHRODEK : God had exercised Noah's faith and
patience (Calvin), What is said of the raven, Luther
makes to correspond, allegorically, with the office of
the law. [" In the blackness of the raven is a sign of
Borrow, and its voice is unlovely. So, therefore, are
all preachers of the law who teach the righteousness
of works ; they are ministers of death and sin, as
Paul names the ministry of the law (2 Cor. iii. 6 ;
Rom. vii. 10). Nevertheless, Moses was sent out
with this doctrine even as Noah sent forth the raven.
And yet such teachers are nothing else than ravens
that fly round the ark, bringing no certain sign that
God is reconciled. But what Moses says of the dove
is a very lovely figure of the gospel"]

[excuesits on the partial extent op the
Flood, as deduced trom the very face of the
Hebrew text.*— This account of the flood fur-
nishes a happy illustration of what may be called
the subjective truthfulness of the Scripture narra-
tives. There is meant by this that the language is
% perfect representation of an actual, conceptual, and

* [Tho great importance of the question, and thefkot that
Dr. LanBe foils to give a decided view, form the plea for the
length of this Excursus. Delitzsch also seems undecided,
though he presents some views strongly &voraUe to the
theory of limitation.— T. L.]

emotional state in the mind of the author By (h(
author is meant the one in whose soul s'^ch enio-
tious and conceptions were first present, Irom what-
ever cause, outward or inward, they may have been
derived. Whether this was ecstatic vision, or a con-
viction in the mind supposed to come from a divina
influence, or an actual eye-witnessing, it is all faith-
fully told, just as it was conceived in vision, impress
ed upon the thought, or -seen by the sense. The
words are in true correspondence with such a state
of soul, an honest imprint of it, according to the in-
fluences felt, and the degree of knowledge by which
those influences might be affected, or the choice of
language controlled. In either case, tor, may tha
term inspiration be applied to it, if we admit the
idea of a divine purpose as specially concerned in
the communication. It is a special series of divine
acts in the physical world, and in the souls of men,
that makes revelation strictly, or in that higher sense
to which the term is limited in connection with
the scriptural narrations. It is this extraordinary
doing, whether in nature or above nature, comm«nc-
ing with creation and continued in a series through
the whole history of the Church, which constitutes
the real toanifestation of the divine in the human,
of the infinite in the finite, in distinction from that
ordinary course in nature and history which cannot
thus reveal God personally, because it is merged in
the totality, or the one general movement, of the uni-
verse. This common movement may be called a re-
velation, but it is addressed to the universal reason,
and reveals only a general intelligence having nothing
special for man, either as a race or as individuals.
The other is a special epistle to humanity and to in-
dividual men, having our name throughout, attested
by chosen witnesses taken from a chosen people who
are the spiritual first-born, or representatives of the
race. But still it is this extraordinary doing which
is the revelation properly, whilst the biblical writings
are only the human record of it, sharing in the fini-
ty of the medium, or more or less imperfect accord-
ing to the necessary imperfections of knowledge,
conception, and language, in those to whom such re-
cording is given. Had writing never been invented,
it might have been a purely oral or traditional
account, and then it would have been still more im-
perfect, but the actual revelation would have remain-
ed the same, to be ascertained in the best way we
could amidst the deficiences and obscurities of such
oral or monumental modes of transmission. Surely
the absence of writing could no more have prevented
God's having his witness in this world, than the ab-
sence, for so many centuries, of the art of printing ;
and the want, neither of types nor of alphabets,
could have been an absolute bar to that witnessing
being in the human, and through the human, as well
as to the human. Now in such record of revelation
the great thing required for the satisfaction of oui
faith is a conviction of this perfect subjective trutn-
fulness on the part of the human media. It is a far
higher thing, a much more precious thing, than any
scientific correctness, or any outward verbal accura-
cy, which, even if it ootid be secured through human
language and human conceptions, could only be by a
mechanical, automaton-like process, or with the loss
of aU that is truly human in the transmission. It
would not be a revelation, or the history of a revela-
tion, given to men thiough men, and so it would not
be truly God speaking in humanity. The element
of most value, through which we most truly draw
nigh unto God, and He unto us, would be lacking a

CHA1-. Vm. 1-19.

31S

the proceas. With this diatinction between the re-
relation strictly, and the record of such revelation, we
tre the better prepared to understand the import of
that third term which is so often confounded with
them. Inspiration has respect to the manner and
means by which such human conceptions are called
out and employed, whilst still remaining strictly hu-
man. This may be in various ways, and we may
apply the terms higher and lower to them, but
with danger of error, if in so doing we make any one
of them to be less a true inspiration than the other.
AU the faculties of man may be used for this pur-
pose. God may employ the imaginatiou (the ec-
static imagination, for that is still human, and in
another state may be ordinary and normal), the men-
tal convictions impressed by a divine power, or, when
no other means are required, the sense and memory
of holy, truthful men, whose hohness and truthfulness,
in such case, are as much an effect of divine inspira-
tion as any afllatas more immediately affecting what
are called the higher or deeper faculties of the soul.

Thus may we beUeve that all the Scripture is in-
spired, that it everywhere has this subjective truth-
fulness, whether it appears in holy visions of the
past and future, or in rapt devotional exercises, or in
the sublime doctrinal insight of souls drawn heaven-
ward, or in the pictures it gives us of musing, solilo-
quizing minds, presenting now their exulting faith,
and then agiiin their fears and sad despondencies in
view of the dark problems of Ufe. It shows itself in
its plain, unpretending, unsuspicious narratives of
events, whether it be the supernatural, the great na-
tural, or that filling in of the ancient home-life
which, though so far from us, we recognize as so true
and 80 consistent, calUng out the feeling that it is in-
deed a reality that lies before us, and that these
words represent actual scenes and actual emotions
as true and vivid as any that now occupy our own
minds. Thus may we believe all Scripture to be an
honest record from beginning to end, from the most
astoundingly marvellous to its minutest historical,
geographical, biographical, and genealogical details.
This view, although admitting human imperfections
of language and conceiving, is very different from
that theory of partial inspiration that assumes to
choose what portions it shall accept, rejecting others
as fabricated, false, and legendary. It is all faithful,
all Biowveii7Tos, all given to us for our " instruction
in righteousness," constituting in its totality the ple-
nary word of God, the honest human record of that
great series of divine doings in the world, in nature.
In history, and in the souls of men, to which we give
the special name of a divine revelation. Thus re-
ceived and firmly held in its truthful human aspect,
the belief in a great objective truth corresponding to
it is irresistible for all sober, thoughtful, truly ra-
tional souls. The human in the Bible compels the
acceptance of the divine ; the ordinary and the na-
tural in its life-like narratives demands the superna-
tural as its complement. We are forced thus to be-
lieve or to admit that the very existence in the world
of such a record so kept, so attested through the ages,
BO lying in the very heart of human history, is as
great a marvel for the reason, as any supernatural or
miraculous which it contains for the sense.

It is this subjective truthfulness of the Scriptures
that furnishes the matter of interpretation. The great
end is to get at the conceptual and emotional states
which the words originally represented in the minds
of the first narrators. The objective truth they re-
present in the natural or supernatural belongs to the

theological reasoning as guided in its inferences bj
the general truths of the Scriptures, or other know
ledge we may have of nature and of God. The on«
interpretation is to be according to the laws of rhe-
toric and language in their widest sense, the othei
according to "the analogy of faith," in all by which
God makes himself known to the human mind.*

Thus should we aim at interpreting the Scripture
narrative of the flood. We have, as an outward
ground, the world-wide tradition of such an event far
greater than any inundation of waters, or chnnge in
nature, recorded in any later or more partial history.
The classical story, the Indian, the Persian, etc., are
well known ; but it is found everywhere. In the re-
motest and most isolated region to which the travel
ler penetrates, there meets him this tradition of a
great catastrophe by water, and of a "righteous
man " who was saved in an ark. It is told with the
same general features, and often with a surprising
similarity of detail, whether it be in the wilds of Si-
beria, by the rivers of southern Africa, or in the isles
of the Pacific. No other event ever made such an
impression on the ethnological memory ; and hence
it has survived through wastes of historical sUenoa
in which other facts, however great their local or
tribal interest, have utterly perished. One of two
conclusions is inevitable : either the catastrophe was
of vast extent, reaching almost every portion of the
globe as now known, or it took place in the earliest
times of the human existence, when men were con-
fined to a comparatively small part of the earth,
whence each wandering people carried it, localizing
it afterwards in their own history, their own geogra-
phy, and ascribing the deliverance, each one, to the
ancestral head of their own race.

There is a ground of truth in all these stories.
No rational mind can doubt it. The most sceptical
of the German critics have felt themselves compelled
to admit its substantial verity. Now let any one
compare them all with this sublime scriptural narra-
tive, and then let his reason, his rhetorical taste, his
judgment of the truthful in style, the subjectively
real in conception, and the life-like in narration, de-
termine which is the original, severely simple in its
chasteness and grandeur, and which are the legendary
copies, — which is the editio princeps, preserved (by
some strong influence in opposition to the ordinary
human tendency) from grotesque exaggeration, from
mythical indistinctness and confusion, from false em-
bellishment, from interpolated deformities, from all
that characterizes the story-telling, wonder-making
style and which are the spurious addenda, betray-
ing, by all these marks of their secondary character,
that they are the far-off, dimly-seen, and monstrous-
ly disproportioned impressions of what, to the scrip-

• [In reapect to the first kind, the famous canon of the
rationalist, undoubtedly holds true : the Scriptures, in their
human Iang:u.age, are to be interpreted as other books.
"When, however, it is applied to the second, or what may be
called the theological exegesis, it ignores and denies what
is most peculiar in the Bible as a book composed during two
thousand years, by diflerent writers, in widely different
styles, and embracini^ a vast variety of ideas, yet preserv-
ing, from beginr.ing to end, a holy aspect, and a religioua
unity, that no other writings possess, and which have
given it a place in the very core of human history, such as
no other book, no other literature, or literary series, can
lay any claim to. Not less absurd would it be than to inter*
pret Homer's Iliad as an accidental or arbitrary series of
fragmentary unconnected ballads, after the profoundsst
criticism, grounded on the truest Homerio feeling, hal
decided it to possess an epic unity and an epic harmouj
worthy of the high poetical inspiration from which it flows
— T. t.\

316

GENESIS. OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

tural nairator, was an actual scene full of a soul-
awing and fancy-restraining emotion.

The Bible story has nothing of the wonder-mak-
!n<; about it. It is too full of the overpowering real to
allow of such a secondary excitement of the mind and
the imagination. The emotion ia too high to admit of
any play of fancy. It is contemplation in its most
sxalted state, having no room for anything but the
gi'eat spectacle before it, and that as seen in its
grandest features. Hence so calm and yet so full
of animation, so severely chaste yet so sublime. It
is a telling from the eye, and it speaks to the soul's
eye of the thoughtful reader, giving the impression
ot an actual spectacle. The style throughout is
adapted to produce such impression. It is a truthful
eifect, or the narrative is to be regarded as a most
skilful fiction, a most ingenious forgery, exhibiting
a life-like power of painting and invention utterly in-
consistent with any antiquity to which it can be
ascribed. The writer or relator is one who stands
in mediis rebus. The awful spectacle is present to
bis absorbed sense or to his vivid memory. He is
startled by it to abruptness of description. Though
long expected, the catastrophe is sudden in its com-
ing. Torrents descend from the heavens like burst-
ing clouds ; chasms are seen in the opening earth,
and floods issuing from their subterranean reservoirs.
A writer less interested, less awed by the actual
scene, would have used comparisons here, or indulg-
ed in redundancy of language. The Scripture his-
torian gives it all in one brief verse : " The fountains
of the great abyss (the tehom rabba) were broken
( lyp2: , were cloven), the windows of heaven were
opened." The attempt to reconcile this with any
Bcientific correctness is worse than trifling. To re-
solve it into a poetical metaphor, or any rhetorical
artifice of langua<;e, takes away all its emotional
power. He speaks according to his conception as
grounded on the state of his knowledge. He evi-
dently had the old idea of waters above the firma-
mentum, now descending through the parted barrier
How ill-judging the interpretation that, for any fancied
reconciliation with present knowledge, would obUte-
rate the marks of this precious subjective truthful-
ness, so full of evidence for the great antiquity of
the account, and the actuality of the scene as con-
ceived and described. One all-absorbing image
of power is before hhn. The deluge from above and
the eruptions from the earth, whatever may have
been their cause, have an awful rapidity of effect ;
and with what graphic touches is this set forth in
the vivid Hebrew idioms! The ark is lifted clear
from the earth (fjijn bsa), and goes forth {^hp,
walks forth), Dian ■'JQ-is , on the face of the wa-
ters. D^Htl 1'^33^1 , the floods prevail exceedingly,
"IN'O iko , stronger, stronger — higher, higher —
b'lJ^ Tll^f^ , " ffo and increase" constantly waxing,
gradual but irresistible, steadily visible in their rise
as measured by the submerged plains, the disappear-
ing hills, until to the remotest extent of the visible
horizon, D'affin bs rnn , " under the whole hea-
vens," it is water everywhere as far as eye can see,
one vast sky-bounded waste, shoreless and illimitable
SS it appeared to the absorbed and wondering gaze
Df the one from whose sense and memory this story
has come down to us. Tiiis is what he saw, and this
Is all that the interpreter can get from his language.
What he may have thought, we know not. He may
have supposed the flood to be universal. Probably

he did so ; but then his universality must have been
a very different thing {in conception) from the notion
that our modern knowledge would connect with the
term. He knew of no land that was not covered bj
water ; he had been told that God meant to destroy
the human race, and so far as the extent of the flood
was necessary for that purpose, he doubtless suppoS"
ed the judgment executed.* But we have only to do,
as interpreters, with what he actually saw, the lan-
guage in wliich he has recorded it, the necessary con-
ceptions which it suggests, and by wliich it was itself
suggested. We have no right to force upon him, and
upon the scene so vividly described, our modem no-
tions, or our modern knowledge of the earth with ita
Alps and Himmalayas, its round figure, its extent and
diversities, so much beyond any knowledge he could
have possessed or any conception he could have
formed. It may be said that such idea of terrestrial
universality is included in his words, such as VTS
earth,— ''unieT the whole hea-vens," n"'ni!;f1 S3 nnr. ,
— " all the high mountains under the whole hea-
vens ; " but then the question arises. On what scale
of knowledge are they to be interpreted ? If we say
the modern, cahing it the absolute sense (on the sup-
position that such absolute scale has even yet been
reached), then we make him a mere mechanical ut-
terer of sounds whose intended meaning lay not in
his understanding, or a writer of words representing,
in their truthl'ulness, neither the emotions felt, nor
the spectacle that lay before his eye. A very' slight
change in our English translation, and that a very
justifiable one, greatly affects this impression of uni-
versality. Read land for earth wherever the word
occurs, as, for example, the loliole land, or the /ace of
the whole land, and the scale, to our imagination, is at
once reduced. Thus we actually have, in one place,
ch. vii. 23, naix instead of ytH , and yet nothing ia
more evident than that in the previous chapters the
first word is used of the Eden-teiritory and the region
adjacent. In like manner is this word naTX used
in the account of the general corruption of the race
by the intermarriages of the Sethites and the
Cainites, ch. vi. 1 : " When men began to multi-
ply upon the face of the adamah," ncTXn iJQ bs .
It is not only without any warrant from Scripture,
but in the face of the fair inferences to be drawn
from its artless language, that some have regarded
the antediluvian human race as spread over the wide
surface of the earth according to our present know-
ledge. Equally, too, against the impression to be
fairly derived from the account, is the idea of a vast
population as in any way to be compared with that
which has since existed and now exists. We know
nothing of any physical or moral reasons that may
have accelerated or retarded it. The Scripture simply
says, in its introduction to the account of the flood,
that men began to multiply, Zlb btlfl, evidentlj
implying that they had not been very numerous
before in either line, and that the mixture and the
multiplication were, at the same time, cause and
effect of the corruption. The fair inference, there-
fore, is, that it took place, together with the judgment
that followed, whilst they were yet confined to this

• [Delitzsch, though tindecided in the main, presents
the whole case, or the whole ground of argument for aud
agaiust, when he eays, page 262 : "Th'e Scnptm-e demandg
the univers.ility of the flood, only for the earth as inliabited,
not for the earth as sitch ; and it has no interest iu the imi-
versality of the flood in itself, but only in the universality
of the judgment of which it is 'lie execution."— T. L.l

CHAP. Vin. 1-19.

31'.

tract, whatever may have been its extent. It waa
the open, easily cultivated part of the earth (though
It had already become sterile in the days of the
Sethite fiamech), to which the early men in their
gregarious habits yet adhered. There had not come
the roving, migrating, pioneering impulse which was
first given after the ilood, and for the very purpose
of breaking up the gregarious tendency which again
manifested itself in the plain of Shinar. This reluc-
tance to leave the adamah, or the old homeland
of the race near Eden, shows itself in Cain's lan-
guage. Gen. iv. 14 : " Behold thou art driving me
forth this day, nansn ■'.3D bsa , from the face of
the adamah, that I may become a wanderer T"''??
in the (wide) earth," as distinguished from the father-
land where the protecting divine presence (;]^5S)
was supposed still to dwell. Cain, bold aiid evil as
he was, felt this. The thought, even though coming
from his own vengeance-haunted imagination, was
a terror to him, and we may rationally suppose
that the feeling was still more strongly shared by
his descendants, whom the account represents as
still living near the Sethites and corrupting them by
their vicinity. All great movemfjnts in the world
have come from a superhuman impulse, breaking up
previous habits, and strangely changing those fixed
conditions of human society into which races, when
left to themselves, are ever tending ; sometimes
even when their talk is loudest of progress and
change as ever coming from themselves. The
course of history is marked by such new move-
ments, unaccountable in their begiiming from any-
thing in the previous human (which may probably
have been tending strongly in the opposite direction),
yet afterwards, from the very fact of sequence, seem-
mg to fall inductively into the natural flow of events.
At all events, if we take the Scripture text for our
guide, there is no reason to beUeve that any of the
antediluvians (with the exception, pei-haps, of a few
BoUtary rovers), had ever crossed the deserts, or ven-
tured upon the seas, or scaled the mountains, or pen-
etrated far into the dense wildernesses that separated
the primitive adamah from the vast unknown of
earth around them. We may fairly suppose, too,
that it was one of the designs of the deluge-judgment
to prevent a race which had so dehumanized them-
selves, or, in the language of Scripture, " corrupted its
way," from spreading over the surface of the globe.
But how different was iit when the movement came
which is recorded Gen. xi. 8, whether we regard
the " confounding of languages " there mentioned as
the cause or the effect of the dispersion. It was, in
either view, equally mpernatural, or, if the term is
preferred, an extromrdinary divine intervention, de-
flecting the course of the human movement from
what it would have been had it been left solely to
the antecedent human tendency. They were settling
down into the old adamah gregariousness, to be
followed by the same impieties, not only (for that
could be borne with), but by the dehumanizing
vices that demanded extinction. " Wherefore the
Lord scattered them from thence over the face of all
the earth." The Hebrew verb is a very strong one,
DPN TB^I , " He drove them asunder " — He sent
them far and wide — He broke them up. Compare
Deut. xxxii. 8, Acts xvii. -26. Their reluctance to
leave the old home-land, like that of Cain in the ear-
lier time, is shown by the same word, and that strong
particle IB so expressive of caution and alarm ; xi. 4,

y-ixn ba "'JS by y!|S3 "iS , " lest we be scattered
over the face of the whole earth," — the wide earth,
the unknown, unbounded earth. We must take th«
language according to the feeling and knowledge of
the day. It was d&r unabfekbare Bann, as Langa
expresses it. No. 15, p. 264, the illimitable exile in
space which had something of the terror des endloten
Bannes, of the endless exile in time. But though the
pioneering effort needs something extraneous to start
it, it is afterwards carried on by its love of novelty,
which, when once excited, ever feeds the impulse,
overcoming the sense of insecurity until it becomes
a passion instead of a dread. Thus, as the teri-or of
the unknown givea way, the new impetus soon ac-
quires a rapidity more strnnge even than the former
reluctance, as is attested by other and more modem
examples in the world's history. In the long
stagnation of the middle ages geographical know-
ledge, at least among the Europeans, had actually
receded. Less was known of the world in the days
of Bede and Alcuin than in those of Ptolemy. But
how soon after the start given to Di Gama and Colum-
bus, and by these to others, was the state of things,
in this respect, wholly changed ! The orbi^ ierrarum
immediately began to expand, and so rapidly was the
horizon extended, that less than half a century added
more to the knowledge and civilized occupation of
the earth than a thousand years had done before.
In less than thirty years after Columbus had seen the
light upon the shore of the first West India isle, Ma-
gellan had advanced to the southern extremity of the
American continent and accomphsbed the circumnavi-
gation of the globe. It was not because the men of
the tenth and twelfth centuries lacked vigor of body
or mind, but because God's time had not yet come.

So was it when the first great dispersion of man-
kind commenced. Before the flood, there is no evi-
dence that even Egypt was known or inhabited — ^we
mean scriptural evidence ; and notwithstanding the
assertions of Bunsen and others, we think it can be
shown (in its proper place) that there is no reliable
evidence of any other kind. Dwelling as they did,
mainly, in the region between the Euphrates and the
Indus, the antediluvians had never ventured upon
the wide desert that intervened, nor attempted the
long way up the rivers and by the mountains of the
North. But now the tribes of Ham are streaming
down the Persian Gulf, following the Gihon as it winds
round Southern Arabia, until they reach the narrow
part of the Ked Sea. The new impulse soou carries
them over into upper Egypt or the ancient J^ithiopia,
whence they find their way down into Mitzraim (the
Narrows), the country of the lower Nile, whilst others
start off again for the vast regions of Central Africa.
One branch of the sons of Japheth direct their course
to the dense Northern wilds, and thence dividing, be-
gin their long march through Middle and Northern
Europe in the one direction, or through Middle Asia
and towards the American continent in the other
Another branch of the same family roam tbrougl
Asia Minor, one part crossing at the Bosport^ [fioo.
TTopo?, as the Greeks afterwards translated the old
name, in accordance with one of their fables), tho
ancient Ox-ford, or cattle-passage, whence they pro-
ceed into the Thracian and Danubian forests ; whilsl
another host of pioneers make the .lEgean isles theii
stepping places to Greece, Italy, and Spain. Th«
bold sons of Canaan have ventured upon ships, and
are making their way to the extremities of th«
Mediterranean and even to the Atlantic, In th«

318

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

moan time the descendants of Shem keep nearer to
the old homeland, barely diverging into Elam
(Persia) and Assyria, moving mainly up the Euphrates
to Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and thence to
Northern Arabia. There is every reason to believe
that under this mighty impulse that drove them
from Shinar, more was done in two or three centuries
towards settling the earth than had been accomplish-
ed in the 1,600 or 2,000 years of the antediluvian
period ; and this fact alone, when taken in connection
with its divine causality, is a suiiicient answer to
those who think that the Hebrew chronology does
not give time enough for the great historical be-
ginnings that so soon made their appearance. The
world has ever moved by starts, and races, like
individuals, oftentimes do more, and live more, in
very short periods than they do in otliera compara-
tively long.

This is dwelt upon here as having a bearing upon
the position of the human race, and the spread of its
population, before the flood. The emphasis with
which the new movement is announced in the xith
chapter, and more fully described in the xth (see
especially ver. 32), furnishes the strongest reason for
believing that nothing of the kind, or on such a
scale, had ever taken place upon the earth before.
"From these (nfcxa) were parted (were divided,
SlTiS: , isolated), the nations in the earth after the
flood."

In the antediluvian period there seems to have
been a distinction between ]'"ix and nmx, but the
former word had not acquired the greater definiteness
of after usage. In fact, it must have been utterly
indefinite. This is safely inferred from the views
we are compelled to form of the primitive territorial
notions of mankind. In the earliest times the concep-
tion of the earth must have been that of unlimited
extent, and of an undivided wild or waste. Nothing
to the contrary had been made known, either by ex-
perience or by revelation. It was simply the con-
trast of the sky above and the ground beneath, like
the conception presented in the earliest Greek anti-
thesis ef ovpavhi and x^''"- ^e must ever bear this
in mind when we attempt, as we ever ought lo do in
interpreting, to get bacli into the conceptions of the
ancient narrator. In no other way shall we get the
image of which the language is the necessary as well
as the only adequate reflexion. There had not even
come in the greater definiteness which belongs to the
Greek yaia^ although the Noachian conception, with
its heaven above and its abyss below, resembles very
much that which is presented in the Homeric oath,
Odysa. V. 184:

'loTO vvv T(5Se TaXa. Kai Ouparb? cvpOf virtptfei',
Kcu TO KaTet/36ftei'0»' 2Tuy6s iiSw/j —

Btill less was it (in conception, at least, whatever may
have been the speculative thought), the tellurian
idea (see Cicero's use of the word tcllus, Repub. vi.
17, tellus media ef infana et in quam fenmtur omnia\
of a body, whether spherical or otherwise, lying in a
limited space with space all aroimd it. This is not
rationalizing against the authority of Scripture. We
must judge of this old writer's conception by his
knowledge, real or supposed, which we have no
reason to think was in any way changed by that di-
rine afflatus of truth and hoUness which made him
the faithful recorder of this wonderful scene. This
IS the very ground on which we trust its graphical
eorrectness, as representing, not a mechanical know-

ledge (conneoted with no sense-experience or actual
memory in the narrator), but a vivid seeing, with i
corresponding vividness of emotion.

The same may be said of other parts of th«
account, which carry an air of absolute universality,
simply because we interpret them by the absolute or
scientific notion of our own day. Thus the expres-
sion already referred to, " under the whole heaven,"
is the primary optical language for the visible hori-
zon.* It might have been regarded as the real hori-
zon, but if so it would only be the writer's thought,
his speculative notion, and we have no right, as
interpreters, to substitute this for what he actually
sees and evidently means to describe as seen. If any
will insist upon this language as denoting an absolute
tellurian universaMty (as Wordsworth, Keil, and Ja-
cobus have done), let them turn to the same words.
Job xxxvii. 3, where they are applied to the thunder
and the lightning, and connected with other lan-
guage still more suggestive of extent in space.
" Hark, the trembUng of his voice, and the deep mutter-
ing (nSfl) that goeth forth from his mouth ; under
the whole heavens, D"B12;n is nnn , he dlrecteth
it, and its lightning, |''"!6<f7 nisrS bs , to the wings
(or extremities) of the earth." It is the long rever-
berating roar that is heard all round the sky, and
the vivid flash which for a moment lights up the
whole horizon. There are other passages where the
expression would seem to take in more than the im-
mediate sense, but it never goes beyond the concep-
tual limit which is determined by the knowledge,
real or supposed, of the utterer, or of those to whom
it is addressed. As in Dent. iv. 19 : it means there
generally the nations far and near, according to the
geographical ideas of the times. Its absolute uni-
versality would require us to heheve that there is not
an island in the Pacific, nor a region in the Arctic or
Torrid Zone, to which the Jews were not to be
dispersed. And so in Deut. ii. 25, where the same
wide words, " under the whole heavens," are used in
a still more limited sense of the nations immediately
surrounding the Jews, though in every direction, —
around them on all sides.

In a similar manner are we justified in interpreting
the seemingly universal terms which relate to the
animals. They were all that the narrator knew.
He receives the divine command as measured by hia
knowledge and convictions, and executes it accord-
ingly. They were the familiar animals by which he
was surrounded in the district where he lived. In
the terror produced by the great catastrophe, they
instinctively come to the ark ; as in all great com-
motions of nature the most ferocious beasts are
known to seek the protection of human shelter. Or
we may rationally suppose (taking the supernatural
as an essential part of the account), that they were
determined by a peculiar divine instinct, which would
be, to the lower nature, in analof y with the prophetic
insight given to the higher. So far as mere natural
signs are concerned, their keener and more instinct-
ive senses would discern the coming on of the deluge in
its terrestrial and aerial symptoms sooner than it would
become manifest to the human cognition, and as thej

• [It iB the appearance so graphically deaorlbed, though
In other language, Job xxvl. 10: ''30 hv 5H pH
-l^n DS lis niljDn ir O'^Hn, " The circle he hatl
marked upon the face of the waters, at the ending of the
light in the darkness," — or where the visible disavveui in
the invisible.— T. L.]

CHAP Vni. 1-19.

31G

erowd towardu the ark or flutter around its protect-
ing roof, there would be given just that impression
of universality which the language conveys. The
conviction he had upon his mind of the divine com-
mand, though from the very nature of the case limit-
ed by his knowledge of the living things immediately
aro'ind him, would express itself in the same
general terms. He was directed to take of the
nana , the cattle, the common or domestic animals,
clean and unclean.* It was to 'he from all, bSB , a
term general instead of distributive, and those taken
of the nana were to be in pairs of species. Thus
regarded, the language is all truthful in the highest
sense of the word truthfulness. It is subjectively
trutliful, that is, it gives the fact and the spectacle as
tt is seen anifdt, — not as calculated, or with that
logical and arithmetical precision whose tendency, in
a matter of such iudeterminateness, would have been
to produce distrust rather than the confidence of
faith. Greater precision would have betrayed the
mere wonder-maker, or the mere story-teller, not
spealiing from any conceptual experience ; whilst,
on the other hand, the largeness of the terms, even
where it looks hke hyperbole, is evidence of the
actuality and truthfulness of the emotion that pro-
duced them. Thus the impression made on the
mind of the beloved disciple by his constant con-
templation of the person and the acts of his adored
Master: "And there are many other things which
Jesus did, the which if they were written every one,
I suppose that not even the world would contain the
books that should be written." What words could
more truthfully convey this inward state of soul !
" And all Jiidea, Ta<ra r; 'Iou5aio, went out to him,
md aU the country round about Jordan, iratro ^
n-fptXQjpoy TO*' 'lopSafou, and were baptized." Matt,
iii. 6. "Ai. d there were dwelling in Jerusalem
Jfws, devou:' men, from every nation, anh irai/ri?
(Sivtus, under the heaven.'" Acts ii. 5. The language
m these cases is the true and natural expression
of emotion produced by a vast and exciting spec-
tacle. How much more worthy of our trust it is —
how much stronger a conviction of an eye-witnessed
actuality does it produce, than it would have done
had the writers been more guarded and exact in

* [Tliere is no mention of " the wild animals as includ-
ed " in the naria, as that judicious commentator. Murphy,
wi'll observes (p. 211). There were " the fowl, and the
creeping thing.'* The first included the birds in general
(who would be most defenceless, and who would most na-
turally, of themselves, resort to the ark for shelter), and
the smaller well-lniown animals, who would come under
the general denomination. There is no evidence of its
here mcluding insects or reptiles. And then again, it must
be ever borne in mmd how ovx view of the universal terms
In respect to the animals is affected by the prejudgment of
the absolute universality of the flood as covering ail the
globe. The all in the one case is very much modified by
the all in the other. If the flood was confined to the b**«in
of the Euphrates and Tigris, it would have swept away the
then existing human race, but not the animal races who
had roamed farther into the wildernesses and deserts.
There is not a syllable to show that lions came from Africa
or bears from Siberia. The generality of the terms, then,
eannot be carried farther than the ends intended, which
were the preservation of Noah and his family, as the seed
Df a new human race, and of the animals in the district
where he lived as " tt? seed" of other animals that would
be wanted for the new population, either in their immediate,
ir their more remote and indirect, utilities.

On the question of the universality of the flood, the
rtader is reterred to the Commentary on Genesis by James
». Murphy, LL,D., Professor of Hebrew, Bel&st. On this
lubject especially is he learned and judicious, yet with a re-
verence far remo red fcom latitudinarianism.— T. L.]

their numerical proportion;. So is it in the mode
of representation that we find m the account of th«
flood. There is something in this subjective truth
fulness far more precious for oar faith in the old
document than any objective or scientific accuracy
could have been; whilst, at the same time, it leavei
us perfectly free to draw, from other ideas connected
with the event, such inferences of universality, or of
partiality, as its relation to other theological '.ruth,
as well as to later knowledge, may demand.

Again : those parts of this account which relate
the prophetic knowledge, or the prophetic conviction,
present, indeed, something different from the optical
representations, but are nevertheless to be inter-
preted substantially on the same principle ol their
subjective truthfulness, leaving the higher objective
truth for which they stand, or of which they are the
human language, to be interpreted by what we have
called the higher method of theological exegesis.
Now this is what we truly gather from the words
given to us : A righteous and holy man, hving in the
midst of a profane and sensual generation, — a lonely
man, holding high communion with God, and con-
stantly in spiritual conflict with the earthly and the
vile around him, — has impressed upon his soul a
oonviction that the end of the world, or of the race,
is near. It is so strong, so deep, and constant, that
he feels it to come from God. It does come from
God. It is so vivid, that it is to him the actual divine
voice to his inmost soul. It comes .^o near, that he
recognizes in tie sharp impression which it makes the
very times in which the great catastrophe is to come,
and has impressed upon his soul, as by a divine direc-
tion, the way and the means through which he and
his family are to be preserved. Thus " warned of
God in respect to things not as yet seen, he prepares
an ark for the salvation of his house (Heb. xi. 1), by
which he condemned the world, and became an heir
of the righteousness which is by faith." These
divine convictions are all truthfully told, just as they
are truthfully felt, and given to us from the sense or
memory of the first narrator. We cannot doubt that
he was thus impressed, that he thus felt, that he thus
acted, that the events following corresponded to this
vivid impression, and that they are most fiithfully
narrated. Thus believing in the subjective, the con-
viction of an objective supernatural, and of a divine
objective reality, and of a great divine purpose con-
nected with the history of the world and the Church,
comes irresistibly to the spiritual mind having faith
in a personal God constantly superintending the
afikirs of earth through a constant superintending
providence, both general and special.

As compared with other stories of the great
flood, it is the very simplicity of the accoimt which
furnishes the convincing evidence of its having been
an actual telling from the eye. Myths, so called,
are never told in this way. There is no conceptua)
lying back of them, presenting the appearance of
having ever come from any sense or memory.
They arise, we know not how, like national songa
that never had any individual composer. They
represent ideas, notions, strangely combined, rathel
than conceptions having their ground in any eense-
speetacle, real or supposed. In poetical picturir_g,
on the other hand, or in rhetorical description, th.-re
is, indeed, a distinct conceptual, but it is one for the
most part artificially made by the writer or narrator
himself However accurate its limning may be,
it carries with it its own testimony that it nevei
came from any actual or even possille seeing

820

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

"Vi J3 Ovid's description of the flood is most vivid,
Old in some respects most true to nature, or what
Jiay, very probably, have been the actual state
of things — such as fishes swimming among the
oranches of the elm, or the sea-calves sporting
n the vineyards ; but no eye ever saw this ; it
e wholly imagined, whilst the power of thus imagin-
hg, and of thus painting it in langUiigs, is wholly
jiconsistent with that emotion which belongs to
the actual spectacle of such an event. Especially
13 this true of the more labored, or artistically
poetical, in such descriptions. Ovid's picture of
the south wind is, indeed, most admirable, but we
ecognize in it only the highest style of art, won-
lerful, indeed, in its grouping and in its coloring,
vet without feeling, and producing no impression
of reality.

Madidis Notue evolat alis,
Terribilem picea tectus caligine vultum ;
Barba gravis nirabis, canis tiuit unda capiUis ;
Fronle sedent nebulae, rorant pennEeque sinueque.
Metamorph. i. 264.

' The south wind flies abroad with humid wings, his
dreadful face covered with pitchy dai-kness ; his
)eard is loaded with showers ; the flood pours from
-is hoary hairs ; clouds sit upon his brow; his wings
ind robes are dripping with the rain." We know at
once that a man who writes thus never saw the flood,
or anything like it. It is all poetry, not in the Bible
style, as the name is applied to the more emotional
portions of the Scriptures, but in the Greek sense of
FotTjTis, iroirifj.ay Something made, a fictitious compo-
sition artificially colored and invented. Some have
regarded the language. Gen. vii. 11 — ''the windows
of heaven" and "the fountains of the great deep,"
as of this poetical or rhetorical kind. Thus Jacobus
compares the first to an " eastern expression " denot-
ing that " the heavens are broken up" with storms,
imd even Murphy speaks of it as a " beautiful figure ; "
but all such views detract from the real grandeur, as
they also ilo from the truthfulness, of the account.
This opening of the heavens, and breaking up of the
deep, were realities to Noah, so conceived by him,
and as honestly related as the hfting up of the aik
and the disappearing of the mountains. The awful
scene itself would never have called out such imag-
ings as those of Ovid, or suggested such language.
The Syrian tradition, as given by Lucian in the Si/ria
Dea, comes nearest to the simplicity of the scriptural
narrative; but even there, there are parts of the repre-
ientation which we feel instinctively could never have
come from any actual eye-witnessing. The rising of
the rivers, for example, on which this tradition dwells,
must have been a very insignificant part, if any part
at all, of so sudden and terrific a spectacle, as it is
Bet forth in the Bible, and as it must have been, from
the very nature of the case, when the fioods from
above came like bursting clouds or water-spouts, and
the breaking and sinking of the earth made a scene
so different fiom anything that could have been pro-
duced by a freshet, even of the most extensive kind.
So, too, in the Arabian tradition, though In most
things closely resembling the scriptural, we find the
same tendency to embellishment. See it as given in
the Koran, Surat xi. 40. There is also a mingling
with it of the romantic or sentimental which shows
the legendary or mere story-making style of perver-
Bion. It represents Noah as having a fourth son who
is an unbeliever, and it attempts to make an aifcct-
ing scene between this lost child, who flies to the
mountain, and his imploring father, as the ark is

I borne past him by the separavnp waters. Tile Chal
dsean is evidently a magnified ci"ipy of the Heorew
narrative, but in its enlargement all proporBon _'
lost sight of. The ark is represen*ed as a stadium
or furlong, in length. It is in the samp way fnej
have treated the modest Hebrew chronology, keep-
ing its genealogical division in the account of the tcr
generations before Xisuthrus, but running its deci
mals and hundreds into thousands and hundreds of
thousands to agree with the excessive antiquity of
their fabled annals. It is the Bible record swelled
out by the infiated Oriental imagination, which every
where, except in the case of the Hebrews, was unre
strained by any divine check upon the tendency o(
each nation to give itself a mythical antiquity.

There is one point in the Scripture narrative ol
the fiood which would seem to establish the fact of
its hmited extent, had it not been for that prejudg-
ment of universality which has influenced so many
commentators. In ver. 19 the narrator seems to
hurry towards the climax of the scene: "And tne
waters prevailed exceedingly, nH'o, tHV), and aii
the high hills under the whole heaven were covered.'"
The verse following explains and confirms this by an
addiiional particular: "Fifteen cubits upward did
the waters prevail (Ti23, they were fifteen cubits
strong, or, as we say, fifteen cubits deep), and the
hills (the same word, n""in, thus rendered ver. 19
were covered." Now take this in connection with
ver. 4 of ch. viii: "And the ark rested (riDm) in
the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the
month (at the end of five months, one hundred and
filty days, or at height of the flood) upon the mount-
ains of Ararat" (BTTX '^"in in the plural — or oj«
of the mountains of Ararat taken as the name of a
range or mountainous country, one of whose peak?
afterwards obtained the name by way of eminence.*
Heie we evidently have the place from which these
fifteen cubits were reckoned, and it furnishes the key
to the right understanding of what tlie writer meant
to convey as the extent of his knowledge and experi-
ence, whatever might have been his opinions as to
anything beyond. There is no evidence that this
was the high peak of Ararat; the impression (from
the use of the plural) is all the other way. Takir.g
all these things into consideration, the explanation is
most natural and easy. The ark had drifted up the
basin of the Euphrates and Tigiis until it grounded
on the highlands that formed its northern bank oi
border, and tliat, too, not far from a land of the
olive and the vine. The surrounding mountains, or
high hills, had previously been in sight, but at this
time, or just before it, they disappeared. These
are the same "mountains under tne whole heaven"
mentioned ver. 19. Fifteen cubits strong were the
waters, and the mountains were covered. When the
ark rested, there was no land anywhere in sight.
Noah ascertains the depth by mtasurement, or by his
knowledge of the ark's draught of water, and as it
did not float again, he takes this time as the summit
of the flood. He may have supposed the whole earth
covered, as far as he knew anything about the earth
as a whole ; but we must take what he saw, what he
knew, and what he describes as coming evidortly
from his experience. Without some such view we
have no standard. It may be said, too, that thii
mountain on which the ark rested could not haT4

* [See the marginal note on these worJa, I3"1^H ■'"""
paee 308.— T. L.1

CHAP. Vin. 1-19.

821

been the high peak of Ararat, nor one from which
that peak was in sight ; since, in the one case, the
surrounding mountains must have disappeared much
earlier, and, in the other case, the declaration of
their disappearance would not have been true.
Again, had it been the high peak of Ararat, then, in
the going down of the waters, a very large part of
it must have been wholly bare before the others be-
came visible ("I St 13), as is said viii. 5; but this is
contrary to the whole impression derived from that
part of the account. All these difficulties (difficul-
ties, we mean, on the face of the account) become
greatly increased, if we suppose that the flood was
not only above Ararat, or one of the mountains of
Ararat, but also covered the whole globe, and mount-
ains known to be twelve thousand feet, or more than
two miles, higher than any in Armenia. In such case,
besides there being no standard of measurement for
the fifteen cubits, tliere would be a strangeness and
inconsistency in the language, since this highest
mountain would be as much covered by a rise of one
cubit above its summit as by fifteen. The expression
imphes excess, as measured from some known condi-
tion, or it has no meaning. How did the describer
know it ?

This may be answered by saying that Noah knew
it divinely, that is, by a knowledge and a memory
having no basis in any actual knowing or sense-ex-
perience. It was an imprtssion made upon his mind.
Now, had it been so related, it would have been per-
fectly consistent with that subjective truthfulness on
which we insist. Other things are thus stated among
the immediate antecedents of the flood, but this ap-
pears in the midst of the vividly optical, and in di-
rect connection with facts having every appearance
of being described from sense. As a thing utterly
unknown and unknowable without such di\ inc inti-
mation, or as a fact that might have been, but which
sense necessarily failed to reach, it would be like
Ovid's " dolphins in the subaquean woods," or his
"sea-calves swimming in the vineyards," except that
it has an air of statistical particularity, which, as
thus given, afiects its credit, either as prose or
poetry. There are other things that, on the suppo-
sition of universality, must h.ave been utterly beyond
experience, but which are very confldently stated,
and vividly described, just as things would be that
faU directly under the observation of the eye.* A
sphere of water covering the entire globe would have
left no means of determining the time of greatest
elevation, or the period of abatement before the hills
again appeared. The Jewish commentators maintain
the universality as essential to the honor of their
Scriptures. But they are critics who overlook noth-
ing, and they therefore keenly see these difficulties.
In order to avoid them, they distinguish between
what was known from the spirit of prophecy,
nsjias, and what is narrated from sense, nui'^S"! ,
or experience. Our Rabbins, says Maimonides, were
led to this from the knowledge (afterwards obtained)
that there were mountains in Greece (Europe, he
means) higher than Ararat, which, he tells us, was
in the lower part of the earth-sphere ("li^^^), not

* [Such, for example as the lionl "ibn , viii. 5, a
peculiar Hebrew Idiom, denoting most graphically a gradual
yet constant subsidence (Vulg., ibant el decrescebant aqum),
or, the period of highest water, which could have had no
mark for the eye, if they covered the highest land upon the
earth, twelve thousand feet, or more than two miles, above
Out high peak of Ararat itself.— T. L.]

21

far from Babylon. To overcome the objection, ha

adopts the singular view, that the resting on Ararat,
though at the height of the flood when the waters
became even, was some time after tne highest
mountains were submerged. This submersion, or
rather supermersion, came from the great commotitm,
the tossing or boiling of the waters (nnirn), — the
violent eruption from the earth causing them to dash
and surge over the highest parts, thus covering them,
but not as an even mass or mquor. He makes a di»-
tinction, which has some ground, between "J3B , the
calming of the waters, and "iDn , their abating. It
was after the going down of this wild commotion, or
when the waters came to a level, that the ark hap-
pened to be (mpa 1pi) over the region of Ararat,
and settled down upon it. It was also a part of thin
singular view that the ark, in consequence of its loaa
and its great specific gravity, did not truly float, but
was Ul'ted up by the great force of the up-pouring
waters, and this, he holds, is what is meant by the
words vii. 18, 0"Hn ''3Q bs T(bni , "it went upon
the face of the waters" — wherever the waters drove
it. Such views, from so sober a commentator, are
only of value as showing the immense difficulties at-
tending this opinion of univer.'^allty — difficulties that
come not more from outside objections than from
the face of the account itself, if we depart from the
plain optical interpretation.

The whole argument may be briefly summed b>
a careful consideration of the three main aspects oi
the Noachian account: 1. The divine communica-
tions warning Noah of the impending judgment, and
directing him to prepare an ark for the saving of
himself and his house. Whether these were mad*
in vision, or by vivid impressions upon the mind,
they are truthfully received and truthfully related,
that is, translated into human speech as repiesenting
the conceptions and knowledge of the relator in re-
spect to the subjects of such divine communication.
The human race were to be destroyed, and the earth,
or land, they inhabited, was to be covered with
water. In such warning, God did not teach him
geography, nor give him the figure of the earth, noi
the height of the unknown, far-distant mountains.
2. The directions in respect to the animals. These
are to be interpreted in the same way, and with the
same limitations of knowledge and conception. He
was to take of the living thing (or the animals) under
the threefold specification of the behema (the cattle),
the fowl, and the creeping thing. They were the
animals with which he was familiar, as belonging lo
the region in which he lived. He was aided by a
divine instinct in the creatures, supernaturally given
in the beginning, and now supernaturally excited.
But God did not teach him zoology, nor the vast
variety of species, nor is there any evidence that ani-
mals came from the distant parts of the unknown
earth, such as the giraffe from Southern Africa, the
elephant from India, or the kangaroo from AustM-
Ua. 3. The actual event itself, and this under two
aspects : u. The flood as optically described by some
one in the ark (Noah or Shem). Here we have cer-
tain data which seem unmistakable in the inferences
to be deduced from them. If we look steadily at the
connections of events as they are most artlessly nar-
rated, the conclusion appears almost unavoidable,
that the mountains mentioned, vii. 20, as covered by
fifteen cubits, and that come again in sight, viii. 6,
as seen from the same place when'^e they disappeared

522

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

ttt the height of the flood, and when the ark ground-
ed on the seventeenth of the serenth month, are the
Bame " high hills under the whole heaven," that are
mentioned vii. 19. We have here what Noah saw,
or knew from sense, — the visible objects around him,
the grounding, the disappearing, the reappearing —
oil referring to the same phenomena, one part being
as much optical as another, and the knowledge of
any one of these facts, as they appear on the face
of the narrative, aa much referrible to experience as
that of any other, b. The inferred extent. Noah had
no means of measuring the distance to which the ark
drifted. We judge of it from what can be ascer-
tained of its termini. It started from a place near
the old Eden-land (in the neighborhood of the Per-
sian Gulf), and it struck on one of the mountains of
Armenia in the north. This could not have been
the high Ararat, for then the lesser Ararat, which is
only seven miles distant, and four thousand feet, or
nearly a mile, lower, must have been long under
water, contrary to the vivid impression made by
what is said vii. 20 and viii. 5. It could not have
been the lesser peak, for then the higher (only seven
mUes distant) would have been clearly visible, and
four thousand feet above the water during the whole
time of the ark's resting. It must, therefore, have
Deen some high l*id on the borders of the mountainous
•egion, and at quite a distance, S. or E., from either.
This distance of the ark's sailing before it grounded
taking into view the fact that there was no land I

then visible from it in any direction, although there
had been just before) would give a flood which prob.
ably covered the old adamah, together with Baby-
lonia, Assyria, the neighboring parts of Persia and
Media, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Arabia,
and a good portion of Asia Minor, with peaks, per-
haps, here and there, projecting above its surtace.
Subsequent events seem to confirm this view. From
the unknown, rugged, mountainous region where the
ark rested, the Noachidffi soon found their way back
(at a time, too, when, as appears from xi. 4, the
flood was in fresh remembrance) to the plain of
Shinar. To this they were led by the primitive gre-
garious tendency (see remarks, p. 317), and their
aversion to being driven into the unknown, until
there came that remarkable divine impulse which,
for the first time, sent them far and wide to the re-
motest regions of the earth. Each pioneering family
carried with them the story of the terrible judgment,
locating it in different lands according to the tradi-
tions of their ancestors, and each distorting or em-
bellishing it after their own mythical or legendary
fashion. The Bible alone gives us the veritable ac-
count, truthfully and vividly told, carrying every
mark of being an actual eye-witnessing, and furnish-
ing the best data for determining its locality, its
probable extent, its true chronology, and, what is of
greater value than all else, its theological bearing, aa
one of the great divine interventions in the bistort
of the world and of the church. — T. L.J

FOURTH PART.

THE GENESIS OF THE NEW, WORLD-HISTORICAL, HUMAJ^ RACE; OF THE CONTRAST
BETWEEN THE FORM OF SIN THAT NOW COMES IN, AND OF THE NEW FORM 01
PIETT; OF THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE BLESSING OF SHEM (CULTUS, THEOCRACY)
AND THE BLESSLNTG OF JAPHETH (CULTURE, HUMANISM); OF THE CONTRAST BE-
TWEEN THE DISPERSION OF THE NATIONS, AND THE BABYLONIAN COMBINING OF
THE NATIONS; BETWEEN THE BABYLONIAN DISPERSION, OR THE MYTHICAL HEA-
THENISM, AND THE INDIVIDUAL SYMBOLIC FAITH IN GOD OF THE PATRLARCHa
THE FIRST TYPICAL COVENANT. Ch. Vm. 20-XI. 32.

FIRST SECTION.

Ute First Typical Covenant. The Primitive Precepts {Noachian Laws). The Symbol of the Rainhoto,

22

Chapter VIH. 20-IX. 17.

20 And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every ' clean beast and of

21 ereiy clean fowl and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smeUed a
sweet savour," and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any
more for mnn's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth [here,
ei:!usiiig] ; nfc'.ther will I again smite any more everything living as I have done. While
the earth remaineth [au the days of the caith] seedtime and harvest [the order of nature], and
cold and heat, and summer and winter, ° and day and night, shall not ceaae.

CHAP. Vm. 20— IX. I-IY. 823

Ch. IX. 1 And God [Eiohim] blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful

2 and multiply and replenish, the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you, shaE
be upon every beai t of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all thai
nioveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea ; into your hands are thev

3 delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the grees

4 herb have I given you all things. But flesh which is the life thereof [itssonl.itsanimatioE],
£ which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives'

[of eaoii single life] will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it [take vengeanM

for it], and at the hand of man ; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the

6 life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man ' shall his blood be shed : for in

1 the image of God made he man. And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply ; bring forth

8 abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. And God [Eiohim] spake unto Noah.

9 and to his sons with him, saying [lasb], And I, behold, I estabhsh my covenant with

10 you, and with your seed after you ; And with every living creature that is with you,
of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you ; from all that go out

1 1 of the ark, to every beast of the earth [that shall proceed from them in the future]. And I will
establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the
waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

12 And God [Eiohim] said. This is the token of the covenant which I make between nie

13 and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations : I do
set my bow° in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and

14 the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that tin'

15 bow shall be seen in the cloud: ' And I will remember my covenant, which is between
me and you and every living creature of all flesh ; and the waters shall no more

16 become a flood to destroy all flesh. And my bow shall be in the cloud ; and I \viil
look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every

17 living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God [Eiohim] said unto Noah,
This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh
that is upon the earth.

L^ Ch. viii. ver. 20. — h'^V—from all the pure of the cattle, and from all the jmre fmoh The word denotes selection .
[t con hardly mean one of every kind deemed pure among the cattle ; much less can it have this large meaning in respect
JO the fowl (or the birds), among whom the pure species far excelled the impure, which are mentioned as exceptiona
twenty-four in number), Lev. xi. 13 ; Deut xiv. 12. If Noah had had every earthly species of bird in the ark (seven
of all that were regarded as pure), and offered of each in sacrifice, it would have required an immense altar. There was
evidently a selection, and such use of the term bis^.2 here may serve as a guide in respect to its antecedent uses, justifying
ns in limiting it to the more common kinds of all species known to Noah, and inhabiting the portion of the earth visited
oy the flood.— T. L.]

["^ Ver. 21.— nlT^S A word of a very peculiar form, like V22^3 , Is. i. 31. Aben Ezra compares it with C]^SS 3 , Hos.
i. 4. It denotes rest intensively 5 the rest, not of mere quietude, or cessation, but of sati^aclion, complacency, delipli I.
in odor of rest — of complete and gratified acceptance. Compare the suggested language, Zeph, iii. 17, expressing God's
ireat satisfexition in Jerusalem, IH^riXS lI3">irT' , fli2 sliall rest in his love. The word nn^3 occurs here for the fir^t
.ime, and is evidently meant to have a" connection with the name PIS (Noah), but becomes the common phrase (n"1
nn^3) to denote the pleasant odor of the sacrifice, in Exodus, Leviticus, etc. Hence the New Testament Hebraism tu
Jeeu in the word evtaSla, in such passages as 2 Cor. ii. 15, a sweet savour of Christ, Eph. v. 2, a sweet-smfiUing savour, Phil.
.V. 18, as also the use of ocr/^i}, 2 Cor. li. 16, the savour of life unto life. The Jewish interpreters here, as usual, are
ifcaid of the anthropophatism, and so the Targum of Onkelos renders general ly, The Lord received the offering graciously.
.In like manner the Jewish translator Arabs ErpenianuB. Aben Ezra aifects a horror of the literal sense. n?"bn , he
uays- " 0 profane 1 away with the thought that God should smell or eat." With all their reverence for their old Scri])-
tures, these Jewish mterpreters had got a taste of philosophy, and hence their Philonic fe-stidiousness, as ever manifestesi
in a desire to smooth over all such language. — T. L.]

[3 Ver. 22. — C|^ri , rendered winter — more properly autumn, though it may include the winter, as y ^f5 may includt
thespring.— T. L.]'

[^ Ch. ix. ver. 5. — DD'^nTITSSP D3TQ^, your blood of (or for) your souls. Maimonides renders it KiniZ) QSiiT
DS^mlUSS , your blood which is your souls. LXX., aljaa ri^v \lnjx<t>v vfi-iav, blood of your souls. — T. L.]

[•Ver. 6.— D'lXa. E. v. by man. This would seem rather to require the term 1^3, by the hand of man, the usual
Hebrew phrase to denote instrimientality. That it was to be by human agency is very clear, but the 3 in D^X3 may
be better taken, as it is by Jona ben Gannach (Abul-Walid), in his Hebrew Grammar, p. 33, to denote substitution,— fnr
nan, inplace of man—life for life, or blood for blood, as it is so strongly and frequently expressed in the Greek tragedy.
The preposition 3, in this place, he says, is equivalent to ^^-?.3 , on account of, and he refers to 2 Sam. xiv. 7, " Gi\c
us the man who smote his brother, and we will put him to death, 1"^n5< ll5S33 , for the soul (the life, or in place of) his
brother," Exod. xx. 2, ipa'Sa "^S'O 31 , " and he shall be sold for his theft," 'as also, among many other places, to Qiin.
»liv. 5. 13 lanyi ItSns N'im . where, instead of " divining by it," as in our English versions and the Vulgate, he giv..*
what seems a moi?e consistent rendering : "he will surely divine for it" (1"113y3); that is, Jlnd out by divination, who
Uv fn his possession the lost cup. Such also seems to have been the ide« if tb4 LXX. in Gen. iz. ', where they have

324

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

DOthmgfOT ^'^i^'2 hut avr\ rov aiixaro': aiiTovt in return for his blood. Arats Erpenianus renders it .|_^,^^| y«j' .i

by ihe word, or command, of man, indicating a judicial sentence. So the Targum of Onkelos, by the witnesses according U
the word of judgment, and so also Eashi and Aben Ezra, C^TyS DTN3 , by man, tliatis, by the witnesses.— T. L.l

[^ Ver. 13. — ^FlCj? , my how, as just before, Ter. 11, '^H^IS , my covenant. The language seems, on the very face
af it, to imply a thing previously existing, called, from its remarkable appearance, the bow of God, and now appointee?
as a sign of the previously existing covenant. Had it been a new creation, the language would more properly have been
I will make, or set, a how in the cloud. See remarks (in the Introd. to the i. ch. p. 144) on the rainbow as the symbol
of coBstancy in nature, from it? constant and regular appearance whenever the sun shines forth after the rain. Fcr
ftirther vie^ s on this, and for the opinions of the Jewish commental^ors, see also note, p. 328, — T. L.]

[7 Ver. 14.— This verse should be connected, in translation, with the one following. As it is rendered in E. Y., th«
appearing of the bow is made the subject of the sentence (though apparently the predcate), whereas the sequence ol i\t
oonjunction 1 , and of the tenses, would give the sense thus: And it shall come to pass, "when I bring the cloud, etc., a'^d
whenever the bow appears in the cloud, that I will remember my covenant ; the conjunction before "^niST having itn
Uative force. — T. L.]

IXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.

1. Vers. 20-22. The offering of Noah and the
acceptance and promise of Jehovah. The offering
of Noah is not, as has been maintained, to be refer-
red back from the later time of the law, to the primi-
tive history. It reflects itself, moreover, in the my-
thological stories of the flood (Delitzsch, p. 268).
An altar to the Lord. The altar is called n3t53 ,
place of slaying the victim, from naj, as SivaiauTrj-
piov from ^vfty. That the sons of Adam offered
without an altar is a mere supposition. According
to Keil there was no need of an altar, because God
was still present in paradise to men. In the judg-
ment of the flood was paradise destroyed ; the place
of his presence was withdrawn, and he had taken
his throne in the heaven, that from thence, hereafter
he might reveal himself to men. (Comp. ch. ii. 5, 7).
"Towards heaven must now the hearts of the pious
lift up themselves ; their offerings and their prayers
nmst go up on high, if they would reach God's
throne. In order to give the offerings this upward
direction, elevated places were fixed upon, from
which they might ascend heavenwards in fire.
Hence the offerings derived their name of nibj'
from nis, the ascending, not so much because the
animal offered was laid upon the altar, or made to
ascend the altar, but rather because of the ascending
(of the flame and smoke) fiom the altar towards
heaven. (Comp. Judg. xx. 40; Jer. xlviii. 15; Amos
iv. 10). In like manner Delitz?ch in relation to Ps.
xxix. 10; (according to Hofmann ; "Prophecy and
Fulfihnent," pp. 80, 88). If by this is meant that the
religious consciousness, which once received God as
present in paradise, must now, through its darkness
by sin, revere him as the Holy One, far off, dwelling
on high, and only occasionally revealing himself from
heaven, there would be nothing to say against it ;
but if it is meant as a literal transfer of the place of
the divine dwelling and of the divine throne, it
becomes a mythologizing darkening of the divine
idea (see Ps. 139). Christ was greater than the
paradisaical Adam ; notwithstanding, in prayer, he
lifted up his eyes to heaven (John xi. 41); and at
ready is it intimated, Gen. i. 1, that from the begin-
ning, the heaven, as the symbolical sign of God's
exceeding highness, had precedence of the earth.
That, however, the word nbis may have some re-
lation, at least, to the ascendency of the victim upon
the altar is shown by the expression nbsn in the
Hiphil. The altar was erected to Jehovah, whose
worship had already, at an earlier period, commenc-
ed (ch. iv. 4). Everywhere when Elobim had re-
pealed himself in his first announcements, and had

thus given assurance of himself as the trusted am
the constant, there is Jehovah, the God amen, in
ever fuller distinctness. As Jehovah must he es-
pecially appear to the saved Noah, as the one to
whom he had fulfilled his word of promise in the
wonderful relation he bore to him. — Of every
clean beast. — According to Rosenmuller and otheis,
we must regard this as referring to the five kinds of
offerings under the law, namely, bullock, sheep,
goats, doves, turtle doves. This, however, is doing
violence to the text ; there appears rather to have
been appointed for offering the seventh surplns
example which he had taken, over and above the
three pairs, in each case, of clean beasts. — And
oflfered it as a burnt offering. —We are not to
think here of the classification of offerings as deter-
mined iu the levitical law. The burnt offering forms
the middle point, and the root of the different offer
ings (comp. ch. xxii. 13); and the undivided unity
is here to be kept in view. There is, at all events,
contained here the idea of the thank offering, al-
though there is nothing said of any participation, or
eating, of the victim offered. The extreme left side
of the offering here, as an offering for sin and guilt,
was the Herem or pollution of the carcases exposed
in the flood (like the lamb of the sacrifice of Moses
as compared with the slain first-born of the Egyp-
tians) ; the extreme right side lay in that consecrate
ed partaking of flesh by Noah which now commenc-
ed.— And the Lord (,Iehovah) smelled a sweet
savor — The savor of satisfaction. An anthropo-
morphic expression for the satisfied acceptance of
the offering presented, as a true offering of the spirit
of the one presenting it.* — And said in his heart.
— Not merely he said to himself or he thought with

* [The flame mounting heavenward from the great altar
of Noah, the vast column of smoke and incense majestically
ascending in the calm, clear atmosphere, transcending seem-
ingly the conunon law of gravity, and thus combining the
ideas of tranquillity and power, would of itself present a
striking image of the natural sublime. But, beyond this,
there is a moral, we may i-ather say, a spiritual sublimity,
to one who regards the scene in those higher relations which
the account here indicates, and which other portions of
Scripture make so clear. It offers to our contemplation the
most vivid of contrasts. There comes to mind, on the one
hand, the gross selfishness of the antediluvian world, ever
tending downward more and more to earth and a sensual
animality — in a word, devoting life to that which is lower
Ihfin tlie lowest life itself; whilst now, on the contrary,
there rises up in all its rich suggestiveness, the idea o'
sacrifice, of lifp^ devotion to that which is higher than ali
life, as symbolized in the flame ascending from the ottered
victim. It is, moreover, the spirit of confession, of peni-
tence, of perfect resignation to the will of God as the ration-
al rule of life, — all, too, prefiguring One who made the great
sacrifice of himself for the sins of the world, and who, al-
though historically unknown to Noah, was essentially era-
braced in that recognition of human demeiit, and of th«
divine holiness, wliich is styled '* the righteousness of fkith.''

CHAP. VIII. 20— IX. 1-17.

325

himself; it mear.g rather, he toolc counsel with, his
tieart and executed a purpose proceeding from, the
emotion of his divine love. — I wiU not again
:ixase. — In words had he done this, Gen. iii. 17, but
ftccually and in a higher measure, in the decree
of destruction Gen. vi. 7, 13. With the last, there-
fore, is the first curse retracted, in as far as the first
preliminary lustration of tlie earth is admitted to be
B baptism of the earth. According to Knobel, the
pleasing fragi-ance of the offering is not the moving
ground, but merely the occasion for this gracious re-
solve. But what does the occasion mean here ? In
ao far as the saving grace of God was the first mov-
ing ground for Noah's thank offering, was this latter
also a sec»nd moving ground (symbolically, causa
rmrUoria) for the purpose of God as afterwards de-
termined.— ^For the imaginations of man's heart.
— The ground here given for God's forbearance and
compassion seems remarkable. Calvin : " Hie in*
constaniice videtur deus accusari posse. Supra puni-
torus koTiiinem^ causam consilii dicit^ quia figmentum
cordis hwnani malum est. Hie promissurun homini
gratiam, quod posthac tali ira vii nolit, eandem cau-
sam allegat" Between this passage, however, and
the one eh. vi. 6, there is a twofold difference. In the
latter there precedes the sentence : Jehovah saw that
the wickedness of man was great upon the earth ; in
connection with this corruption of actual sin, the evil
imagining of the human heart itself, is reckoned for
evil, as being its fountain. Here, however, the burnt
offering of Noah goes before. In connection with
•ihis sacrificial service, expressing the feeUng of guilt
md the want of forgiveness, the evil imagination of
the huiniin heart appears as a sufferer of terapta-
'Aon. The innate sinfulness is not disease merely,
)ut as it stands in organic connection with the actual
iin, is also ffuilt It is, however, disease too ; and
precisely in its connection with the disposition for
pardon, and the better desire of man, is it regarded
as disease by God, and as being, therefore, an object
of his compassion. Moreover it is called here simply
3^ is;) , the involuntary unconscious sense and ima-
gination, but there (Gen. vi. 6), it was " the ima-
gination of the thoughts (the purposes) of his heart,"
and. therefore, a matter of consciousness ; here it is
wickedness from his youth up, there, it is only wicked-
ness^ nothing else but wickedness, wickedness through-
out and continually. In the effect of the flood, .md
in the light of the sacrificial offermg, which Noah
offers not only In his own name, but in that of his
family and race, the guilt of the innate sinfulness of
the human race appeirs typically weakened in the
Bame way as in the evangelical church-doctrine, the
condemnation of hereditary sin is taken away by

WhilBi thus the new spirit of sacrifice ascends from the bap-
tized earth, heaven is represented as bending down to meet
the symbol of reconciliation ; the infinite descends to the
finite, and humanity, in verification of the Scripture para-
dox, rises through its very act of lowliness and se?/-abase-
ment. The wrath all gone, infinite compassion takes now
its place, and this is expressed in that striking Hebraism,
n'T^? n^!) "the odor of rest," typifying the evtaSia
iaiuTov (2 Cor. ii. 4) '« the sweet savor of Christ in them
who are saved."

The writer of this old account knew as Veil as Philo, or
Btrauss, or any modcrii rationalists, that God did not smell
nor eat •, but the emotional truthfulness of his inspiration
made him adopt the strongest and the most emotional lan-
Ruagft without fear nf inconsistency or anticipated cavil.
" How gross ! " says the infidel, "this representation of God,
BnufSng up the odor of burning flesh ; " but it is he who
■ " snuffs" at God's holy altar (Mai. i. 13). It is he who is
' ffrosg" in his profane mockery of a spirituality which his
tarnal eart.hliness utterly fails to oomprehond. — ^T. L.J

baptism, of which the flood is a type.* Knobel layi
stress on the fact that it is said from his youth up
not from his mother^s womb; but the word evidentlj

* [There is no need here of labored attempts to remove
apparent inconsistencies. The most simple and direct inter-
pretation of Scripture is generally that which is most con-
servative of its honor as well as of its truthfulness. The
passage seems to assign the same reason for sparing the
world that is given vi. 6, 6, for its destruction ; and In both
cases there is used the same particle "'3 . Some would
render it although: "I will not again smite, etc., alUiough
the imagination of the heart of man is evil." Others, like
Jacobus, would connect it with the words ClK^ "i^DJS
/or marl's sake, intimating that it should never more be done
for this reason. But nothing of the kind helps the di£B,cul-
ty, if there be any difficulty. There are but very few places
(if any) where "'S can be rendered although. The passages
cited by Noldius under this head in almost every case fail to
bear him out. It is a particle denoting a reasoUf and some-
times a motive, like the two senses of the Greek on and the
Latin quod, or the two English conjunctions because and
that. The idea presented by Lange gives the key. Sin is both
guilt and disease. Man's depravity, therefore, is the object
both of vevgeance and compassion, two states of feeling
which can exist, at the same time, perfect and unweakened,
only in the divine mind, hut which arc necessarily present-
ed to us in a succession, produced by varying circumstances
on the finite or human side. It is in reference to the former
that the language is used, Gen. vi, 5, 6, where ^3 denotes
the reason of the vengeance. Here, in like manner, it ex-
presses the reason of the mercy. JJoah's ott'erintr had made
the difference, not changinLj God, but placing manin adifier-
ent relation to him hs viewed under a changed aspect. He
is the poor creature, as well as the guilty creature. He is
depraved from his youth, not meaning, ^\e think, a less
severe description of his sinlulnesa, as Lange seems to inti-
mate, but giving a deeper view of it, as a greater calamity
It is not the mere habit-hardening or world-) lardening ol
manhood and old :.ge, as contrasted with the comparative
innocence of childhood ; but the sects of the evil lie deep,
away back in his very infancy. It i^ the hereditary, or
disease, aspect that induces the language, which seems like
regret on the part of Deity for an act so calamitous, though
so Just and necessary: "neither will I again smite every
living thing as I have done.''^ It s as though his heart
smote him, to use a transplanted Hebraism elsewhere em-
ployed of man, or as it is said of David. 1 Sam. xxiv. 6. Ii
would not be a stronger expression, tv more anthropopathic,
than that used Gen. vi. 6, '•^ and he was grieved at Jiisheart.^'
It ia not, however, simply tlie idea of hopeles&ness in view
of man's incorrigibility, but an expression of holy and in-'
finite compassion, such as the closertt eiiticism will more
and more discover as abound ng in th s old book of Genesis,
evi-n in the midst of the severest threatening of judgment.
The greatness of man's sin rr-veals the greatness of the di-
vine sorrow on account of it. The sinner, too, is allowed to
fee) it, and make it a ground of his pleading for forgiveness;
as the Psalmist prays, Ps. xxv. 11 ^'pardon mine iniquity,
for {''I:) it is great.''* In that passage, too, some would
render ^^ although, to the great marring of the force and
pathoB of the supplication. Christ did not die for small
sins, as Cranmer has well said.

It is a peculiarity of the Holy Scriptures thus to set foHii
unshrinkingly the sharp contrasts, as we may reverently Ooll
them, in the divine attributes. I^one but inspired writers
could venture to do this; and how boldly do they present
them! often, too, in closest connection without betraying
any fear of cavil, or charge of inconsistency. The tremen-
dous wrath, and the most melting mercy appear in the same
chapters, and sometimes in immediately succeeding verses.
Among others compare Nahutn i. 1, 7. What a burning
stream of indignation find^ its c'osing cadence in the words
'* Jehovah, he is good, a stronf^hold in the day of trouble, ht
knoweth them that put their trust in him." Such strong con-
trasts appear especially in portions of Scripture which tho
careless reader passes over ds indelicate, like Ezek. xvl.^
that awful picture of impurity and utter depravity, as pre-
sented in the history of the meretricious and utterly aban-
doned woman who symbolized the Jewish and Israfilitish
people. A too fastidious taste would forbid the reading of
that chapter, at least in any public religious Service, but il
is this most revolting representation (as some would style it)
■which is the very thing that makes the divine forgiveness
and compassion at the close so full of a melting tenderness,
beyond what any other kind of language could express
" I^everthe less I will remember my covenant with thee i»
the days cf thy youth, and I will establish witt thee i

326

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

moans tli;it just as soon as the heart comes to its
peculiar imagining, or the seiisu;il imagining that is
ippropriate to it, then immediately appears the in-

Qate sinfulness.— Whilst the earth remaineth

•' The three first pairs of words do not denote, as the
Jewish interpreters (see Raschi) explain it, six times
11 the year reckoned by two mouths each (a division
found in tlie Vedas and the Avesta), but they di-
vide the year into two halves each, as the old Greeks
did iuto je'pus and x^'f""" (in Hesiod it is an-qroi and
dpoToi), namely the summer (including the autumn),
beginning with the early rising of the Pleiades, and
the winter (including the spring, see Job xxix. 4) be-
ginning with the early setting (Ideler, Chron. 1, p.
241)." Delitzsch. And yet the antitheses are not
tautological. Seed-time and harvest denote the year
according to its most obvious significance for man.
Cold and heat are according to the equilibrium of the
year, lying at the ground of seed-time and harvest,
and conditioned by the regular change of tempera-
ture. Summer and mnier present the constant ap-
pearance of this change, the order of which is imaged
in the small and ordinary clianges of day and night
that belong to the general course of nature. Delitzsch
supposes that this new course of nature, consisting in
interchanges of temperature, is opposed to a "serene
or uninterrupted warnitli that prevailed before the
flood." That the earth in the primitive period had
an even temperature may be regarded as very prob-
able ; but not that the flood, in this respect, made
any sudden turning point, although such an epoch in
the earth's life must, at the same time, denote tlie
beginning of a change. At all events, the new order
of nature is not denoted as a mere imperfect earth,
ibr this purified earth will God never again cover
with a flood. Delitzsch admirably remarks : "they
are God's thoughts of peace which he''gives to Noah's
iimer perception as an answer to his offering ; as
even now every one who piays in faith gets from the
heart of God an inward perception that his prayer is
answered." The doubled form, qott tib , has as in
Is. liv. 9, the power of an oath. As an establish-
ment of the new order of nature, this promise cor-
responds to the creative words ch. L

2. The blessing of God on tlie new humanity, its
dominion, its freedom and its laws (ch. ix. 1-7).
The benediction of Noah and his sons, ver. 1, corre-
sponds to the blessing of Adam and Eve, i. 28. In
like manner, the grant of dominion over the animal
world corresponds to the appointment there ex-
pressed. The distinct license here given for the
slaying of the beasts corresponds to ch. i. 29, and
eh. ii. 16. The prohibition of eating blood corre-
sponds to the prohibition of the tree of knowledge.
Finally, the command against murder has relation,
without doubt, to the murder committed by Cain
(ch. iv). Delitzsch- "After that the general rela-
tions of nature, in view of such a ruin as has hap-
pened in the flood, are made secure by promise, there
»re given to men new physical, ethical, and legal

Cimenant nj lernlly. Then Shalt thou remember thy ways,
and be ashnmed, and thou shalt know that I am thy Lord,
that thou mayest remember and be confounded, and never
open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am
pacified" inward thee for all that tliou hast done, saith
Adonai Elohun, thy Lord and thy God." The Hebrew is,
literally, when I have madt an atonement (TIP "i1B33 )
'or thee, or a covering for thee. Ezek. xvi. 68. It is in
.hese strong conti'asts, — in those apparent inconsistencies,
as some would ca 1 them, — that the great power and pathos
of the Scripture appear.— T. L.J

foundations." — And the fear of you. — Tour fear,

as the effect, X'niB . The exciting of fear and terroi
are to be the means of man's dominion over the ani.
mals. Delitzsch remarks: "It is because the ori.
ginal harmony that once existed between man and
nature has been taken away by the fall and its con-
sequences. According to the will of God, man is
still the lord of nature, but of nature now as an
unwilling servant, to be restrained by effort, to be
subjugated by force." Not throughout, however, is
nature thus antagonistic to man ; it is not the case
with a portion of the animal world, namely, the
domestic animals. It is true, there has come in. a
breach of the original harmony, but it is not now for
the first time, and the most peculiar striving of the
creature is against its doom of perishability (Rom.
viii. 20). Moreover, it is certainly the case, that,
the influence of the/«ar of man upon the animals is
fundamentally a normal paradisaical relation. But a
severer intensity of this is indicated by the word
dread. Knobel explains it from the fact, that hence-
forth the animal is threatened in its life, and is now
exposed to be slain. Since the loss of the harmonic
relation between man and the animals (in which the
human majesty had a magical power over the beast),
the contrast between the tame and the wild, between
the friendly irmocence and the hostile dread of the
wilder species, had increased more and more, unto
the time of the flood. Now is it formally and legally
presented in the language we are considering. Man
is henceforth legally authorized to exercise a forcible
dominion over the beasts, since he can no longer rule
them through the sympathy of a spiritual power.
Also the eating of flesh, which had doubtless existed
before, is now formally legalized ; by which fact it is,
at the same time, commended. A limitation of the
pure kinds is not yet expressed. When, however,
there is added, by way of appendix, all that liveth
(that is, is alive), the dead carcase, or that which
hath died of itself, is excluded, and with it all that is
ofiensive generally. There is, however, a distinct
restriction upon this flesh-eating, in the prohibition
of the blood : But flesh with the life thereof. —
Delitzsch explains it as meaning, " that there was
forbidden the eating of the fiesh when the animal
was yet alive, unslain, and whose blood had not been
poured out, — namely, pieces cut out, according to a
cruel custom of antiquity, and still existing in Abys-
synia. Accordingly there was forbidden, generally,
the eating of flesh in which the blood still remained,"
It is, however, more to the purpose to explain this
text according to Lev. xvii. 11, 14, than by the sav-
age practices of a later barbarous heathenism, or by
Rabbmical tradition. " With its life," therefore,
means with its soul, or animating principle, and this
is explained by its blood, according to the passage
cited (Deut xii. 23) ; since the blood is the basis, the
element of the nerve-life, and in this sense, the soul.
The blood is the fluid-nerve, the nerve is the con-
structed blood. The prohibition of blood-eating, the
first of the so-called Noachian commands (see below),
is, indeed, connected with the moral reprobation of
cruelty to animals, ag it may proceed to the mutil*
tion of the liviAg ; it is, therefore, also connected with
the avoidance of raw flesh (^n "H»:3 , or living flesh,
1 Sam. ii. 15. Enobel). " The blood is regarded as
the seat of the soul, or the life, and is even denoted
as IDBJ , or the soul itself (Lev. i. 5), as the anima
purpurea of Virgil, JEn. ix. 348 ; even as hero I'lliB]
is explained by the apposition is" . But the life be

l!HAF. Vm. '20— IX. 1-17.

32'i

longs to God, the Lord of all life, and must, there-
fore, be brought to him, upon bis altar (Deut. xii.
27), and not be consumed by man." Knobel. This
is, therefore, the second idea in the prohibition of
the blood. As life, must the life of the beast go
back to God its creator ; or, as life in the victim
offered in sacrifice, it must become a symbol that the
Boul of man belongs to God, though man may par-
take of the animal materiiility, that is, the flesh.
Still stronger is the restriction that follows : And
lurely your blood of your lives. — "The soul of
the beast, in the blood of the beast, is to be avoided,
and the soul of man, in the blood of man, is not to
be violated." Delitzsch.' At the ground of this con-
trast, however, lies the more general one, that the
slaying of the beast is allowed whilst the slaying of
man is forbidden. — Will I require; that is, the
corresponding, proportionate expiation or punish-
ment will I impose upon the slayer. The expression
D3''ntUS3b, Knobel explains as meaning "for your
emih," for the best of your life (comp. Lev. xxvi. 45 ;
Deut. iv. 16 ; Job xiii. 7). According to Delitzsch
and Keil b expresses the regard had for the individ-
ual. And this appears to be near the truth. The
blood of man is individually reckoned and valued,
according to the individual souls. — At the band of
every beast. — The more particular legal regulation
is fouod in Exod. xxi. 28. Here, then, is first given
a legal ground for the pursuit and destruction of
human murderous and hurtful beasts. Still there is
expressed, moreover, the slaying of the single beast
that hath killed a man. " In the enactments of So-
lon and Draco, and even in Plato, there is a similar
provision." Delitzsch. — And at tbe hand of man.
— " ns tti^x , brother man, that is, kinsman ; comp.
ch xiii. 5; so, "113 UJix, a priest-man, etc. By tlie
words ITIN d"'S is not to be understood the next
of kin to the murdered man, whose duty it was to
execute the blood-vengeance (Von Bohlen, Tuch,
Baumgarten), as the one from whom God required the
blood that was shed, but the murderer himself. In
order to indicate the imnaturalness of murder, and
its deep desert of penalty, God denotes him (the
murderer) as in a special sense the brother of the
murdered." Knobel. Besides this, moreover, there
is formed from IU''X the expression every man (De-
litzsch, Keil). Every man, brother man. — Tbe life
of man. — Man is emphasized. Therefore follows,
emphatically, the formula : Wbosoever sbeddetb
man's blood, and at the close again there is once
more man (CiSfi) prominently presented. — By man
gball his blood be sbed : " namely, by the next
of kin to the murdered, whose right and duty both
it was to pursue the murderer, and to slay him. He
is called Wn bxj, the demander of the blood, or
the blood-avenger. The Hebrew law imposed the
penalty of death upon the homicide (Exod. xxi. 12;
Lev. xxiv. 17), which the blood avenger carried
out (Numb. XXXV. 19, 21) ; to him was the murderer
delivered up by the congregation to be put to death
(Deut. xix. 12). Among the old Hebrews, the blood-
vengeance was the usual mode of punishing murder,
wd was also practised by many other nations."
Delitzsch and Keil dispute the relation of this pas-
sage to tbe blood-vengeance. It is not to be misap-
[rehendeil, 1. that here, in a wider sense, humanity
i'self, seeing it is always next of kin to the murdered,
^ appointed to be the avenger; and 2. th»t the ap-

pointment extends beyond the blood-vengeance, art
becomes the root of the magisterial right of punish,
ment. On the other hand, it cannot be denied tLat
in the patriarchal relations of the olden time it was a
fundamental principle that the next of kin were not
only justified in the execution of the law of blood
but on account of the want of a legal tribunal, were
under obhgation to perform the office. This primi-
tive, divinely-sanctioned custom, became, in its ideal
and theocratic direction, the law of punishment as
magisterially regulated in the Mosaic institutions
(but which still kept in mind the blood-vengeance),
whereas, in the direction of crude heathenism, which
avenged the murder even upon the relations of the
murderer, it became itself a murderous impulse.
DeUtzseh remarks, that God has now laid in the
hands of men the penal force that belonged to him
alone, because he has withdrawn his visible pres-
ence from the earth, — according to the view, before
cited, of his transfer of the divine throne to the
heavens. — For in the image of God made ha
man — This is the reason for the command against
murder. In man there is assailed the image of God,
the personality, that which constitutes the very aim
of his existence, although the image itself, as such,
is inviolable. In murder the crime is against the
spirit, in which tbe divine kinsmanship reveals itself,
and so is it a crime against the very appearing of
God in the world in its most universal form, or as a
prelude to that murder which was committed against
the perfect form of man (or image of God in man),
Zach. xii. 10; John iu. 10, 15). — But be ye fruit,
ful. — The contrast to the preceding. The value of
human life forbids its being wasted, and commands
its orderly increase. — Bring forth abundantly in
the earth — In the spreading of men over the earth,
and out of its supplies of food (by which, as it were,
the Ufe of the earth is transformed into the life of
man) are found the conditions for the multipliL-ation
of the human race. Thus regarded, there Is only an
apparent tautology in the verse, not an actual one.

'i. Vers. 8-17. The covenant of God with Noah,
with his race, and with the whole earth. — To Noah
and to his sons ivith him. — Solemn covenanting
form. The sons are addressed together with Noah ;
for the covenant avails expressly for the whole h^i-
man race. — And I, behold I establish. — Thj
words, and I, ( "'JSi ) form a contrast to the claims
of God on the new humanity as an introduction w
the promise. According to Knobel, God had es-
tablished no covenant with the antediluvians. Noi,
indeed, in the literal expressions here employed ;
since it was after men had had the experience of a
destroying judgment. According to the same (Kno-
bel), the Jehovist, in ch. viii. 21 presented the
matter in a way different from that of the Elohi.<t
here. Clearly, however, does the offering of Noah
there mentioned, furnish the occasion for the entire
transaction that follows in this place. The making
of a covenant with Noah is already introduced, and
announced ch. vi. 13 ; it stands in a development
conditioned on the preservation of Noah's faith, just
as a similar development is still more evident in the
life of Abraham (see Jas. ii. 20-23). Keil remarks
that " n"''i3 O'^pn is not equivalent to ri'i'ia nnS j
that is, it does not denote the formal concluding, but
the establishing, confirming, of a covenant, — iu other
words, the reahzation of the covenanting promise "
(comp. Gen. xxii. with Gen. xvii. and xv.). Delitzsch ;
" There begins now the era of the dinne avo (t

328

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

(Rom. iii. 26) of which Paul preached in Lystria
(Acts xiv. 15)." In its moat special sense, this era
begins with the origin of heathenism, that is, from
the Babylonian dispersion. With a right fulness is
the animal world also included in this covenant,
for it is elohistic, — universalistic ; it keeps wholly
predominant the characteristic of compassion for the
creaturely life upon the earth, although man forms
its ethical middle point, with which the animal world
f.jid the kosmos are connected. The covenant with
the beasts subsists not for itself, and, in respect to its
nature, is only to be taken symbolically. — Shall
not be cut off any more. — This is the divine
covenant promise — no new destruction, — no end of
the world again produced by a flood. — My bow in
the cloud, it shall be for a token. — In every
divine covenant there is a divine sign of the cov-
enant ; in this covenant it is said : mi/ bow do I set.
According to Knobel the rainbow is called God's
bow, because it belongs to the heaven, God's dwelling
place. It is a more correct interpretation to say, it
is because God has made it to appear in the heaven,
as the sign of his covenant. According to the same,
the author of the account must have entertained the
supposition that there had never been a rainbow
before the time of the flood. DeUtzscb is of the same
opinion.* It is, indeed, a phenomenon of refraction,
which may be supposed of a fall of water, and some-
times, also, of a dew-distilling mist. But tlie far
visible and overarching rainbow supposes the rain-
cloud as its natural conditioning cause. We have
already remarked that from the appointment of the
rainbow, as the sign of the covenant, it by no means
follows that it had not before existed as a phenome-
non of nature (ch. ii.). The starry night, too, is m:ide
the sign of « promise for Abraham (ch. xv.). Keil
is not willing to infer that hitherto it had not rained,
but only presents the conjecture that at an earlier
period the constitution of the atmosphere may have
been dift'erent. — And I will look upon it that I
may remember. — An anthropomorphising form of
expression, but which like every other expression of
the kind, ever gives us the tenor of the divine
thought in a symbolical human form. Here it is the
expression of the self-obligating, or of the conscious
covenant truthfulness, as manifested in the constant
sign. "In his presence, too, have they power
and most essential significance." (Von Gerlach).

[Note on the Appointment of the Rainbow as
THE Sign of the Covenant. — 1» regard to this it
may be WeU to give the views of some of the older
Jewish commentators, if for no other purpose, to
show that what is really the most easy and the most
natural interpretation comes from no outside pres-
sure of science, but is fairly deducible from the very
letter of the passage. Thus reasons Maimonides
respecting it: "For the words are in past time,
TIPS ^P!'^']5 ns , my bow have I set (or did set) in
the cloud, not, / am now setting, or about to set,
which would be expressed by lni3 "iJX , according as
ne had said just before, IPS "'^K "iwN;. n^nan ,
the covenant which / am now establishing. More-
aver the form of the word Tlltip my bow, shows
Ihat there was something to him so called from the
Beginning. And so the Scripture must be interpret-

• [The opinion of Bclitzsch is not so broad as this. Ho
geems, rather, to hold that the rainbow existed in nnture
before the flood, but bad not appeared, on account of the
fct'aeuce of the conditioDi Seo Belitzsch, p. 276.— T. L.]

ed : the bow which I put ( ^nns ) in the cloud in tb(
day of creation, shall be, from this day, and hence-
forth, for a sign of the covenant between me and you,
so that every time that it appears, I will look upon it
and remember my covenant of peace. If it is asked
then, what is meant by the bow's being a sign, I answei
that it is like what is said Gen. xxxi. 48, in the cot
enant between Jacob and Laban, ^^ n?n tin T^tp.
lo, this /leap is a witness, etc., or Gen. xxxi. £2,
naSHri nns , and this pillar shall be a witness, etc.
And so also Gen. xxi. 30, i"!^a njsPi Pnli'33 S5IC PN ,
seven lambs shall thou take from my hand, illsi
fur a witness. In like manner everything that ap-
pears as thus put before two, to cause them to re-
member something promised or covenanted, is called
nix . And so of the circumcision ; God says, it
shall be a sign of the covenant, P^"^;i Pl.sb , between
me and you. Thus the bow that is now visible, and
the bow that was in nature( J"3B3) from the be-
ginning, or from of old ( obisa ) are one in this, that
the sign which is in them is one." He then proceeds
to say that there are other and mystic inteipreta-
tions made by some of the Rabbins, but this great
critic is satisfied with the one that he has given.
Aben Ezra says that the most celebrat.'d of the
Jewish Rabbins held the same opinion as Maimonides,
namely, that the rahibow was in nature fiom the be-
ginning, though he himself seems to dissent.

" And I wiU look upon it to remember the
□bisi P^T3 , the covenant of eternity." Let us not
be troubled about the anthropopathism, but receive
the precious thought in all its inexpressible tender-
ness. Lange u.ost beautifully characterizes such
mutual remembrance as eye meeting eye. We all
know that God's memory takes in the total universe
of space at every moment of time: but there are
some things which he remembers as standing out
from the great totality. He remembers the act of
faith, and the sign of faith, as he Temerabers no
other human act, no other finite phenomenon. May
we not believe that there is the same mutual re-
membrance in the Eucharist ? The " remember me "
implies " I will remember thee." The eye of the
Redeemer looking into the eye of the believer, or
both meeting in the same memorial : this is certainly
a " real presence," whatever else there may be of
depth and mystery in that most fundamental Chris-
tian rite— the evangelical cbis P"'^3 Pis , or sign
of the everlasting covenant.

The Hebrew pis is not used of miraculous signs,
properly, given as proofs of mission or doctrine. It
is not a counteraction of natural law, or the bringing
a new thing into nature. Any fixed object may be
used for a sign, and here the very covenant itaehF, 01
a most important part of it, being the stability of
nature, there is a most striking consistency in the
fact that the sign of such covenant is taken from na-
ture itself. The rainbow, ever appearing in the
" sunshine after rain," is the very symbol of constant-
ey. It is selected Irom all others, not only for ita
splendor and beauty, but for the regularity with
which it cheers us, when we look out for it after the
storm. Noah needed no witness of the supernatural.
The great in nature, in that early age when all wai
wonderful, was regarded as manifesting God equallj
with the supernatural. Besides, in the flood itself
there was a sufficient witness to the extraordiimtv

CHAP. Vm. 20— IX 1-17.

329

There was wanted, then, not a miracle strictly as an
attestation of a message, or as a sign of belief, like
the miracles in the New Testament (when there was
a necessity for breaking up the lethargy of natural-
ism), but a vivid memorial for the conservation
taiher than the creation of faith. The Hebrew word
for miracle is more properly xbs , though it may be
ased simply iot prodigy, like the Greek rtpot, in dis-
tinction from the New Testament atitif^ov, which is
properly a proof or attestation of a miraculous kind.
Tepas simply means anything wonderful, whether in
nature or not. Superstition converts such appear-
ances into portents, or signs of something impending,
but in the Bible God's people are expressly told
" not to be dismayed at the signs of the heavens as
the heathen are." Jer. i. 1. The word there used
is this same ninis in the plural, but accommodated
to the heathen perversion. To the believing Israelites
the signs of the heavens, even though strange and
unusual, were to be regarded as tokens of their cove-
nant God above nature yet ruling in nature, and ever
regulating the order of its phenomena. There is a
passage sometimes quoted from Homkr, II. xi. 27, 28 :

'IpvaaLV fioiKOTes a<rTe Kpovibiv
'Ev ve'^et (TT^ptf e TEPA5 txtpOTttitv avOptxtntov.

" Like the rainbows which Zeus fixed in the cloud a
sign to men of many tongues." But repas there has
the sense of prodigy, or it may denote a wonderful
and beautiful object. We cannot, thei el'ore, certainly
infer from this any traditional recognition of the
great sign-appointing in Genesis. So Plato quotes
from Hesiod the genealogy of Iris (the rainbow), as
the daughter of Bxifxas or Wonder, as a sort of
poetical argument that Wonder is the parent of
philosophy, as though the rainbow were placed in the
heavens to stimulate men in the pursuit of curious
knowledge. But it is the religious use that is prom-
inent in this as in all the Bible appeals to the obser-
vation of nature. It is for the support of faith in the
God of nature, " that we may look upon it and
remember ; " and this is admirably expressed in a
Rabbinical doxology to be found in the Talmudic
Kiddusc/iin, fol. 8, and which was to be recited at
every appearance of the rainbow, mni nnx "''13
W IS^nbx, "Blessed be thou Jehovah our God,
King of eternity (or of the world), ever mindful of
thy covenant, faithful in thy covenant, firm iu thy
word," comp. Ps. exix. 89, Forever, 0 Lord, thy
word is settled in heaven. The Targum of Onkelos
translates Gen. ix. 13: "And it shall be a sign, 'p'2
NSIS ^^21 ■'la'^a, between mj^ worrf and the earth."
It is not unreasonable to suppose some reference
to this place in that difficult passage Hab. iii. 9,
{(rillip lisr ni"lS , most obscurely rendered in our
English version, "thy bow was made quite naked —
the oaths of the tribes — the word." Kimchi trans-
lates it revealed, made manifest. It is commonly
thought that all that is said iu that sublime chapter
bas reference to events that took place during the
exodus, but there is good ground for giving it a wider
ange, so as to take in other divine wonders, in crea-
tion and in the patriarchal history. — T. L.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.

I. There are the most distinct indications that
the flood, as the greatest epoch of the primitive time,
made a turning point, not only in the spiritual life

of humanity, but also in its physical relations, — yea,
in the very life of the earth itself. Only we may not,
in the first place, regard this turning point as a
sudden change of all relations ; just as little as th«
fall (Gen. iii.) suddenly brought in death, or as the
confusion of tongues produced immediately the
wide-spread diversities of language. And, in the
second place, again, it must not be jegarded as a
change of all relations for the worse. There is sojv
posed to have been a change of the atmosphere (ccn-
cerning the rain and the rainbow, see above). At all
events, the paradisaical harmony of the earth had
departed at an earlier day. But, on the other hand,
there comes in now a more constant order of the
atmospherical relations (ch. viii. 22). Again, some
have called it a sudden change in the duration of
human life. But to this is opposed the fact that the
aged Noah lived 350 years after the flood. It ia
evident, however, that during the period of Noah's
life the breaking through of death from the inner to
the outer life had made a great advance. And to
this the fear which the flood brought upon the
children and grandchildren of Noah (not upon him-
self) may have well contributed. As far as relates to
the increasing ferocity of the wild beasts towards
men, the ground of their greatei' estrangement and
savageness cannot be found in their deliverance in
the ark. Already had the mysterious paradisaical
peace between man and beast departed with the
fall. Moreover, the words: "all flesh had corrupted
its way," (ch. vi. 12) indicate that together with
men's increasing wickedness the animal world had
grown more ferocious. But if the mode of life as
developed among men made the eating of flesh (and
drinking of wine) a greater necessity for them than
before, then along with the sanctioning of tliis new
order of life, must there have been sanctioned also
the chase. And so out of this there must have arisen
a state of war between man and the animal world,
which would have for its consequence an increased
measure of customary fear among the animals that
were peculiarly exposed to it.

2. Immediately after the flood, Noah built an
altar to Jehovah, his covenant God, who had saved
him. The living worship [cultus) was his first
work, the culture of the vineyard was his second.
The altar, in like manner, was the sign of the ances-
tral faith, as it had come down from paradise and
had been transmitted through the ark. This faith
was the seed-corn as well as sign of the future
theocracy and the future church. It was an altar
of faith, an altar of prayer, an altar of thanks-
giving, for it was erected to Jfehovah. But it was
also an altar of confession, an acknowledgment that
sin had not died in the flood, that Noah and hia
house was yet sinful and needed the symbolic sancti-
fication. In this case, too, was the ofiering of an
animal itself an expression of the greater alacrity in
the sacriflce since Noah had preserved only a few
specimens of the clean animals. This readiness in
the offering was in that case an expression of his
faith in salvation, wherein, along with his prayer for
gi'ace and compassion, there was inlaid a supplication
for his house, for the new humanity, for the new
world. His offering was a burntrolfering, a whole
burnt-offering (Kalil) or an ascending in the flama
(Olah), as Siu expression that he, Noah, did thereby
devote himself with his whole house, his whole race,
and with the whole new earth, to the service of God.
The single kinds of offering were all included in tliia
central offering. It was tliis sense of his offering

330

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

which made the strong burnt odor of the burning
flesh, a " sweet savor " for Jehovah in a meta-
phorical sense. The attestation of Jehovah makes it
evident in what sense Noah oifered it. It expresses
1. an averting of the curse from the ground, 2. the
fact tliat the hereditary sinfulness of man was to be
an object of the divine compassion. The sinful ten-
de.ii'.y ill its connection with the act of sin is guilt,
but m its connection with the need of salvation and
Balvaiion itself, it is an evil, the sorest of diseases and
Buffering (see above) ; S. the promise that Jehovah
would not again destroy every living thing; 4. the
establishment of a constant order of nature ; such as
the prosperity of the new human race demanded.
On this promise of sparing compassion for sinful
men, and which God as Jehovah pronounces, there
is grounded the renewed relation into which, as
Elohim, he enters with all humanity, and the creature
world connected with it. This relation is denoted by
grants made by God to man, and demands whioli he
makes of man, whereupon follows the establishment
of the Elohistic covenant with Noah and all living.
The Grants of God : 1. the repetition of the blessing
upon Noah and upon all his house, as before upon
the animals ; 2. the renewed grant of dominion over
the beasts ; the sanction given to the eating of flesh.
In conti»st with these grants that guarantee the
existence and well-being of the human race, stand
the demands or claims made in respect to human
conduct. The first is the avoidance of the eating
of flesh with the blood, whereby there is togetlier
established the sanctification of the enjoyment, the
avoidance of savageness as against nature, and of
cruelty as against the beast. The second not only
forbids the shedding of human blood, but commands
also the punishment of murder ; it ordains the ma-
gistracy with the sword of retribution. But it ex-
presses, at the same time, that the humane civil
organization of men must have a moral basis, namely
the acknowledgment that all men are brothers
(ITIS lli"'t< every man, his brother man), and with
this again, a religious basis, or the faith in a peison-
al God, and that, inviolability of the human person-
ality which rests in its imaged kinsmanship with
God. On this fohows the estabUshment of the cov-
enant. Still it is not made altogether dependent on
the establishment of the preceding claims. It is a
covenant of promise for the sparing of all living that
reaches beyond this, because it is made not for in-
dividuals but for all, not merely for the morally ac-
countable but for infants, not merely for men but
also for the animal world. Notwithstanding, how-
ever, this transcending universality of the divine
covenant, it is, in truth, made on the supposition
that faith in the grace and compassion of Jehovah,
piety in respect to the blessing, the name and the
image of Elohim, shall correspond to the divine
faithfulness, and that men shall find consolation and
composure in the sign of the rainbow, only in as far
ae they preserve faith in God's word of promise.

3. In the preceding Section we must distinguish
between what God says in his heart, and what Elo-
him says to Noah and his sons. The first word,
which doubtless was primarily comprehensible to
Noah only, is the foundation of the second. For
God's grace is the central source of his goodness to
a sinful world, as on the side of men the believing
are the central ground for the preservation of the
world, as they point to Christ the absolute centre,
ihe world's redeemer having, however, his preserv-

ing life in those who are his own, as his word testi-
fies : Ye are the salt of the earth. We must, then,
again distinguish between the word of blessing,
which embraced Noah and his sons, and with them
humanity in general, and the word of the covenant
which embraced all living (ch. ix. 10).

4.- The institutions of the new humanity: 1. At
the head stands the altat with its bumt-ofieiing aa
the middle point and commencing point of every
offering, an expression of feeling that the life which
God gave, which he graciously spares, which he
wonderfully preserves, shall be consecrated to him,
and consumed in his service. 2. The order of na-
ture, and, what is very remarkable, as the ordinance
of Jehovah, made dependent on the foregoing order
of his kingdom of grace. 3. The institution of the
marriage blessing, of the consecration of marriage, of
the family, of the dispersion of men. 4. The domin-
ion of man over the animal world, as it embraces the
keeping of cattle, the chase, manifold use of the
beasts. S. The holding as sacred the blood — the
blood of the animal for the. altar of God, the blood
of man for the priestly service of God ; the institu-
tion of the humanitat,* of the humane culture and
order, especially of the magistracy, of the penal and
judicial office (including personal self-defence and
defensive war). 6. The grounding of this huma litat
on the rehgious acknowledgment of the spii'tual
personahty, of the relation of kinsman that man
bears to God, of the fraternal relation of men to «ach
other, and, consequently, the grounding of the ftate
on the basis of religion. 7. The appointment of the
humanization of the earth (ver. 7) in the. conin and
to men to multiply on the earth — properly, upon it,
and by means of it. As men must become divine
through the image of God, so the earth must be
humanized. 8. The appointment of the covenant
of forbearance, which together with the security of
the creature-world against a second physical flood,
expresses also the security of the moraj world against
perishing in a deluge of anarchy, or in the floods of
popular commotion (Ps. xciii). 9. The appointment
of the sign of the covenant, or of the rainbow as God'a
bow of peace, whereby there is at the same time ex-
pressed, in the first place, the elevation of men above
the deification of the creature (since the rainbow is not
a divinity, but a sign of God, an appointment which
even the idolatrous nations appear not to have wholly
forgotten, when they denote it God's bridge, or God'a
messenger) ; in the second place, their introduction
to the symbolic comprehension and interpretation of
natural phenomena, even to the symbolizing of forma
and colors ; thirdly, that God's compassion remembera
men in their dangers, as indicated by the fact, that in
the sign of the rainbow his eye meets their eye ; fourth-
ly, the setting up a sign of light and lire, which, along
with its assurance that the earth will never again ba
drowned in water, indicates at the same time its future
transformation and glorification through light and fire.

5. In the rainbow covenant all men, in their deal-
ings with each other, and, at the same time, with all
animals, have a common interest, namely, in the
preservation of life, a common promise, or the assup.
ance of the divine care for life, and a common luty
in the sparing of life.

6. The offering as acceptable to God, ind ita
prophetic significance.

* [Our word humanity will not dc here atall : ae i( cone>
spends to the Gennan menschlieit ; whilst our humamtari'
aniism, on account of its abuse, w >-.J.l be still woree. It is
defined by what follows.— T. Ij.]

CHAP. vm. 20— rs. 1-17.

38

1. The disputes concerning original sin hare
variously originated from not distinguishing its two
opposing relations. These are, its relation to actual
sin, Rom. v. 12, and to the desire for deliverance,
Rom. vii. 23-25.

8. The magical or direct power of man over the
beasts is not laken away, but flawed, and thereupon
repaired through his mediate power, derived from
that superiority which he exercises as huntsman,
fisher, fowler, etc. In regard to the first, compare
Lange's "Miscellaneous Writings," vol. iv. p. 189.

9. The ordinance of the punishment of death for
murder, involves, at the same time, the ordinance of
the magistracy, of the judicial sentence, and of the
penal infliction. But in the historical development
of humanity, the death-penalty has been executed
with fearful excess and false application (for exam-
ple, to the crime of theft) ; since in this way, gener-
ally, all humane savageness and cruelty has mingled
in the punitive office. From this is explained the
prejudice of the modem humanitarianism against
capital punishment. It is analogous to the prejudice
against the excommunication, and similar institutes,
which human ignorance and furious human zeal have
BO fearfully abused. Yet still, a divine ordinance
may not be set aside by our prejudices. It needs
only to be rightly understood according to its own
limitation and idea. The fundamental principle for
all time is this, that the murderer, through his own
act and deed, lias forfeited his right in human soci-
ety, and incurred the doom of death. In Cain this
principle was first realized, in that, by the cuise of
God, he was excommunicated, and driven, in self-
banishment, to the land of Nod. This is a proof,
that in the Christian humanitarian development, the
principle may be reaUzed in another form than
through the Uteral, corporeal shedding of blood (see
Lange's treatise Gesttzliche Kirche ala Sinnbild, p.
72). It must not, indeed, he overlooked, that the
mention is not merely of putting to death, but also
of blood-shedding, and that the latter is a terrific
mode of speech, whose warnings the popular life
widely needed, and, in many respects, still needs.
Luther : " There is the first command for the em-
ployment of the secular sword. In the words there
is appointed the secular magistracy, and the right as
derived from God, which puts the sword in its
hands," Every act of murder, according to the
Noachian law, appears as a fratricide, and, at the
same time as malice against God.

10. To this passage: "for in the image of God
made he man," as also to the passage, James iii. 9,
has the appeal been made, to show that even after
the fall there is no mention of any loss of the divine
image, but only of a darkening and disorder of the
same. Others, again, have cited the apparently op-
posing language, Coloss. iii 10, and similar passages.
But in this there has not always been kept in mind
the distinction of the older dogmatics between the
conception of the image in its wider sense (the spirit-
ual nature of man) and the more restricted sense
(the spiritual constitution of man). In like manner
should there be made a fUrther distinction between
ihe disposition of Adam as conformed to the image
(mzde in, or after the image) and the image itself as
freely developed in Christ (the express image, Heb.
xiii ), as also finally between the natural man consid-
ered in the abatract, in the consequences of his fall,
and the natural man in the concrete, as he appears in
the operation of the gratia prceveniens. This perfect
developed image Adam could not have lost, for be

had not attained to it. Neither can men lose thi
ontological image as grounded in the spiritual na^
ture, because it constitutes its being ; but it ma?
darken and distort it. The image of God, however
in the ethical sense, the divine mind (ciip6i/nua irvev-
^ciTos), this he actually lost to the point where the
gratia pneveniens laid hold on him, and made a point
of opposition between his gradual restoration and
the fall in abstracto. But to what degree this imaga
of God in fallen man had become lost, is shown in
this very law against murder, which expresses the
inalienable, personal worth, that is, the worth that
consists in the image as still belonging to man, and
thus, in contrast with grace, must man become con-
scious of the full consequences of his sinful corrup-
tion according to the word : what would I have been
without thee ? what would I become without thee f

11. With this chapter has the Ribbinical tradi-
tion connected their doctrine of the seven Noacbio
precepts. (Buxtorf : Lexicon Talmudicum, article,
Ger, la). They are: 1. De judiciis; 2. de benedic-
tione Dei ; 3. de idolatria fugienda ; 4. de scoria-
tione ; 5. de e^tcsione sanguinis ; 6. de rapina ;
7. de membro de animali vivo sc. non tollendo. The
earlier supposition, that the Apostolical decree (Acts
XV.) had relation to this, and that, accordingly, in its
appointments, it denominated the heathen Christian*
as proselytes of the gate (on whom the so-called
Noachian laws were imposed) is disputed by Meter,
in his "Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles"
(p. 278), though not on satisfactory grounds. The
matter of chief interest is the recognition, that in the
Israelitish consciousness there was a clear distinction
between revealed patriarchal precepts and the Mo-
saic law. Such a distinction is also expressed by
Christ, John vii. 22, 28. So, too, did the Levitical
law make a distinction between such precepts as
were binding upon aliens (proselytes of the gtite) and
such as were binding upon the Jews (Lev. xvii. 14 ;
see Bibelwerk, Acts of the Apostles, p. 215). It lies
in the very nature of the case, that in Acts xv. the
seventh precept of the tradition, according to its
wider appointment, was divided into two (namely,
abstinence from blood and from things Strangled),
and that, moreover, only those points came into the
general view, in respect to which heathen Christians,
as freer Christians, might be liable to fail. It was,
in fact, a monotheistic patiiarchal custom, which, as
the expression of the patriarchal piety and humane-
ness, became the basis of the Mosaic law, and on
this basis must the heathen Christians have come
together in ethical association, if, in their freedom
from the dogmas of the Mosaic law, they would not
endanger even the churchly and social communion
of the Jewish Christians (see Lange : Geschichte del
Apostolischen Zeitalters, ii. p. 187). The prohibition
of blood-eating has here no longer any dogmatic sig-
nificance, but only an ethical. The Greek Church
mistook this in its maintenance of the prohibition
(Trullanic Council, 692), whereas, the Western
Church, in the changed relations, let the temporary
appointment become obsolete.

12. On the symbolical significance of the rain
oow, see Delitzsch, p. 277, and Lange's " Miscella
neous Writings," L p. 277, from which Delitzsch
gives the following passage: "The rainbow is the
colored glance of the sun as it breaks forth from the
night of cteuds ; it is its triumph over the floods — a
solar beam, a glance of light burnt into the rain-cloud
in sign of its submission, in sign of the protection of
all living through the might of the sun, or rather the

333

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

compassion of God." To this adds Delitzsch : " As
!',■ lights up the dark ground that just before was dis-
charging itself in flashes of lightning, it gives us an
iuea of the victory of God's love over the black and
£ery wrath ; originating as it does from the effects
oi the sun upon the sable vault, it represents to the
censes the readiness of the heavenly light to pene-
trate the earthly obscurity ; spanned between heaven
»nd earth, it announces peace between God and man ;
Arching the horizon, it proclaims the all-embracing
universality of the covenant of grace." He then
cites some of the mythical designations of the rain-
bow. It is called by the Hindoos, the weapon of
Indras ; by the Greeks, Iris, the messenger of the
gods ; by the Germans, Bifrost {living way), and
Asen-briicke, "bridge of Asen;^' by the Samoeids,
the seam, or " border of God's robe." There are, be-
sides, many significant popular sayings connected
with its appearance. Knobel : " The old Hebrews
looked upon it as a great band joining heaven and
earth, and binding them both together ; as the Greek
/pis comes from elpai, to tie or bind,* they made it,
therefore, the sign of a covenant, or of a relation of
peace between God in heaven, and the ereatures upon
the earth. In a similar manner the heavenly ladder,
Gen. xiviii. 12." On this, nevertheless, it musv oe
remarked, that the Hebrews were conscious of the
symbolic sense of the designation ; not so, however,
the Greeks, who were taken with the fabie merely.
In like manner, too, did the Hebrew view rest upon
a divine revelation, flow far the mere human inter-
pretation may be wide of the truth, is shown by the
(act, that classical antiquity regarded the rainbow as
for the most part announcing " rain, the wintry
storm, and war."

[Note on the Akcient, the Univeesal, and
THE Cnouanging Law OF HoMiciDE. — The divine
statute, recorded ch. ix. 6, is commonly assailed on
giouuds that are no less an abuse of language, than
they are a perversion of reason and Scripture- The
taking the life of the murderer is called revenge — no
distinction being made between this word, which
ever denotes something angry and personal, and
vengeance, which is the requital of Justice, holy, in-
visible, and free from passion. On this false ground
there is an attempt to set the Old Testament in oppo-
sition to the New, notwithstanding the express words
of Christ to the contrary. This perverse misnomer,
and the argument grounded upon it, apply equally to
all punishment, strictly such — to all retributive jus-
tice, or to any assertion of law that is not resolvable
into the merest expediency, excluding altogether the
idea of desert, and reducing the notion of crime sim-
ply to that of mi.schief, or inconvenience. It thus
becomes itself revenge in the lowest and most per-
sonal sense of the term. Discarding the higher or
abstract justice, giving it no place in human law,
severing the earthly government wholly from the
divine, the proceeding called punishment, or justice,
ia nothing more nor less than the setting the mere
personal convenience of the majority, called society,
against that of the smaller numbers whom such soci-
ety calls criminals. This has all the personality of
revenge, whether with passion, or without ; whereas,
the t'jstract justice, with its moral ground, and its
dM of intrinsic desert, alone escapes the charge,
tntimately connected with this is the question re-
specting the true idea and sanction of ijpman gov-

* [Plato, in the Cratylus, fancifully connects it witti
eipu, ctpo^ai = (fujjut, lo speak, and elves it the ideaof TMSsen-
ga' (Hoimcs], or interpretation. — T. L.]

ernment, — whether it truly has a moral ground, oi
whether it is nothing higher than human wills, and
human convenience, by whatever low and ever falling
standard it may be estimated. If the murderer i*
punished with death simply because he deserves it,
because God has commanded it, and the magistrate
and the executioner are but carrying out that com-
mand, then all the opposite reasoning adverted to
falls immediately to the ground. It has neither
force nor relevancy.

The same, too, may be said in respect to much
of the reasoning in favor of capital punishment, so
far as it is grounded on mere expediency, and is not
used as a collateral aid to that higher principle by
which alone even a true expediency can be sustained.
Should it even be conceded that this higher princi-
ple is, in itself, and for its own sake, above the range
of human government, still must it be acknowledged
in jurisprudence as something necessary to hold up
that lower department of power and motive which ia
universally admitted to fill within it. Eeformation
and prevention will never be efl'ected under a judi-
cial system which studiously, and even hostilely (for
there can be no neutrality here) shuts out all moral
ideas. There may be a seeming reform in such
case ; but it has no ground in the conscience, be-
cause it is accompanied by no conviction of desert,
to which such influences must be wholly alien. The
deterring power, on the other hand, must constantly
lose its vigor, as the terror of the invisible justice
fades away in the ignoring of the law, and there takes
its place in the community that idea of punishment
which is but the warring of opposite conveniences,
and the collision of stronger with weaker human wills.

Men are not merely permitted to take the life of
the murderer, if the good of society require it, but
they are commanded to do so unconditionally. lu
no other way can the community itself escape the
awful responsibility. Blood rests upon it. Impunity
makes the whole land guilty. A voice cries to hea-
ven. Murder unavenged is a pollution. Numb. xxxv.
33 ; Ps. cvi. 88 ; Mic. iv. 11. Such is the strong
language of the Scripture as we flnd it in Genesis, in
the statute of the Pentateuch — which is only a par-
ticular application of the general law — and in the
Prophets. Such, too, is the expression of aU anti-
quity— so strong and clear that we can only regard
it as an echo of this still more ancient voice — the
Tpiyepoif iJ.vdov, as .ffischylus styles it in a passage
before referred to. Note, p. 257. The Greek dra-
matic poetry, like the Scriptures, presents it as the
crime inexpiable, for which no lesser satisfaction was
to be received : "Moreover ye shall take no satisfac-
tion for the life of the murderer, who is guilty of
death." Numb. xxxv. 31.

Ta TTaVTa. yap Tl? CK^cas CLvff ai/taros

Lavish all wealth for blood, for one man's blood —
*Tis all in vain. .Esch., Chomph, 518

And this gives the answer to another false ai'U
ment : It was only a law for the Jews, it is said
The first refutation is found in this passage, which is
certainly universal, if anything can be called such.
It was just after that most fearful judgment which
had been brought upon the earth by lust and mur
der. It is not a prediction, but a solemn statute
made for all, and to all, who then constituted the
human race. It has the strongest aspect of univer-
sality. The reason for it, namely, the asf-'iiling the
image of God, not only embraces all eartliiy human

CHAP. Vm. 20— IX. 1-17.

3MS

Ity. but carries us into tlie spiritual and supernatural
woild. The particular law afterwards made for the
Jews refers back to this universality in that repeated
declaration which makes it to differ from all other
Jewish laws that do not contain it : " This shall be a
frtatute to you in all your places, in all generations."
The language is universal, the reason is universal,
the consequences of impunity are universal.

Such, too, was the sentiment of all antiquity, a
thing we are not to despise in endeavoring to ascer-
tain what is fundamental in the ideas of ethics and
jurisprudence. The law for the capital punishment
of homicide was everywhere. The very superstitions
connected with it, as shown in the expiatory cere-
monies, are evidence of the deep sense of the human
mind, that this crime, above all others, must have its
adequate atonement ; and that this could only be,
life for lite, blood for blood —

4>6vot, t^dvovs atTOU/iei'Ol.

Even in the case of accidental homicide, an expia-
tory cleansing was demanded. These ideas appear
sometimes in harsh and revolting forms. The lan-
guage is occasionally terrific, especially as it appears
in the ancient tragedy ; but all this only shows the
sti'ength and universality of the feeling, together
with the iimate sense of justice on which it was
grounded. Aristotle reckons the punishment of
murder by death among the Ki/Hiwa ^-fpa^Ta, the
universal " unwritten laws," as they are styled by
Sophocles in the Antigone, 454, although, in the lat-
ter passage, the reference is to the righis of burial,
and the sacredness of the human body — ideas closely
connected with the primitive law against murder as
a violation of the divine image in humanity. All of
this class of ordinances are spoken of as very an-
cient. No man knew from whence they came, nor
when they had their origin.

oil yap Tt vvv ye Kax^e'j, aXA* act iroTe
^TJ TauTa, KOuSels olSev ef oTOu '(^avrt-

Not now, nor yesterday, but evermore
Live these ; no memory tracks their birth.

To the same effect does the philosopher quote the
lines of Erapedocles, Trepi toO fxi) Kr^iv^tv rh efi\pv\0Pf
" on the crime of taking life," or slaying that which
has soul in it, — very much in the language of the
Hebrew phrase BB3 J")il, Numb. xxxi. 19. For
this, he says — namely, the punishment of homicide
by death — is not the law in one place, and not in
another,

aAXei rb llkv irdvTiav v6ii.tfj.ov.

See Aristotle's Rhetorica, lib. i. ch, xiii. Comp. also
Sophocles; Ajax, 1343, and the (Edipus Ti/ran. 867.
The "blood revenge," or rather, ''the blood
fengeance," as it should be called. Die JSlutrache,
nas an odious sound, because pains have been taken
to connect with it odious associations, but it is only
a mode of denoting this strong innate idea of justice
demanding retribution in language corresponding to
the horror of the crime, — the enormity of which,
liccording to the Scripture, is not simply that it is
productive of inconvenience — pain and deprivation
to the individual and loss to society — but that it is
sssailing the image of God, the distinguishing essence
of humanity. So that it seems to justify the Rab-
bins in what might otherwise appear an extravagant
saying, namely, that " he who slays one man inten-
tionally is as though he had slain all men." He has
isaailed humanity ; as far as lies in his power, he has

aimed at the destruction of the human race. Th«
same thought, Koran, v. 35.

The crime of murder must be punished, the laud
must be cleansed ; and so before organized human
government had, or could have had existence, to a
sufficient extent for prompt and methodical judicial
processes, it was not merely permitted, but enjoined
upon, those nearest the transaction, to executi; the
divine sentence. Those who were disobedient to this
command were themselves stained with blood, oi
as long as it was unexecuted. Hence the phrase
=^n bxil, which becomes the general name for
the pursuer or prosecutor; whence it has passed
into the law language of almost all criminal codes.
He is also called the Kedeemer or rescuer. In this
sense it is transferred to the Great Redeemer, our
next of kin, the avenger of the spiritual murder of
our race, as against the great demonic homicide wh,
is called olv^pccttoktSvos air* apxvs — "a manslaye.
from the beginning," John viii. 44 ; compare alsi!
Job xix. 25. From the criminal side of justice, we
may say, this term, by a very natural transition of
ideas, is carried to the civil, and so the Goel, or
Redeemer, is also the next of kin who buys back the
lost inheritance.

Sometimes the objection to capital punishment
assumes a pious tone, and quotes the Scriptural
declaration : " Vengeance is mine." See, however,
the true interpretation of this phrase, as given by
the Apostle himself, Rom. xii. 19, and in what imme-
diately follows in ch. xiii., about the magistracy as
ordained of God. It is God's justice, not merely
delegated to, but imposed upon, human society, thus
making it the very antithesis of that revenge with
which it is so sophistically confounded. The odious
term, it may be repeated, is far more applicable to
that doctrine of expediency which, in discarding the
idea of desert, has nothing deeper or firmer to build
upon than the shifting notions of human conven-
ience, and the antagonism of human wills. There is
undoubtedly given to men great freedom in determ-
ining the details of jurisprudence, and in fixing the
gradations of punishment. Here, to a certain ex-
tent, expediency may come in as a modifying influ-
ence, harmonizing with the higher moral principle
which cannot be kept out of law without destroying
all its healthy, conserving power. But some things
are fundamental ; and they cannot be changed with-
out weakening all the sanctions of human govern-
ment. Among these is the punishment due to the
crime of blood-shedding. God has fixed it. The
State, indeed, may disobey; it may contemn other
social ordinances having a like divine institution ;
but in so doing it discards its own highest idea, and
rejects the only foundation on which it can perma-
nently rest. It builds alone on human wills, and
that is building on the sand.

The reason here given : " for in the image of God
made he man," seems to have an intensity of mean-
ing which forbids its being confined to the spiritual
or immaterial. It penetrates even the corporeal or
organic nature, as Lange appears to intimate. There
is a sense in which it may be said to inhere even in
the body, and, through it, to be directly assailahle.
The human body itself is holy, as the residence i>f
the Spirit, as the temple in which this divine image
is enshrined, and through which it is refiected. Com-
pare the vahs 0foO, 1 Cor. iii. 16. Something like
this seems to be implied in the strange expres-
sion li;S3 Si;!!, as it occurs. Numb. xxxi. 19, ani)

334

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

which is identical with the ancient Arabian phrase
/ jmJu JuLf , as found in the Eoran. See Surat.
V. 35, ,j»*ij ^Jb ij«iJ Jjtis ^ , " he who

slays a soul except for a soul," that is, unless in
retribution for a soul. This is the literal sense,
etrange as it may sound ; but las: may be taken
here in the general sense of person, as fpvxii is used
in several passages of the New Testament — the soul
put for the whole personality. Or there may be the
ellipsis of some euch word as brxn , the tabernacle
of the soul, an assault upon which is an assault upon
the soul itself; and this may also be the explanation
of the Hebrew phrase SJE3 fiS'?, he who smiteth a
soul. Compare Gen. xxxvii. 21, ETBJ 1323 SJb ,
" let us not smite him (Joseph) the soul." But in a
still closer sense the body may be called the image
of the soul, the reflection of the soul, even as the
eoul is the image, or in the image of God. And
this furnishes good ground for such transfer of the
sense, even to that which is most outward in the
human constitution. We may trace the shadow of
the idea as surviving even in the Greek poetry,
where the human body is styled 6.ya\iJ.a ^euv. See
EtjRiPiDES: "Suppliants," 616, where it is applied
to the decomposed and mouldering remains of the
Argive warrior when carried to the funeral-pyre :

rb abv ayoAua ircSXeo; eKKOjuit^ojual
irpos iTvpav v^pi.a04v.

To the fimeral-pyre thine image bear I forth
Marred as it is.

It is spoken of as something sacred to the patron
deity of the Argive state, like a statue or a shrine.
See also Plato : Phmdrus, 261 A. The expression
fB3 J"in may also have some connection with the
old idea of the blood as tile seat of the soul, regard-
ed as representing it, and thus indirectly bearing the
image of God. In any view, there is implied some-
thing holy in humanity, and even in the human
body — something in it transcending matter or mate-
rial organization, and which is not thus inherent in
any other organic life, or corporeal structure.

But the murderer, too, it may be said, is made
in the image of God, and therefore should he be
spared. The answer to this is simply the citation of
the divine command. His life is expressly demanded.
He is Oin , avaat/xa, one devoted. See 1 Kings xx.
42 : " Because thou hast sent away "'B^n ffi^S , the
man of my doom (or of my dooming), therefore shall
thy soul be in place of his soul," iCB3 nnn ?(t'E3 .
See also ^a'lri CS , " the people of my doom," Is.
xxxiv. 5. Tie judicial execution of the murderer is
truly a sacrifice, an expiation, whatever may be ob-
jected to such an idea by a false humanitarianism
which seems to have no thought how it is belittling
himaanity in its utter ignoring of anything above man,
or of any relation between the human and the eternal
justice.

Harsh as they may seem, we need these ideas to
give the necessary strength to our relaxing judicial
morality, and a more healthy tone to the individual
and social conscience. The age is fast going into
the other extreme, and crime, especially the crime
of blood-shedding, is increaeing in the ratio of our
spurious tenderness. The harshness is now exhibit-
ing its other and more hypocritical phase. Those

who speak with contempt of the divine law, are con-
stantly railing at society as itself the criminal in the
punishment of crime, and as especially malignant
and revengeful in discharging the divinely imposed
duty of executing justice upon the murderer. — T. L.]

HOMIUETICAL AND PEACTICAI,.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical. Ch. viii. 20 wouM
present a good text for a thanksgiving sermon. In
connection with ver, 21, it would be suitable for an
exposition of thankfulness. Ver. 21 would be adapt
ed to a sermon on human sinfulness in the light of
the divine compassion. How God's speaking in his
heart re-echoes in the innermost heart of the be-
liever. Ver. 22 would be suitable for a representa-
tion of the connection between the kingdom of grace,
and the kingdom of nature with its laws. Ch. ix. 1,
A marriage-blessing at the celebration of a wedding
Vers. 2 and 3, The worth and sacredness of the
creatureiy life (sparing of the animal, consecration
of all enjoyment). Ver. 5, The holy estimation ot
human life. The chief point of view in the whole
Section is the covenant of God with Noah as the type
of all covenants that follow ; since they all rest upon
the personal relation of God to man ; all are of God'a
free institution; all, moreover, as ethically personal
alliances (after the manner of a contract), are an in-
terchange of divine promises and human vows, of
divine claims and human faith ; all are sacramentally
sealed. How God binds iiimself in his sacramental
signs, and in them truly remembers the man who re-
members him. How the divine eye of grace and the
human eye of faith meet each other in the sacra-
ment. The rainbow, the extraordinary phenomenon
of heaven, and, on that account, an image of the
divine kindness, compassion, and friendship. The
light of the heavenly sun in the colors of the earthly
rainbow.

STiEKE : Ch. viii. 20. The building of the altar ;
probably upon the mountains of Ararat. Noah val-
ued thankfulness before all earthly business. It is
not said through what means God made known to
Noah his acceptance of the offering. We may con-
jecture that the offering was set on fire by fire from
heaven (but the expression of satisfaction here fol-
lows the burning of the offering). — Ver. 21, concern-
ing the abuse of these words in the exculpation of sin
(in many ways does the element of mildness in them
become misapprehended). — Ch. ix. 1, Because before
the flood God was provoked at the sin of unchastity,
it becomes necessary, in consideration of the fearful
display of wrath, to show that he is not hostile to the
lawful connection of man and woman, nor does he
condemn, but rather designs through it the multipli-
cation of the human race. Therefore, in this text
is the marriage-state praised and celebrated, since
thereout flows not only the order of the family and
the world, but also the existence of the church. —
Ver. 8, Just as every herb does not serve for food,
so also is not everything thereto serviceable that, by
means of life, moves upon the earth. — Ver. 4, The
aim of the prohibition is mainly that the way of cru-
elty may be barred to men. — Ver. 6, The magistracy
is God's ordinance, and derives the swo 'd from no
other authority (Rom. xiii. 14). Starke prefers the
view that the rainbow had existed before the flood,
as in like manner he supposes, that before the flood
men might eat of flesh. — Ver. 16, Luther : When
the Scripture says " God remembers," it meaas Uia/

CHAP. IX. 18-29.

335

we feel and are conscious that he remembers it,
namely, when he outwardly presents himself m such
a manner, that we, thereby, take notice that he
thinks thereon. Therefore it all comes to this : as I
present myself to God, so does he present himself to
me.

Schroder : After God's curse on the occasion of
the fall, we meet with the offerings of Cain and Abel ;
again do offering aud altar connect themselves with
the judicial curse of the flood. — " The Lord smelled
a sweet savor," in the Hebrew, a savor of rest (rest-
ing, or satisfaction) ; (" it denotes that God rests
fiom his wrath and has become propitiated." Luther).
Therefore is it a savor of satisfaction — a chosen ex-
pression that becomes fixed in its application to the
bunit-offering. — " Jehovah spake to his heart," that
is, he resolved with himself. In the creation of man,
ch. i. 26 ; ii. 18, and also in his destruction, there

precedes a formal decree of God ; and no less does
the divine counsel precede the covenant for man's
preservation. Prayer was always connected with the
sacrifice ; in fact, every offering was nothing else
than an embodied prayer. — While the earth remain,-
eth. There is, therefore, even to the earth in ita
present state, a limit indicated (2 Pet. iii. 6, 1, 10 ;
Isaiah Ixvi. ; Rev. xx. 11 ; xxi. 1). — Ch. ix. 1, The
Noaohian covenant is a covenant of Elohim, a cove-
nant with the universal nature. Luther finds in our
Section the inauguration of an order of instruction,
of economy, and of defence (Noah's offering, the
blessing of the family, inauguration of the magis-
tracy).— Ver. 1, God does not love death, but life.
The covenant is re-established,' for as made with
Adam it had failed. According to Calvin the rain-
bow had existed before, but was here again conse-
crated as a sign and a pledge.

SECOND SECTION.

Hie Revelation of Sin and of Piety in NoaKs Family — The Curse and the Blessing of I^oan-
The twofold Blessing, and the Blessing in the Curse itself.

Chapter IX. 18-29.

18 And the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark were Shem, and Ham, and

19 Japheth ; and Ham is the fiither of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah ; and

20 of them was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began' to be a husbandman, and

21 he planted a vineyard; And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was un

22 covered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his

23 father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment,
and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness o1
their father ; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

24 And Noah awoke from his wine [his sleep of intoxication], and knew what his younger son

25 had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants^ shall he

26 be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem [jehovah, God

27 of tlie name, or who preserves the name] ; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge
Japheth^ [one who spreads abroad], and he shall dwell' in the tents of Shem; and Canaan

28 shall be his servant. And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years,

29 And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years ; and he died.

[' Ter. 20.— nalXfl 1!J''8< tlj i nil, rendered "and Noah hegan to be a husbandman, "—man o/ (Sc aSamaA, or
man of_ the soil—y€tiipy6^—agricoUt. It cannot mean that tins was the first time he had practised husbandry, but the
beginning of it after the flood, when he and his sons had descended into the low country. — T. L.)

[" Ver. 25.— C1T3?. "133 , " a servant of tenants,"— a. Hebraism to denote the intensity or degradation of Canaan'i
fiervitude — the lowest and vilest of servants, or, as they are afterwards characterized, '* hewers of wood and drawers of
water," in distinction from the ordinary subjugation of a conquered people. For remarks on "|D|3n 123 , "his younger
ton," or little son, and its reference to Canaan alone, see appended Note, p. 337, on Noah's curse and blessings.- T. L.l

(• Ver. 27.— PS'^b PS"' , " shall enlarge Japheth." Europe (eipioin)), vride-faced, extensive, spacious. This sup-
posed residence, as it mainly was, of the sons of Japheth, had this name very early. From its unknown extent it waa
probably so called in comparison wi- h the better known parts of contiguous Asia. The Greeks may have simply trans-
lated the early tradition of the prophecy into the name eupuTnj, and afterward perverted it, according to their usual course,
by one of theu- absurd fables.— T. L.)

[* Ver. 27.— "I'SttJ"''', "and he shall dwell," etc. Wbo shall dwell? The Jewish authorities, with few excci*ionB
lay it is God, the subject of the verb just preceding, and this is, doubtless, according to grammatical regularity. Sm
.AlwnEzra, Bashi, and others. Sometimes, to avoid the seeming anthropopathism, they substitute for Gfod tha
word ills , his light, or PlJiSHJ (Shekinah), deriving it from this very verb 'pvl^ . Thus, the Targum of Onkclos,
BO'! ajSiaaa nnJDUi ii1E"i1, "HIs Sheklnah [or VndwelKng) shall abide in the dwelling {mashlcer.eh) of Shem."
lo the Arabic, both of the Polyglott and of Arabs Brpenianus, A>w Laas*.! jj 5 ^Jj j^^X«*0^ , " His lAght ilial'
Iwell in the tents of Shem." See farther, appended note, p. 837. on the blessing of Noah. -T. L.l

336

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

EXEGETICAl AND CBITICAl.

1. The Significance of this Jehomstic Section.
This second event in the life of Noah after the flood
is evidently of the highest meaning ; as was the first,
namely, Noah's offering and God's blessing and cov-
enant. In the first transaction there are delineated
the ground-feiitures of the new constitution of the
earth, as secured by the covenant of God with the
pious Noah. In the present Section we learn the ad-
vance of culture, but we recognize also the continu-
ance of sin in the new human race ; still, along with
the earlier contrast between piety and perverseness,
there comes in now the new contrast of a blessed
life of culture as compared with the rehgious life of a
divine cultus, or worship. In what Noah says of his
sons, we read the ground-forms of the new state, and
of the world-historical partition of mankind. In
Knobel's representation of it, this higher signifi-
cance of the Section is wholly effaced. In the
curse upon Canaan (according to this view), and in
his appointment to servitude, the Jehovist would
give an explanation of the fact, that the Canaanites
were subjugated by the Hebrews, and that Phoeni-
cian settlers among the Japhethites * appear to have
had a, similar fate. But that the curne was pro-
nounced upon Canaan, and not upon Ham, was be-
cause other Hamitic nations, such as the Egyptians,
etc., were not in the same evil caue. Still, it is not
Canaan, but Ham himself, who is set forth as the
shameless author of the guilt, (?) because the writer
would refer certain shameless usages of the Hamitic
nations to their first ancestor. Now, on the simple
supposition of the truth of the prediction, and of the
connection between the guilt of the ancestor, and the
corruption of his descendants, this conflruction must
fall to the ground. Knobel cites it as "an ancient
view," that the cursings of those who are distinguished
as men of God, have power and eflfect as well as their
blessings.

2. Ver. 19. By them was the whole earth
overspread. — A main point of our narration. " The
second event in the life of Noah after the flood
shows us the germs for the future development of
the human race in a threefold direction, which is
prefigured in the character of his three sons." To
this end the repetition of their names. The menuon
of Canaan Introduces the mention of the land in the
following verse, as used for the inhabitants of the
land; as in ch. x. 26 ; xi. 1, and other passages in
which cities and lands are frequently named instead
of their population." Keil.

3. Vers. 20, 21. Noah's Work, his Inctxilgence
and his Error. The translation : " and Noah began
to be a husbandman" is rightly set aside by DeUtzsch
and Keil. The word for husbandman has the arti-
cle, and is, therefore, in apposition with Noah.
Noah, as husbandman, began to plant a vineyard.
The agriculture that had been interrupted by the
flood, he again carries on, and makes it more com-
plete by means of the new culture of the vine. Ar-
menia, where he landed with the ark, is an anciently
known vine-land. "The ten thou.^and (Xen., Anab.
1, 4, 9) found in Armenia old and well flavored

* [The PhoDnicians, as distin^ifihed from the Canaan-
ites and Sidonians, were probably tShemites, as they spake
the Shemitic lanpniage, and thus made it the language of the
whole diptrict. This corresponds to what is said by Herodo-
tus and 8trabo, that they came from the Persian Gulf— the
land of Shinar. the old home-laud. — T. L.1

winea : even at this day the vine grows there, pro
ducing wine of great excellence, even at the height
of four thousand feet above the level of the sea
(Ritter: Geography, a. p. 654). That the culture
of the vine came from Asia is well known. Th«
Greek myth ascribes it to Dyonysus or Bacchus,
representing it, sometimes, as derived from the In-
dians, and again, as belonging to the Phrygians, who
were related to the Armenians (Dion. Sio. 362 ;
Strabo, 10)." Knobel. The story designat is a hiU
on the northwest, adjacent to the Great Ararat, and
furnishing the means of its ascent, as the region
where Noah set out his vine-plants. The village of
Arguri (Agorri), which in 1840 was destroyed in an
eruption of Ararat, stood upon the place referred
to. Frequent projections of stones, and outpouring
streams of lava and mud, have, in the course of
time, destroyed all the fertile soil of Ararat (K. Koch,
in "Piper's Yeiir Book," 1852, p. 28)." DeUtzsch.
The wine-garden of Noah is a mild reflex of paradise
in the world of the fallen human race ; and this
enjoyment, in its excessively sinful use, to which
Noah led the way, although he was not aware of ita
effect, has become a reflex of Adam's enjoyment of
the tree of knowledge ; with this difference, how.
ever, that Noah erred in ignorance, and not in the
form of conscious transgression. Intoxication by
wine makes men lax in respect to sexual sin ; and
this connection is gently indicated in the fact that
Noah, as he lay unguarded in his tent, exposed him-
self contrary to the law of modesty. In the error
of the father there reveals itself the character of the
sons.

4. Vers. 22, 23. The Sehavior of the Sons.
Ham's conduct was, at first, a sin of omission. He
saw the nakedness (the shame) of his father, and
neither turned away his eyes nor covered him ; then
he told it to his brethren without, and this was bia
sin of commission. His behavior had the character
not merely of lustful feeling, but of utter shameless-
ness ; whereas the act of the two brothers presents a
beautifully vivid image of delicacy, being at tlie same
time an act of modesty and of piety. Reverence,
piety, and chastity, are, in children, the three foun-
dations of a higher life ; whereas in impiety and sen-
sual associations, a lower tendency reveals itself.
Out of the virtues and the vices of the family come
the virtues and the vices of nations, and of the world.
At the same time, the manner in which the two sons
treat the case, presents a charming image of prudence
and quick decision. They seize the first best robe
that comes to hand, and that was the ilboUJ , spread
it out, and as they go backward with averted faces,
lay it upon the nakedness of their father.

5. Vers. 24-29. Noah's Curse and Blessing,
His end. — And Noah awoke from his wine j
that is, the intoxication from wine (see 1 Sam. i. 14;
XXV. 37). — And knew.^This seems to suppose thai
his sons had told him, which, however, may have
been occasioned by his asking about the robe that
covered him. The whole proceeding, however, must
have come to light, and that, too, to his own humili-
ation.— His younger son (literally, his son, the lit
tie, or the less ; see ch. v. 82). — The effect upoD
him of the account is an elevated prophjtic state c'
soul, in which the language of the seer takes the
form of poetry. — Cursed be Canaan. — The fact
that he did not curse the evil-doer himself, but his
son, is explained away, according to Origen, in a He-
brew Midrash, which says that the young Canaan
bad first seen his grandfather in this condition, aiul

JHAP. rX. 18-29.

83T

told it to his father — clearly an arbitrary exegesis.
Aiicording to Havemik and Keil, all the sona of
Ham were included in the curse, but the curse of
Ham was concentrated on Canaan. Keil and Heng-
stenberg find, moreover, a motive in the name ]S^'S ,
which does not mean, originally, a low country, but
the servile. " Ham gave to his son the name of obe-
dieace, a thing which he himself did not practise."
Heiigstenberg supposes that Canaan was already fol-
lowing his father's footsteps in impiety and wicked-
ness. Accordine to Hofmann and Delitzsch. Canaan
had the curse imposed upon him because he was the
youngest son of Ham (ch. x. 6), as Ham was the
youngest son of Noah. " The great sorrow of heart
which Ham had occasioned to his father was to be
punished in the suffering of a similar experience from
his own youngest son." Kightly does Keil reject
this. The exposition of Knobel we have already
cited ; according to it the later condition of the Ca-
naanites was only antedated in the prophecy of Noah.
Before all things must we hold fast to this, that the
language of Noah is an actual prophecy ; and not
merely an expression of personal feeling. That the
question has nothing to do with personal feeling is
evident from the fact, that Ham was not personally
cursed. According to the natural relations, the
youngest grandchildren would be, in a special man-
ner, favorites with the grandfather. If now, not-
withstandbg this, Noah cursed his grandchild, Ca-
naan, it can only be explained on the ground that in
the prophetic spirit he saw into the future, and that
the vision had for its point of departure the then
present natural state of Canaan. We may also say,
that Ham's future was contained in the future of
Canaan ; the future of the remaining Hamites he left
undecided, without curse and without blessing, al-
though the want of blessing was a significant omen.
Had, however, Noah laid the curse on Ham, all the
sons of Ham would have been denoted in like man-
ner with himself ; even as now it is commonly as-
sumed that they were, though without suificient
ground (see Delitzsch, p. 281). There is no play
upon the name Canaan, as upon the name Japheth
— a thing which is to be noted. But that in the
behavior of Canaan Noah had a point of depart-
ure for his prophecy, we may well assume with
Hengstenberg. — A servant of servants ; that is,
the lowest of servants. If the language had had in
view already the later extermination of the Canaan-
ites, it must have had a different style. The form of
the expression, therefore, testifies to the age of the
prophecy. We must also bear in mind, that the re-
lation of servant in this case denotes no absolute
relation in the curse, or any developed slave relation,
any more than the relation of service which was im-
posed upon Esau in respect to Jacob. There even
lies m it a hidden blessing. The common natures
must, of themselves, take a position of inferiority ;
through subordination to the nobler character are
they saved, in the discipline and cultivation of the
Spirit. — Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem. —
The blessing upon Shem has the form of a doxology
to Jehovah, whereby, as Luther has remarked, it is
distinguished as a most abundant blessing, which
finally reaches its highest point in the promised seed.
" If Jehovah is the God of Shem, then is Shem the
recipient and the heir of all the blessings of salvation
which God, as Jehovah, procures for humanity." Keil.
—And Canaan shall be his servant.— -The word
I'sb (regularly Dnb) is taken by Gesenius as a poeti-
•al expression for ib; Delitzsch refers it, as plural
22

to both brothers — Keil and Knobel to their descend-
ants. The descendants, however, are represented B
the ancestor, and, therefore, the explanation of (iec*-
nius gives the only clear idea. — God shall enlarge
Japheth, [or, as Lange renders it], God give en-
largement to the one 'who spreads abroad. —
In the translation we retain the play upon the word,
and the explanation of the name Japheth. Keil ex-
plains the word (meaning literally, to make room, to
give space for outspreading) as metaphorical. To
make room is equivalent to the bestowment of hap-
piness and prosperity. It must be observed, how-
ever, that the name Shem, and the blessing of Shem,
denotes the highest concentration ; whilst in opposi
tion to this the name Japheth and the blessing ol
Japheth, denotes the highest expaiwion, not onlj
geographically, but also in regard to the spread of
civilization through the earth, and its conquest both
outwardly and intellectually. This is the spiritual
mission of Japhethism to this day — namely, the
mental conquest of the world. The culture life of
Japheth, as humanitarian, scientific, stands in hap
monious contrast with the cultus, or religionism, of
Shem. Therefore, too, must Japheth's blessing come
from Elohim. — And he shall dtvell in the tents
of Shem. — The words, he shall dwell, are by some
(Onkel, Dathe, Baumgarten) referred to Elohim.
But this had already been expressed in the blessing
of Shem, and had therefore nothing to do with the
blessing of Japheth. What is said relates to Ja-
pheth ; and that, too, neither in the sense that the
Japhethites shall settle among the Shemites, or that
they shall conquer them in their homes (Clericus,
Von Bohlen, and others), but that Japheth's dwell
ing in the tents of Shem shall be in the end his
uniting with him in religious communion (Targum
Jonathan, Hieronymus, Calvin, and others). The op-
posite interpretation (Michaelis, Gesenius, De Wette,
Knobel, and others), which explains Shem here (DiB)
as meaning literally name, or fame (dwell in the tents
of renown), appears to have proceeded from a mis-
apprehension of the prophetic significance of the
language. To dwell in the tents of any one, Knobel
holds, cannot mean religious communion. That
would be true, if the one referred to had not imme-
diately before been denoted as an observer of the
true rehgion. That the Japhethites, that is, the
Greeks, early dwelt in the tents of renown, is, in this
respect, a matter by itself, which had already been
set forth in Japheth's own blessing, as imphed in
what is said of his expansion. As the brothers,
whatever contrast there might have been in their
characters, had been one in their piety towards their
father, so must their posterity become one in this,
that they shall finally exchange with each other their
respective blessings — in other words, that Japheth
shall bring into the tents of Shem what he has wott
from the world, and, in return for it, share in the
blessing of the Name — the name Jehovah, or the
true religion. — And Noah lived. — In the Armenian
legend, Amojoten, in the plain of the Araxes, has
the name of his place of burial. With the death of
Noah, the tenth member of the Genealogical table,
ch. v., finds its conclusion.

[Note on the Cdkse or Canaan — thb stip-
poSED Curse of Ham — the Blessino oe Shem
AND Japheth. Gen. ix. 24. And Noah awoke from
his wine, and /cTieio what his youvgest son had don^
unto him. yR^^] , LXX. e^eyriif/e, became fuUy cott-
scious of his condition. Comp. 1 Cor. xv. 24. yi^J ,
knew, became sensible of. It is not the word ioat

338

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

rould have been employed had he learned it from
roe information of others. It denotes intelligence —
by the eye, as Is. vi. tf. — by the touch. Gen. xix. 33,
— experience by any sense, Deut. xi. 2, — or by the
exercise of the mind as following such experience,
Judg. xiii. 21. Had done unto him, ib niUS. This
is something more than an omission or a neglect.
The word is a very positive one. Something unmis-
takable, something very shameful had been done
auto the old man in his unconscious state, either the
■tripping off his robe, or some act of abuse or mock-
ery of such a nature that it becomes manifest to him
immediately on his recovery. It may be remarked,
too, that TttJN nst may more properly be rendered,
indefinitely, a thing which, or something which, his
youngest son had done unto him. But who was the
culprit ? Of this, too, the patriarch appears to have
been immediately sensible, or to have immediately
inferred it from something he must have known of
the supposed perpetrator. He seems to have had no
doubt. Now Ham had done nothing to his father.
On discovery of his state he hastens to his brothers,
it may be with the same fihal intentions that they
more promptly carried out. The sight appears to
have been accidental and involuntary. The word is
etn^T , he saw, not 153^1 , he looked at, spectavit,
iAeirraTo, gnzed at, implying interest, emotion.
There is in the account no intimation of any of that
scoffing demeanor that some commentators have so
gratuitously charged upon him. He saw and told his
brothers. At all events, his fault, if there was one,
was simply an omission, which seems to fall alto-
gether short of the force of the words lb rtlDS, had
done unto him, regarded, too, as something obvious
or immediately discoverable by the one who had suffer-
ed the indignity. There seems to be a careful avoid-
ance of particularity. The language has an euphe-
mistic look, as though intimating something too vile
and atrocious to be openly expressed. Thus regard-
ed, everything seems to point to some wanton act
done by the very one who is immediately named in
the severe malediction that foUows ; " Cursed be
Canaan." He was the youngest son of Ham, as he
was also the youngest son of Noah according to the
well-established Shemitic peculiarity by which all
the descendants are alike called sons. Beside the
general designations, sons of Israel, bs^B^ ''i'2 ,
Bons of Judah, etc., see such particular cases as
Gen. xxix. 5, where Laban is called the son of
Nahor; Ezra v. 1, where the prophet Zachariah is
called the son of Iddo ; whereas, as appears from
Zach. i. 1, he was his grandson. "itJpn "33 is ren-
dered in our English version, his younger son, to
make it applicable to Ham, on the supposition that
he was the middle son, younger than Shem. But
this will not do. It would be a vague way of desig-
nating him at any rate, even if the language would
allow it. But the term Itsp can only denote the
younger (minor) when used of one of two, and stand-
ing in contrast with bnS. Standing alone, as it
does here, or in connection with three or more, it can
only be rendered minimus, the little one distinctively,
the least or youngest of all. The terms are derived
from the early family state with its disparity of ap-
pearance in size, though afterwards retained or trans-
ferred to express simply juniority, as the Latin
major and minor in like cases. The primitive asso-
laation, however, is not wholly lost, and this makes
ihe term such a favorite to express the very young-

est in the family, who is regarded as the little one long
after he has grown up to maturity of age and size
So Benjamin, even when he was twenty-three years Oi
age, was still IBiJil, the little one. The term, it is
true, denotes comparative juniority, yet still it de-
rives its etymological emphasis from the fact that he
was D^Spt "lb|; , TijAi/TCTos, the late-born, the child
of old age, and so still thought of as the little on«
of the family. To the father, especially, or to tha
grandfather, an epithet of this kind retains ail its
force. Such, most likely, was the relation between
Noah and the young Canaan, until his vile abuse of
it called out the greater severity of malediction
So David, too, was specially named after he had ar-
rived at robust manhood. The other sons of Jesse
are called collectively D"'i3"l5, and are named, more-
over, first, second, third, etc., but of David it is said
"ajjn N^n, he was the little one, minimus, youngest
of all. See also Gen. xxix. 18, where, from a similar
association of ideas, Rachel is called nraisFl ^Fi3 ,
thy little daughter, though in that case there were
but two of them.

Everything points to Canaan as the youngest
son, at that time, of all the Noachic family. He
was the direct object of the curse, which, instead of
ascending to the father, contrary to everything else
of the kind in the Bible, was so fully accomplished
in Canaan's own direct descendants. So clear is this,
that some of the best commentators, including most
of the Jewish, although still keeping Ham as the
main figure, in consequence of the old prepossession,
reoresent Canaan as playing an active part in the
bus.ness. It is the current Jewish tradition, that he
first saw the exposure and told it to his father.
Others ascribe to him a shameful act of mutilation,
from whence it is thought came the old fable of
Saturn. "It was Canaan that did it," says Aben
Ezra, " although the Scripture does not in words re-
veal what it was." Rasbi also gives the story of
mutilation, ID-iD c^naix U;"', and he refers to the
Sanhedrin of the Talmud. That most acute critic,
Scaliger, not only ascribes the act to Canaan, whether
it was a positive exposure or anything else, but
acquits Ham of all positive blame : '' Quid Cham
fecit palri suo I Nihil; tantum fratribus de patris
probro nuncius fuit^'' SCALIG., Elench., p. 54.

Ham might have been called the younger son in
respect to Shem, as he was the elder in respect to
Japheth, but this would neither answer to pp 13
here, nor suit the evidently intended distinctiveness
of the designation. On the other hand, he was in
no sense minimis or youngest, unless there is wholly
disregarded the order in which the names occur at
every mention of the three : Shem, Ham, Japheth.
See Gen. v. 32; vi. 10; vii. 13; ix. 18; x. 1. This
would make him the middle one, at all events,
whether Shem or Japheth were regarded as the eld-
est. The determination of the latter question would
depend upon the interpretation of Gen. v. 32, and
x. 21. "Noah was five hundred years old and begat
Shem, Ham, and Japheth." It is not at all credible
that the births of the.'ie sons should have been so
near together that they all took place at, or even
about, the time when Noah was five hundred years
old. It appears from Gen. xi. 10, that Shem waa
bom about this time, making him about one hundred
years old at the beginning of the year after the flood
Now, if we render Gen. v. 32: "Noah was five hun-
dred years old, and had begotten," or, when he hafl

CHAP. IX. 18-29.

339

begottou, etc., making the series end at that time,
which la perfectly consistent with the Hebrew idiom,
then the first-named would probably have been the
youngest, as last begotten, and marking the date.
If they were all bom afterwards, the inference would,
for the same reason, have been just the other way.
Tn favor of the first view, which would make Japheth
the elder, there is the rendering which our English
version gives to Gen. x. 21 : Shem, the brother of
Japheth itie elder, instead of^ the elder brother of Jw-
pheih. Some commentators have favored this on the
ground that Shem must have been bom after Noah
was five hundred years old, because his own age is
stated as being one hundred years, two years (n'nstt;
or the second year, or, as the dual form more strongly
implies, between one and two years) after the flood.
But besides the minute trifling of such an interpre-
tation, there is a grammatical difficulty in the way
which is insuperable. In the expression HB^ ^nx
isinan , the two first words being in regimen, the
epithet biisn must belong to the whole as a com-
pound ; JaphetNs brother, the elder ; otherwise it
would be like making the adjective in English agree
with the possessive case. Compare Judges ii. 7,
bilsn nin'j nbsa bs, every great' work of the
Lord; 1 Sam. xvii. 28, bTIjfl T'HK =!<"'bx, Mliab
his elder brother, where the pronoun corresponds to
the noun in regimen, and, especially, such cases as
Judges i. IS ; iii. 9, which are precisely like this,
logically and grammatically: itspn abs ^1^. i
Celebes younger brother, not, th£ brother of Caleb
the younger. So far the sense may be said to be
fixed grammatically, but the fair inference from the
context, and the fact that appears in it that there
were three brothers, would seem to give it not only
a comparative, but a superlative sense : tTie brother
of Japheth, the elder one, — implying that there were
two brothers older than Japheth, and that Shem was
the oldest of them. If we look at the whole context
(Ham and his genealogy having been just disposed
of), we shall see that there was more reason for the
narrator's saying this than for merely mentioning
that Shem was older than Japheth. These consider-
ations would seem to fix the position of Ham as the
middle son; although, without them, it might have
been reasonably argued that Ham himself was the
oldest, from the fact that his descendants, with the
exception of Canaan (unless we may reckon the
Phoenicians among them), so get the start, in history
and civiUzation, of both Shem and Japheth.

A very strong argument against the hypothesis
that Ham was cursed here instead of Canaan, arises
from the want of allusion, in all other parts of the
Scripture, to any such sweeping malediction as in-
volving all Ham's descendants. The accomplishment
of the curee upon Canaan is mentioned often, and
the frequent allusion to them as "hewers of wood
•oA drawers of water," is only an emphatic repetition
»f Noah's words, C'lS?. "I3S, servant of servants
— not slave of slaves, as some would take it, but an
intensive Hebrew idiom to denote the most complete
Bubjugation, such as the Canaanites were reduced to
in the days of Joshua and Solomon.* How utterly

* [The feet that, of all the descendants of Ham, Canaan
WEB the nearest object of interest to the Jews, and so histor-
ically of most importance to thera, gives the reason of the
lOmewbat peculiar designation, Gen. ix. 18, where a kind
M note is affixed to Ham's name, stating that he was the
wther of Canaan, or rather that this was another name

Strange would such language have sounded, had it
been applied, at any time during the national exist
ence of the Jews, to the lordly descendants of Cush,
Mitzraim, and Nimrod ! " Shall be servant to them,"
lab, a collective term for the descendants of Shem,
who had just been blessed. So is it taken by all the
Jewish expositors, who regard the antecedent in
ver. 26 as being Shem alone, no other being men-
tioned or implied, and in ver. 27, as being Shem and
the God of Shem who should dwell in his tents. See
also Gesenius, Lehrgeb., p. 221. Instead of having
ever been servant to Shem, cither in the political or
commercial sense, Mitzraim held the Israehtes for
centuries in bondage ; Cush (the JEthiopians and the
Lubims) conquered them (see 2 Cbron. xii. 3 ; xvi, 8) ;
the nation that Nimrod founded sacked their cities
and brought their land under tribute. Instead of
being servants to Japheth, the descendants of Ham
were founding empires, building immense and popu-
lous cities, whilst the sons of the younger brother,
with the exception of the Mediterranean or Javanio
line, were roaming the dense wilds of Middle and
Northern Europe, or the steppes of Central Asia,
ever sinking lower and lower into barbarism, as each
wave of migration was driven farther on by those that
followed. The more abject race, as some would hold
them, were the pioneers of the world's civilization,
advancing rapidly in agriculture and the arts, organ-
izing governments admirable for their order though
despotic in form, digging canals and lakes to fertilize
the desert, everywhere turning the arid earth into a
luxuriant garden, whilst the early Gomerites, and
those who followed them in their wilderness march
to the extreme west of Europe, were falling from
iron to copper, from copper to stone, from the im-
plements of Lamech, and of the ark and tower-
builders, to the rude flint axes and bone knives that
some have regarded as remains of pre-adamite men.
The Hamites go down to Egypt, or ascend the
Euphrates, and how soon uprise the pyramids, the
immense structures of Thebes, the palaces of Baby-
lon and Nineveh, whilst the other wretched wander-
ers of the wild woods and marshes were building
rude huts on piles, over lakes and fens, to protect
themselves from the wild beasts, or herding in caves
with the animals whose bones are now found min-
gling with their own. Such was their progress until
there met them again that primitive central light,
which had been preserved, especially in the Shemitic,
and had never gone wholly out in the Hamitic and
Javanio lines. Even this Greek or Javanic branch
of the Japhethan family, though ever preserving a
position so much higher than that of their Northern
consanguinii (this coming from their Mediterranean
route furnishing greater facilities of intercourse, and
keeping up an accessible proximity between the
different pioneering waves and the source whence
they came) derived, nevertheless, their earliest cult-
ure, from the Egyptians and Phoenicians, as, in still
later times, they received their highest cultus from a
Shemitic source. The wisest among the Greeks ever
traced their best thinking to the East, that is, to a

specially given to him by the Israelites, as beingbest knows
to them, or called to mind to them, through his eon;
■|S33 ■'ns Nln Dni, "Ham, that is, the father of
Canaan," or Ham, that is, 'Abi-Canaan, — according to a
method of naming that has ever prevailed among the Ara-
bians, down to this day, as A.bn-Beker, Abulwalid, or, as la
this case, Abu-Canaan, where the son is better linown, ol
an object of nearer interest than tho fether who is thnB
named after him, — T, I*]

340

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Sbemitic or Hamitic origin. Tliey were ever kept in
connection with the primitive light and primitive
Bpiritual vigor, and this was the chief respect in
which they iSfifered from our Japhetban ancestors who
were so early lost in the woods, and who had no
fresh emanations from this central life until long after,
when it had been renewed to more than its primitive
power by the coming of Christ and Christianity.

The application of this curse to Ham was early
made by commentators, but its enormous extension
to the whole continent of Africa belongs to quite
modern times. The first, though having so little
support in the letter of the Scripture, had some
plausible ground in the unfavorable contrast that
Ham's neglect, or carelessness, presents to the pious
earnestness of his two brethren ; and this may give
the reason why he is, personally, neither cursed nor
blessed. It derived countenance, also, from the sub-
sequent wickedness of the great Hamitic nations,
and that constant antagonism between them and
Israel which appears throughout the Bible. The
second feeling seems almost wholly due to certain
historic phenomena that have presented themselves
since the discovery of America. What has favored
this tendency has not been alone, or mainly, the de-
fence of slavery, as some would allege ; since men
have supported it, hke Dr. Lange and others, who
abhorred the idea of human bondage in all its forms.
It has been, rather, the desire to give a, worldly,
political importance to the Scriptural predictions,
especially the early ones, thus magnifying the Scrip-
tures, as they suppose, and furnishing remarkable
evidences of the truth of revelation. Very modern
changes in the relative position of continents are
seized upon for this purpose, to the ignoring or ob-
scuring the true dignity of the Divine Word. It is
safest to regard prophecy as ever being in the direct
Une of the church, and to judge of the relative im-
portance of world-historical changes solely by this
standard. Except as standing in visible relation to
the chosen people, the chosen church, or to that
extraordinary divine doing in the world which is
styled revelation, the greatest earthly revolutions
have no more super-earthly value than have to us
the dissensions of African chiefs, or the wars of the
Heptarchy. To the divine eye, or to the mind that
guided the Biblical inspiration, human politics,
whether of monarchies or republics, and all human
political changes, in t/iemsdvcs considered, or out of
this visible relation, must be very insignificant things.
Judged by such a rule, Trojan wars, Peloponnesian
wars, or the wars of Bonaparte, fall in importance
below the wars of Canaan, or Hiram's sending cedar-
rafts to Joppa to aid Solomon in the construction of
the temple.

It is this feeling which has also affected the in-
terpretation of Noah's blessing of Shem and Japheth,
Gen. ix. 26, 27, especially the words QIT ^bn.><3 1312J'^1,
and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem. It is some-
what remarkable that the Jewish authorities should
have given what seems the more spiritual, and even
evangelical, interpretation here, whilst so many Chris-
tian commentators have been fond of what may be
called the political or secular aspect of the proph-
ecy, referring it, as many of them do, to the mere
predominance of European power and culture among
the Asiatic nations in these latter days. To support
(his there is carelessly assumed an ethnological view
untenable in the wide extent given to it. Europe is
Japheth, Shem Asia, Ham Africa. At all events, the

prophecy is supposed to set forth three types, em'
bracing all manliind. It is thought to be greatly to
the honor of Scripture that it should display such a
philosophy of history bearing upon the remote, lattei
ages, as though this were a greater thing than that
fixed spirituality of view which is the same for aU
ages, and for less or greater territory in space. It
is easy to find events which are regarded as supposed
fulfilments. The English in India, the French in
Tonquin, Opium wars in China, Russia forcing its
way into Central Asia ; it is all Japheth dwelling in
the tents of Shem ; it is the fulfilling of the Scrip
tures. There is a bad moral influence in this. An
interest in the prediction, or in its supposed interpre-
tation, blinds the moral sense to the enorniity of
some of the acts by which it is thought to be veri-
fied. Much of it, moreover, is false ethnology. Tha
British subjugation of the Hindoos, instead of being
Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem, is nothing
more than Japheth dwelling in the tents of Japheth.
This political mode of interpretation has affected
other prophecies of the Bible, and there is reason to
beheve that it has been especially blinding in the
study of the Apocalypse It proceeds, often, upon
the idea that events which seem very large to us,
greatly magnified as they are by nearness or othei
perspective influences, must have the same relative
rank in the divine estimation. Now, the Scriptures
teach us, that it is ofttimes directly the reverse ; see
Luke xvi. 1 5, what is said about " things highest in
the sight of men," ri/ iv ij/S^iuTrois iJiJ/T;\iiv. Great
as they may seem to us, they may have compara-
tively little bearing upon that which is the special ob-
ject of the divine care in human history ; whilst their
over-estimate favors the false idea, that the church
is for the world, and not the world for the church.
They may even have much less to do, than is gener-
ally imagined, with the highest secular progress of
mankind. One poHtical eruption may be the mere fill-
ing up of a vacuum produced by another, leaving
unaffected the general historical evenness, or making
even less deflection from the general course of things
than other events of seemingly much less show and
magnitude.

Now, in distinction from the political, there is
what may be called the spiritual interpretation of
this very ancient propliecy, as given by some of the
best Christian commentators (see the references to
them in Pole's "Synopsis," and the PhUologica
Sacra of Glassius, p. 1998), and held, with few ex-
ceptions, by the Jewish authorities. The Targum
of Onkelos interprets the Hebrew by making a^n^S
the subject of p'^^ , and renders it paraphrastically,
UW Pi.53'3iaa PinssiIJ '''}P,Ti, His Shekinah shall
dwell in the dwelling of Shem (or of the Name).
Maimonides, Rashi, and Aben Ezra, all follow this,
though they also allude to a secondary sense : that
Japheth should learu in the schools of Shem, which
ia also expressed in the Targum of Jonathan. This,
however, is founded on the former idea of the divine
indwelling light, in the blessing of which all nations
are ultimately to share. So the Judaico-Arabio
translation of Arabs Erpenianus: His Light shall
dwell in the tents of Shem ; the words light and
Shekinah being interposed to avoid the seeming
anthropomorphism. The rendering, the Shekinah,
is suggested to them, moreover, by the etymologica!
connection between "C (Shakan), the verb here foi
dwelling, and !^p3\:J , the Shekinah : as though sue)

CUAP. IX. 18-29.

341

language as we have Deut. xii. 11, Dia iailj "Sffi^ ,
and Ps Ixxxv. 10, 13S"1N3 11:3 fsib , came di-
rectly from this p«ssage. Some Christian commeu-
oatora carry this still farther, recognizing the same
etymology in the Greek e<nci)faiTi (root, s k n) of
John i. 14. Surely the fact has been so. God has
ipecially dwelt in the tents of Shera ; " He hath put
his glory there." The Shemite family alone pre-
served the pure monotheism as against the Eastern
pantheism and the Western polytheism lying on each
aide of it. Even the Arabians and the Syrians kept
the holy Name. A chosen branch had the Shekinah,
the visible, divine presence, the temple, the promise,
and the type of the Messiah. There is, finally, the
presence and dwelling of the Messiah with the spirit-
ual Israel down to this day. The interpretation, too,
must have been very ancient, antecedent to Targums
and Talmuds, as it seems to have colored every-
where the poetry and language of the Old Testament.
Hence that frequent imagery of God's dwelling with
his people, or the converse in expression, though
essentially the same in thought. His being his peo-
ple's " dwelling-place in all generations." See 1 Kings
vi. 13 ; viii. 29 ; Exod. xxv. 8 ; Ps. xc. 1 ; Ezek.
xliii. 9 ; Zech. viii. 3. Such was Shem's blessing
here literally expressed, though clearly implied in
the previous verse : " blessed be the Lord God of
Shem (the name), which was the highest mode of
saying, blessed be Shem hunself, the people whose
God is Jehovah. Ps. xxxiii. 12 ; cxliv. 15.

But besides its Scriptural and evangelical fitness,
this mterpretation has the strongest grammatical
reasons. Two verbs in Hebrew, like ns"' and ISffli ,
joined by the conjunction, whether taken copulatively
or disjunctively (that is, whether rendered and or
iut)^ must have the same grammatical subject, unless
a new one clearly intervenes, or the context necessa-
rily implies it. Neither of these exceptions exist
here, and, without them, it is irregular to make the
object of the first verb the subject of the second.
He (God) will enlarge Japheth, but he will dvell in
the tents of Shem. The contrast is between the two
acts of Deity, the enlarging — the indwelling — an
antithesis that seems demanded by the parallelism,
but is wholly lost in the other version. If it is the
same subject (the blesser), then there are two ob-
jects ; and two distinct blessings stand in striking
contrast. It is outer growth and inner sacredness.
Two states, moreover, and two dispositions are de-
sctibed : Japheth, the foreign rover, Shem, the home
devotee, abiding mainly in the old father-land, pre-
serving the

Saora Bel, eanctosque patreB.

Japheth is to have enlargement of territory, and,
ultimately, worldly power ; Shem, though srjall, is
to have the special divine presence and indwelling.
He is the divine inheritance (see Deut. xxxii. 9)
among the nations.

The more secular interpretation has, indeed,
Bome strong points of seeming fulfilment, which may
ifiect the sense and the imagination ; but for the
reason, as well as for faith, how much greater is the
idea of such divine indwelling than that of any out-
ward cb mges, whether of power or culture, in the
relations of mankind ! Our estimate of causes, as
pwat or small, even in their earthly aspect, is much
affected by an after-knowledge of the effects with
which they are seen to be connected. As we look
back they appear greatly magnified through the

medium of such sequence. It is like the mind cor.
recting the perspective errors of the sight in respect
to size and distance. What Philosophy of History,
written three hundred years before Christ, even
though it had been more acute than any modern pro-
duction of the kind, could have given the true place
of the Jewish people of that day, or would even hav«
taken any notice of them, or regarded them as hav-
ing any rank among the potent causalities of the
world ! How small, how secluded, how unrecognizec'
their earthly position at that time ! Nothing short
of prophetic insight could discover what then lay
concealed from all the learning and wisdom of the
age, — the divine Name and the divine presence,
unfigured on Egyptian monuments, unknown in
Athenian temples (see Acts xvii. 23), but dwelling,
as a reserve power, in the sequestered tents o'
Shem.— T. L.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. See the preceding Annotations.

2. Noah the enlarger and the ennobler of human
culture. The dangers of progress in civihzation.
Men become intoxicated with the siiccess of their
worldly efforts — especially in the beginning. After
the waters of the flood the gift of wine, tinder the
sacrament of the rainbow, Noah as husbandman and
vineyard-keeper, prepares the elements of the New
Testament sacrament, bread and wine.

3. The vine is a mild reflex of the tree of knowl
edge ; how Noah's sin becomes a mitigated figure of
the sin of Adam.

4. Noah, whom all the waters of the flood did not
harm, received hurt through his unguarded indul-
gence in a small measure of wine. The history of
Adam teaches us the sacredness of limitation, the
history of Noah teaches us a holy carefulness in re--
spect to measure or degree. Moderation was a fun-
damental law of the ancient Chinese, as the piety
that preserved Shem and Japheth.

5. The intimate connection between intoxication
by wine and sexual unguardedness, or serusual indul-
gence in the sins of voluptuousness (see the history
of Lot).

6. The three sons of Noah. The sunple contrast .
Cain and Abel, or godless culture and a holy cultas,
develops itself in a more manifold contrast : Shem
and Japheth, Shem and Ham, Japheth and Ham.
For the interpretation of these contrasts, see just
above. It is evident, however, that many Christians
even now recognize only the contrast of Cain and
Abel ; that is, they do not recognize that the line of
Japheth had hkewise its blessing from God, although
he can only reach the blessing of Shem after great
wanderings. In the heart of the prophecy, Japheth
has already taken up his abode in the tents of Shem,
when, on the contrary, Shem himself, in the unbe-
lieving Jews, has been given up to a long-lasting
alienation.

1. Shem and Japheth are very different, but are,
in their piety, the root of every ideal and humane
tendency. The people and kingdom of China are a
striking example of the immense power that hes in
the blessing of (filial) piety ; but at the same tima
a proof that filial piety, without being grounded in
something deeper, cannot preserve even the great-
est of peoples from falling into decay, like an old
house, before their history ends.

8. The blessing of Shem, or the faith in salvatio'a

342

GEHHESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

(hall avail for the good of Japheth, even as the bless-
ing of Japheth, liumanitarian culture, shall in the
end avail for Shem. These two blessings are recip-
rocal, and it is one of the deepest signs of some dis-
ease in our times, that these two are in so many
Wiiys estranged from each other, even to the extent
of open hostility. What God has joined together,
let njt man put asunder.

9. It is a fearful abuse of God's word, when men
refpr to the curse of Canaan in defence of American
slave-trafBc, and slave-holding — as is done in the
eouthern portions of the United States, For in the
firat place, Canaan is not the same as Ham ; in the
second place, the conception of a servant in the days
of Noah is not that of a slave in modem times ; in
the third place, Canaan's servitude is the service of
Shem, therefore of the Prince of Shem, that is, he
becomes the servant of Christ, and in Christ is free ;
fourthly, as servant of Shem, and servant of Japheth,
he becomes a domestic partner in the rehgion of
Shem, as well as in the civilization of Japheth. On
the other side, however, it is a misapprehension of
the curse as exhibited in history, when the essential
equality of all men before God is regarded as a di-
rect abstract equality of men in their political rela-
tions. This comes from not taking rightly into
account the divine judgments in history, and the
gradualness of the world's redemption (see Rom. a.
12). The reader is referred to Michel's " History
of the Cursed Races of France and Spain " (Paris,
1847), as also the "History of the Cursed Villages"
(Delessert, Paris). But such histories do not weigh
merely on Canaan, or even generally on Ham. They
are always economic, that is, temporary, not perpet-
ual dooms. They are districts in which human com-
passion shaU yet appear as a prophet announcing the
turning away of the divine wrath, or as a priest in-
terceding against it.

10. The sons of Noah do not appear to clear up
the facts in respect to the race-formations. It is
quite evident, however, that Ham (the hot, the dark,
the southern) forms a special race, and that with the
.(Elhiopian type the Malayan stands in close relation.
On this side there becomes evident the whole power
of the life from nature, as the spiritual life becomes
subservient to it. Whilst, therefore, it is partly an
imperfect distinction when we regard the Shemitic
and the Japhethic race (the people of renown, as
consisting in the name of God, the S6^a rov SeoD, and
the people of the outward and bold dispersion over
the earth) as having become blended in the Cauca-
sian, it is also in part a proof of the fact that com-
munity in the higher spiritual tendency may cause
very great contrasts to lose themselves in almost im-
perceptible distinctions. It is, however, quite con-
sistent with the nature of the " outspreading," that
is, of Japheth, that whilst, on the one side, he may
become one with Shem in the Caucasian, he may, on
the other, represent the Mongolian, and in the Ameri-
can, even make a near approach to the race of Ham.
On the question of races, see Lanse's " Posit. Dog-
matic," p. 324. On the theocratic aignificance of
Bhem, Ham, Japheth, coiLpare Delitzsch, p. 282.

11. The fact that Noah lived three hundred and
Bfty years after the flood, is a proof that the cosmical
[hange which was brought on by the flood is not to
be regarded as sudden in all respects — not, at least,
if. its relation to human life.

12. The poetical form of Noah's blessing shows
that he spake in a highly rapt state of soul, in which
he was aa umch elevated above any passionate, in-

human wrath against Canaan, as above any weak
human sympathy for him. The form of curse and
blessing, where both are divinely grounded, indicate
a prophetic beholding of the curse and blessing,
but not a creating, much less any arbitrary or mag-
ical production of the same.

13. The tenor of the Noachian blessing in ita
Messianic significance, cannot be mistaken. It con
nects itself with the name Shem. The Protevangel
announced a future salvation in the seed of the
woman ; the language here connects the same witl
the name of God which was to be entrusted to Shem
Shem is to be the preserver of the name of God, of
Jehovah — the preserver of his rehgion, of his revela
tion. With this ofiice is he, as the thoughtful, th'
contemplative one, to dwell in tents, whilst, in somA
way, God is to be glorified in him, a fact which Noa'i
can only express in the form of a doxology. In this
way Shem has It as his task : 1. to rule over Canaan,
and to educate him as the master the servant ; 2. to
receive Japheth as a paternal guest who returns aftei
a long wandering, and to exchange with him good
for good — the goods of cult7ts and the goods of
culture.

14. The number of Noah's sons is three, the num-
ber of the Spirit. The Spirit will get the victory in
the post-diluvian hrmianlty that has been baptized in
the flood.

HOMILETICAI. AND PEAOTICAI,.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical. The form of life
in Noah: 1. Wherein similar to that of Adam?
2. wherein similar to that of Christ ? 3. wherein it
possesses something peculiar, that Ues between them
both. Noah's wine-culture — the sign of a new step
in progress in the hfe of humanity. — The vine in its
significance : 1. In its perilous import ; 2. in its
higher significance. — God hath provided not merely
for our necessity, but also for our refreshment and
festive exhilaration. The more refined his gifts, so
much the more ought they to draw us, and make ua
feet the obligation of a more refined life. Noah's
weakness ; its connection with his freedom, his strug-
gle and inquiry. The watchfulness and discipline of
the Spirit is the only thing that can protect us against
the intoxication of the sense. — How one sensual ex-
cess is connected with another. — How the sins of the
old have for their consequence the sins of the young.
Impiety (irreverence, want of a pious fear), a root
of every evil, especially those of an impure tendency.
— Piety a root of everything noble. It has two
branches : 1. devoutness ; 2. moral cultivation. The
harmony of Shem and Japheth. 0, that it were so in
our times. How they should mutually feel the obli-
gation to cover their father's nakedness ; that is, in
this case, the harm of the earlier time and tradition.
What glorious effects would come from the harmony
of Christendom and civilization ? Shem, Ham, and
Japheth: 1. All three distinct characters and types;
2. regarded as two parts, they are two sons of bless-
ing, one child of the curse; 3. as one group. Ca-
naan the servant of Shem and Japheth. Japheth
the guest and the domestic inmate of Shem. — The
blessing of Noah : 1. Its most universal significance;
2. its Messianic significance. — Noah's joy, sorrow
and consolation after the flood : 1. The expanding
race ; 2. the new development of evil ; 3. the pre-
signal of the patriarchal faith.

Stabke : Inebriatua est, non quod vitiosiM ia»e\

CHAP. IX. 18-2!».

34a

sed quod inexpertwi mensurce assumendce. Basil. —
}foa\ ad uniuH horce eirieiatem nudavit femoralia
TOO, qttce per xexcentos annos contexerat. Hieron. —
Quern tarUce moles aquarum non vieerant^ a modico
vino victus est. Epheaem (Natalia Alexander i. p.
228 : Ebrietas hcec non solum innaxla sed et mystica
fuii. Hieronymus interprets the planting of the
Tine of the planting of the Church ; Noah exposed,
he interprets of Christ on the cross ; Ham, of the
Jews, and so on. In a similar manner Augustine).
(As it happens to people ii! sleep, when they become
warm; they uncover themselves unconsciously to get
air; and so it happened to Noah.) The sin of ex-
cess cannot be excused by the example of Noah.
This transgression did not, however, cast him out of
the grace of God ; for we see that in the prophetic
spirit he announces the future destiny of his sons,
which certainly could never have happened if the
Spirit of God had departed from him. But none the
less holds true in this respect what Luther says,
namely, that they who go too far in excusing the
patriarch throw away the consolation which the
Holy Spirit has deemed it necessary to give the
Church in the fact that the greatest saints do some-
times stumble and fall (Pa. xxxiv. 9). — The nobler
the gift, the worse the abuse (1 Cor. ix. Y ; Siraoh
xxxi. 35 ; 1 Tim. v. 23). — Ham : Sic iit sacro Dei
asylo inter tarn paucos diabolus unus se>-vatus est.
Calvin. — Hedingee: The spreading of sin is just as
much an evil as the perpetration of sin. — Lange : The
curse went not forth properly, against the spiritual
in men, as though beforehand they had been declared
to have forfeited eternal life, but properly againat the
corporeal only. So it was, that among the Canaan-
ites there were some who were actually blest (there
we cited as examples the cases of Melchisedek and
the Gibeonites). Even at this day, it is true that
Japheth dwells in the tents of Shem, since the prom-
ised land has come into the hands of the Turk in-
stead of the Egyptian sultan. This appears also in
a more spiritual maimer, since in the New Testament
!leathen and Jews have become one in their conver-
sion to Christ. (Noah's long life after the flood is
represented as designed to instruct his posterity in
the knowledge of God.)

Geklach : It is worthy of remark, that the father
of Prometheus in the Grecian fable, and who was a
giant, bears the name of Japetus. — Bonsen : Ver. 18
is the introduction to an old family tradition con-
cerning the irreverence and dissoluteness in the fam-
ily of Ham, with special reference to Canaan.

Calwer Handbcch : Noah's human sin regarded
as excusable, gives occasion to Ham's inexcusable
Bin. The curse comes mainly upon Canaan, since it
was just in his race that the most shameless and un-
natural abominations prevailed. At the present day
the last trace of this people, together with their
name, has disappeared from the earth. The highest

distinction is that which God hath appointed for
Shem. It is the propagation of the kingdom of God
by means of his descendants (John x. 16). LniHEE-
And so there was a real scandal in the case, in that
when Ham stumbled upon his father's drunkenness,
he judged him wrongly, and even took satisfactio*
in his sin.

Schroder : Valer. Heeberger • Here vill th«
reviler say, this is the text for me : Noah behaved
himself in a sottish and unseemly way, and there-
fore may I do the same. Hold, brother. Noah't
example serves not at all your turn. Only once in
his life had Noah overshot the mark ; but how oft
hast thou already done as much ? Noah did not do
it purposely or wittmgly. The lesson thou art to
learn from Noah is not drunkenness, but to guard
thyself from drunkenness, that thou mayeat not,
through his example, come to mischief, and cauae a
scandal. Wouldat thou be joyful, so let it joy re-
main. Pleaaant drink, and wholesome food God
grudgea not to thee. Drink and eat, only forget not
God and thine hour of death. Neither forget the
death of Christ ; on this account it was, that formerly
the image of the cross was made in the bottom of the
tankard. Let a man come to the table as to an
altar, says Bemhard. In the weakness of Noah there
is enkindled the wickedness of Ham. " Then saw
Ham." Love covers ; he (Ham), instead of veiling
his father's nakedness, only the more openly exposes
what he had left uncovered. As a son he trans-
greases against his father ; so, as a brother, would
he become the seducer of his brother. — Calvin : Hi?
age did not excuse him. He was no merely mis
chievoua boy, who, in hia inconsiderate sport be
trayed his own thoughtlessness, for he had alreadj
gone beyond his hundredth year. Luther ; Whilst,
in other cases, the servant has only one master, Ca-
naan here is the servant of two lords, therefore
doubly a servant. (In this way, indeed, it is, that
by Shem he is drawn to piety, whilst by Japheth he
ia educated to a human civilization.) — The sins of
Ham, as the deep stain of the Hamitic race in gen^
eral. Farther on the writer speaka of the corruption
of Canaan, and the evil reputation of the Phosniciana
and Carthaginians.

Calvin : Shem holds the highest grade of honor-
Therefore it ia that Noah, in blessing him, expresses
himself in praise of God, and dwells not upon the
person. Whenever the declaration relates to some
unusual and important pre-eminency, the Hebrews
thus ever ascend to the praise of God (Luke i. 68).—
Japheth: God gives enlargement to the enlarged. —
Luther : Since Abraham, in his fiftieth year, had so
good and excellent a teacher in Noah, he must have
had quite a growth in doctrine and rehgion. — Her
berger: Fear not the cross, since here thou hasi
before thee one who bore it for niae hundred an^
fifty years.

344 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK. OF MOSES.

THIRD SECTION.

The Ethnological Table.

Chapter X. 1-32.

1 Now these are the generations [genealogies] of the sons of Noah; [they were] Shem,
Ham, and Japheth ; and unto them were sons born after the flood.

1. The Japhethitee (vers. 2-5).

2 The sons of Japheth; Gomer [the Cimmerians, in the TaurianChersonesus; Crimea], and MagOg

Scythians], and Madai [iiedes], and Javan [lonians], and Tubal [Tiberenl], and Meschech

3 Mosohi], and Tiras [Thraoians]. And the sons of Gomer ' ; Ashkenaz ' [Germans, Ascn], and

4 Eiphath [Oeits, Paphiagouians], and Togarmah [Armenians]. And the sons of Jayan''; Eh-

shah' [Elis, aiolians], and Tarshish [lartessus; Knobel: Etruscans], Kittim [Cypnans, Caiians], and

5 Dodanim [Dardanians]. By these Were the isles [dwellere on the islands and the coasts] of the

Gentiles [the heathen] divided ° in their lands ; every one after his tongue, after their fami-
lies, in their nations.

2. The Hamites (vers. 6-20).

6 And the sons of Ham ; Gush [.Ethiopians], and Mizraim * [Egyptians], and Phut

7 [Lybians], and Canaan I Canaanites, Lowlanders]. And the SOns of Cush ; Seba [Meroe ,
and Havilab [Abyssinians], and Sabtah [.Stliicpiana in Sabotha], and Eaamah [Eastern Arabians ,

and Sabtecha [.stuopian Oaramanlans] : and the sons of Raamah; Slieba and Dedan

8 [Sabaean and Dadanio Oushites, on the Persian Gulf]. And Cush begat Nimrod [we will rebel] : he

9 began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was [he became] a mighty hunter before the
Lord'; wherefore it is said. Even as Nimrod [is he] the mighty hunter before the Lord.

10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel [Babylon, see ch. xi. s], and Erech [Orchoe],

11 and Accad, and Calneh [Ktesiphon], in the land of Shinar [Babylonia]. Out of that land
went forth Asshur' [Assyrians], and budded Nineveh [city ofNinus], and the city Rehoboth

12 [city markets], and Calah [Kelach and Chalach; completion]. And Resen [bridle] between Nine-

13 veh and Calah; the same is a great city. And Mizraim begat Ludim [Berbers? Maurita.

nianraces], and Anamim [inhabitantsof the Delta], and Lehabim [Libyans of Egypt], and Naph-

14 tuhim [middle or lower Egyptians], And Pathrusim [upper Egyptians], and Casluhim [Cholcians
out of whom came Philistim [emigrants, new comers], and Caphtorim [Cappadociane ? Cretans!

15 And Canaan begat Sidon [sidonians, fishers] his firstborn, and Heth [Hittites, terror'

16 And the Jebusite [.Jebus, Jerusalem, threshing-floor], and the Amorite [inhabitants of the lulls

17 and the Girgasite [clay, or marshy soil]. And the Hivite [paganus?], and the Arkite [inhabit-

18 antsofArka, at the foot of Lebanon], and the Sinite [in Sinna, upon Lebanon], And the Arvadite
Arabians on the island Arados, north of Tripolia], and the Zemarite [inhabitants of Simyra, on the western
foot of Lebanon], and the Hamathite [Hamath, on the northern border of Palestine] : and afterwards

19 were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. And the border of the Canaanitea

was from Sidon as thou COmest to Gerar [city of the Philistines], unto Gaza [city of Philistines,

etronghoid] ; as thou goest unto Sodom [city of burning], and Gomorrah [city of the wood], and

Admah [in the territory of Sodom, Adamah t], and Zeboim [city of gazelles or hyenas], even untO

20 Lasha [on the east of the Dead Sea, earth cleft]. These are the SOUS of Ham, after their femi-
lies, after their tongaes, in their countries, and in their nations.

3. The Shemites (vers. 21-31).

21 Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber [on the other side], the brother

of Japheth the elder [Lange, more correctly, translates, elder brother of Japheth], even tO him Were

22 children born. The children of Shem ; Elam [Eiymteans, Persians], and Asshur [Assyrian/ \

CHAP. X 1-32.

345

and Arphaxad [Arrapaohltis, in Northern Assyria, fortress, or territory of the ChaldBeans], and Lud

23 [Lydians in Asia Minor], and Aram [Aramseans in Syna, highlanders]. And the children of Aram ,
Uz [Aisites? natiTe country of Job], and Hul [Celo-Syria], and Gether [Arabians], and Mash

24 [Mesheg, Syrians]. And Arphaxad begat Salah [sent forth] ; and Salah begat Eber [from tb«

25 other side, emigrant, pilgrim]. And unto Eber were born two sons : the name of the one was
Peleg [division] ; for in his days was the earth divided ; and his brother's name wai

26 Joktan [diminished; by the Arabians called Kachtan, ancestor of all the Arabian tribes]. And Joktan
begat Almodad [measured], and Sheleph [Salapealans, old Arabian tribe of Yemen, drawers of the sword],
and Hazarmaveth [Hadramath, in S. E. Arabia, court of death], and Jerah [worshipper of the raocn, on

27 the Red Sea], and Hadoram [Atramites, on the south coast of Arabia], and Uzal [Sanae, a city in Yemen],

28 and Diklah [a district in Arabia, place of palm-trees], And Obal [in Arabia, stripped of leaves], and
Abimael [in Arabia, father of Mael, the Minaeans ?], and Sheba [Sabaeans, with their capital city, Saba],

29 And Ophir [in Arabia, probably on the Persian Gulf], and Havilah [probably Chaulan, a district between
Sanse and Mecca, or the Clianlotee, on the border of stony Arabia], and Jobab '. all these were SOns of

30 Joktan. And their dwelling was from Mesha [according to Gesemus, Mesene, on the Persian
Gulf], as thou goest unto Sephar [Himyaric royal city in the Indian Sea, Zhafar], a mount of tho

31 east. These are the sons of Shem, after their famihes, after their tongues, in their lands,

32 after their nations. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations
[genealogies], in their nations : and by these were the nations divided in the earth after
the flood.

[* Ver. 3. — Tips, Gomer (GM R). These radical letters are found extensively combined in the history and geography
of Europe ; as though some early, roving people had left the mark of their name from the Pontus, or Black Sea, to Ire-
land : GMR., KMR., JiyMMeIlii(C(/mTneria?w), by metathesis, KRM., CRiMea, GRM., Sermani, CyMRX,
Cymri, Cimbri, Cumbri, Cumberland, Humberland, Northumberland, Cambria, etc. They may not be all etymologically
connected, but there is every probability that they were left by the same old people, ever driven on Westward by suc-
cessive waves of migration. TSSITX , Ashkenaz, by metathesis T3ir3S , Aksenaz, Axenas, may be the old name for the
Black Sea, or the country lying upon it. The Greeks called it o^ei/os, for which they accordingly found a meaning in
their own language — the inhospitable — afterwards euphemized to eu|eiFos — the Euxine.— T. L.]

[3 Ter. 4.— I"!^, Jvjan, Javan, Iwan, Ion. There can be no doubt that this is Greece. Compare Joel iv. 6; Ezek.
xxvii. 13 ; Dan. viii. 21. It is the name or patrial epithet of Greece in the cognate languages, as given to it in historical

terms : Syriac, |h*J&.* , Chald. "^31^ , Arab. .•Lj«-3 , 3,nd also by the G-reeks themselves, when they would present

the name in its old, Oriental form ; as in the Persie of jEscbylus, when the mother of Xerxes is made to call them
^aovK, and their land yijv 'laovutv (line 175), and in another place, 563, Sta S* 'laoviov x^P'^'S- See also, Heeod., i. 56, 58.
flO'^bfi* , 'EAAas. CaiT , in some Hebrew copies D^a^'"l , which the LXX read, and rendered Pd5tot. — T. L.]

[' Ver. 5. — !n"lS3 , were parted. Maimonides says this term was applied to the Japhethites because of their fal
roving, which parted them from each other in separate isles and coasts ; whereas it is not said of Ham's descendant^
because they were near to each other, forming dense and contiguous populations. — T. L.]

[* Ver. 6. — DAIS'S . Tliis dual name has been supposed to denote the political division of Upper and Iiower Egypt,
[t would seem more likely to have a geographical significance : The Narrows — the two narrows, or the double narrows —
the straits. What could be more descriptive of this long and very narrow strip of territory, lying on both sides of the
Nile, many hundred miles in length, and averaging only a dozen or so in breadth. It is strange that RosenmuUer should
say of this name, that it is uncertain whether it is Hebrew or Egyptian, It is pmrely Hebrew, and no other proper name
in the language ever had a clearer significance. This appearance of extreme narrowness, with mountains or deserts on
each side, must have suggested itself at the earliest date, whereas, the other idea must have had a later origin. The son
of Ham, who flrst settled Egypt with his children, must have been at once struck with this territorial peculiarity, so
different from anything in the Northern or Eastern regions, whence he came. The name which he gave to it afterwards
came back to him as its settler and proprietor. There is reason to suppose that Mitzraim was not bia earliest name. It
was rather a territorial designation, afterwards genealogically and historically adopted. The original name of this first
settler may have been Gupt, Copt, or Cuphi, from which came the other popular designation, Al-yvTrr-oy, Egypt. — T. L.]

[' Ver, 9.—" Mighty hwnter (.whether of men or beasts) iTin^ "'SSb before the Lord," to express his notoriety fol
boldness and wickedness, as something ever before the divine presence ; so bad, that God could not take his eyes from it
Compare with it Gen. vi. 10, the whole earth corrupt, Cill'*? "''S^ •— T- L-l

[' Ter. 11.— "lllffiS N3" . In support of the view that ^IffiS here denotes the place whither, instead of being th«
ItlJi/erfof the verb SS"', Maimonides refers to Numb, xxxiv. 4,5, njiaSS "13S1 I^S ISO StS'^l , "and it went on
(tt) Hazar-addar, and passed over (to) Azmonah ; " also to Numb. xxi. 33, "'S'n'IS TlU3n 7]ba jiS i<3^1,"And0g
kmg of Bashan, went out (to) Edrei ; " in neither of which cases is there a preposition. He' refers also ti. Micah v. S,
where " Asshur and the land of Nimrod " are mentioned together.— T. L.l

OEKERAL REMARKS ON THE ETHNOLOGICAL
TABLE, OR THE GENEALOGICAL TREE OP
THE NATIONS.

1. The Literature.- -'See Matthew, p. 19; tte
present work, p. 119; KgETz: "History of the Old
Testament," p. 88 ; Enobel, p. lot ; Keil, p, 108 ;
» full and w !ll-a.wanged survey see in Delitzsoh,

p. 287 ; also the notes in Delitzsoh, p. 629. See
also the articles, Babel, Babylon, Nineveh, and Meso-
potamia, in Herzog's Real-Encyclopedia. Lataed's
account of " Excavations at Nineveh," togethei
with the "Description of a Visit to the Chaldsean
Christiana in Kurdistan, and to the Jezidi or Vfov.
shippers of Satan." German of Meissner, Leipsio

846

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

1862. Here belong also the " EthnograpMcal
Works, or the National Characteristics," etc: Laza-
rus and Steinthal. " Journal of Popular Psycho-
logy." Berlin : Dumler, 1859. Berghaus, Friedrich
von Raumer, Vorlander, and others.

2. The basis of the genealogical table. Accord-
ing to Havemik and Keil, this document was ground-
ed on very old tradition, and had its origin in the
time of Abraham. According to Knobel, the knowl-
edge of the nations that is represented in it, had its
origin, in great parti in the connection of the He-
brews with the Phoenician Canaanites. Delitzsch
assigns its composition to the days of Joshua. The
signs of a high antiquity for this table present them-
selves unmistakably in its ground features. There
jelong here: 1. The small development of the Ja-
phethan line ; on which it may be remarked, that
they were the people with whom the Phoenicians
maintained the most special intercourse ; 2. the posi-
tion of the .^ithiopians at the head of the Hamites,
the historical notices of Nimrod, as also the supposi-
tion that Sodom and Gomorrah were then existing ;
3. the discontinuance of the Jewish line with Peleg,
as well as the accurate familiarity with the branch-
ing of the Arabian Joktanites, who have as much
space assigned to them alone as to all the Japheth-
ites, when for the commercial Phceniciana they would
be of least significance. The table indicates various
circles of tradition — more universal and more spe-
cial. The Japhethan groups appear least developed.
Besides the seven sons, the grandchildren of Japheth
are given only in the descendants of Gomer and Ja-
van, in the people of anterior Asia, and in the inhab-
itants of the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean
Sea. Magog, Madai, Thubal, Meshech, and Tiras are
carried no farther. The table certifies a very copious
tradition of the Hamites. First, there are mentioned
the four sous of Ham, then five sons of his firstborn.
Gush, then the two sons of Raamah, the fourth son of
Gush. These two are, tlierefore, great-grandchildren
of Ham. Nimrod is next presented as a specially
prominent son of Gush. Then follows the second son
of Ham, Mizraim, with six sons. The sixth, Gaslu-
him, is again presented in the mention of the Philis-
tim and Caphtorim, who are, therefore, also great-
grandchildren of Ham. Phut, the fourth son of Ham,
is the only one who is carried no farther. The fifth,
Canaan, appears with eleven eons ; namely, Sidon,
the ancestor of the Phoenicians, and the heads of the
other Canaanitish tribes. Shem, finally, has five
sons, of whom, again, Elam, Asshur, and Lud, are
no farther developed. The line of his son, Aram,
appears in four sons, grandchildren of Shem. Of the
sons of Shem, Arphaxad is treated as most important.
The line goes from Shem through Arphaxad and Sa-
lah, even to the great-grandchild, Eber. Eber forms
the most important point of connection in the Shemi-
tic line. With his son Peleg the earth is divided ; that
is, there is formed the strong monotheistic, Abra-
bamic line, in contrast with the line of his brother
Joklan and the Arabian Joktanites. Joktan is devel-
oped in thirteen sous, great-grandchildren of Shem.
From this survey it appears : 1. That the table
has a clear and full view of the three ground-types
or points of departure of the Noachiau humanity —
Bhem, Ham, Japheth. It however, inverts the order
of tlie names, because Shem, as the ancestor of the
people of the promise, is the peculiar point of aim
In the representation. Japheth, however, comes
first, because, since the history of Israel stands in
Dearest reciirocal connection with that of the Ham-

ites, the Japhethites in this respect take the back
ground. 2. The table has, in like manner, a deal
view of the nearest descendants of the three soni
of Noah, of the seven sons of Japheth, of the foui
sons of Ham, and the five sons of Shem. It pre
sents us, therefore, the sixteen ground-forms of com-
mencing national formations. 3. In the case of fiv«
sons of Japheth, one son of Ham, and three sons of
Shem, the genealogy is not carried beyond the grand-
children. 4. In respect to the Japhethites, it does
not, generally, go beyond the grandchildren ; among
the Hamites it passes through the grandchild,
Raamah, to the great-grandchildren ; so, likewise,
through the grandchildren, the Casluhim ; among
the Shemites, through Aiphaxad, it proceeds to the
great-great-grandchildren, and these, through thf
great-great-grandchild, Joktan, are carried one step
farther. 5. The table occupies itself least with the
Japhethans ; beyond the Medes, the people of Mid
die Asia and the eastern nations generally come ii'
farther into the account. It appears, however, tc
have little famiUarity with the Phoenicians proper
since it only makes mention of Sidon, x-hilst it ex-
hibits a full acquaintance with the Egyptians, with tht
inhabitants of Canaan, and with the Aiabian tribes.
In this peculiar form of the table lies the mark of itf.
very high antiquity. 6. It contains three fundamen-
tal geographical outlines, one poUtical, and besides
this, an important theocratic-ethnographic notice.
OeograpTiical : 1. The mention of the spreading of
the Javanites (lonians) over the isles and coasts of
the Mediterranean; 2. the spreading of the Canaan-
ites in Canaan ; 3. the extension of the Joktanites in
A rabia. Political : The first founding of cities (or
states) by Nimrod. Theocratic : The division of the
world in the time of Peleg, the ancestor of Abraham.
Kurtz recommends the following as fundamental
positions in deciding on the names in the ethnologi-
cal table : 1. The names denote, for the most part,
groups of people, whose name is carried back to the
ancestor ; the race, together with the ancestor, form-
ing one united conception. 2. Moreover, the one
designation for a land and its inhabitants, must not
be misapprehended ; for example, the names Ca-
naan, Aram, etc., pass over from the land to the
people, and then from the people to the ancestor.
3. In general, the table proceeds from the status in
quo of the present, solving the problem of national
origin formally in the way of evolution (unity for
multiplicity), but materially in the way of reduction,
in that it carries back to unity the nations that lit
within the horizon of the conceiving beholder. The
last position, however, hardly holds of the sons of
Noah himself ; just as little can it be applied to the
genealogies of the Shemitic branching. In regard,
then, to the sources of the table, Kurtz also remarks :
"together wi'h Hengstenberg and Delitzsch, we re-
gard the sources of this ethnological table to have
been the patriarchal traditions, enriched by the
knowledge of the nations that had reached the Isra-
elites through the Egyptians. Hengstenberg had
already begun to make available, in proof of thi*
origin, the knowledge of the peoples that was ex-
pressed on the Egyptian monuments. In assigninc
its composition (as a constituent element of Genesis)
to about the year 1000 B. c, Knobel must naturally
regard the ethnological knowledge of the Phcenician?
as its true source." On the significance of the table,
the same writer (Kurtz) remarks: "Now that the
sacred history is about to leave the nations to gc
their own way, the preservation of their namef

CHAP. X. 1-82.

341

Indicates, that notwithstanding this, they are not
wholly lost to it, and that they are not forgotten in
the counsel of everlasting love. Its interest for
the Old Testament history consists particularly in
this, that it presents so completely the genealogi-
cal position which Israel holds among the nations of
the earth. It is, moreover, like the primitive history
everywhere, in direct contrast with the phiiosophemes
and myths of the heathen." In relation to the idea,
that henceforth the nations are to be suffered to go
Iheir (jwn way, Keil reminds us of Acts xiv. 16 ; in
fblation to the prospect of their restoration, he de-
scribes the ethnological table as a preparation for
the promise of the blessing which is to go forth from
the promised race over all the races of the earth (ch.
lii. 28). For the historicalness of the ethnological
table, Keil presents the following arguments : 1. That
there is no trace of any superiority claimed for the
Shemites ; 2. no trace of any design to fDl up any
historical gaps by conjecture or poetic invention.
This is seen in the great differences in the narration
as respects the individual sons of Noah ; in one case,
there is mention made only to the second ; then
again to the third and fourth member ; of many the
ancestors are particularly mentioned ; whilst in other
cases the national distinctions alone are specified;
so that in respect to many names we are unable to
decide whether it is the people or the ancestor that
is meant to be denoted ; and this is especially so be-
cause, by reason generally of the scantiness and un-
reliability of ancient accounts that have come down
to us from other sources concerning the origin and
commencements of the nations, many names cannot
be satisfactorily determined as to what people they
really belong.

Against the certainty of this ethnological table,
there have been made to bear the facts of linguistic
affinity. The Phoenicians and the Canaanites are as-
signed to Ham, but their language is Shemitic. Tuch
ascribes this position of the people aforesaid among
the Hamites to the Jewish national hatred, and would
regard it as false. But on the contrary, it must be
remembered that the Jews, notwithstanding their
national hatred, never denied their kinsmanship with
the Edoniites and others. Knobel solves the philo-
logical problem by the supposition that the Canaan-
ites who migrated to that country might have re-
ceived the Shemitic language from Shemites who
had previously settled there. Add to this that the
aiiinity of the Phoenicians and Canaanites with the
Hamitic nations of the south seems to be establish-
ed (Kurtz, p. 90 ; Kauien, p. 235). As to what
concerns the Elamites on the Persian Gulf, we must
distinguish them from the eastern Japhethie Per-
sians. Besides these philological difficulties, there
has been set in opposition to the ethnological table
the hypothesis of autochthonic human races. We
have already spoken of this. And again, say some,
how, in the space of four hundred years, from Noah
till the Patriarchal time, could such a formation of
races have been completed ? On that we would re-
mark, in the first place, that the American and Ma-
layan races have only been known since the time of
modern voyages of iscovery. The Mongolian race,
too, does not come into the account in the patriarchal
age. There is, therefore, only the contrast between
the Caucasian and the jijthiopic. For the clearing
up of this difficulty, it is sufficient to note : 1. The
ertraorduiary difference, which, in the history of
Noah, immediately ensued between Shem and Ja-
pheth on the one side, and Ham on the otner ; 2, the

progressive specializing of the Hamitic type in con
nection with the Hamitic spiritual tendency towardt
its passional and the sensual ; 8. the change that took
place in the Hamitic type in its original yielding con
formity to the effect of a southern climate. Th«
Hamitic type had, moreover, its universal sphere aa
the Jithiopic race ; this constituted its developed
ground-form, whilst single branches, on the othei
hand, through a progress of ennobling, might makf
an approach to the Caucasian cultivation.* Thai
Shem and Japheth, however, in their nobler tenden
cy, should unite in one Caucasian form, is not to be
wondered at. The great difference between the
Shemitic type and the Japhethan, as existing withii
the Caucasian, is, notwithstanding, fully acknowl-
edged. Since, however, the Shemitic type in its no-
bler branches, may make transitions to the Cauca-
sian ; so also may separations from the Japhethio
and Shemitic form, perhaps, the Mongolian and the
American races, in consequence of a common ten-
dency (see KoETZ, p. 80. " The Direction of the
NoachidiB.")

There have also been objected to the table
chronological difficulties ; in so far as it forms a mid-
dle point for the assumption of Jewish and Christian
chronology. According Lo Bunsen, the time before

* {Caucasian Cultivation. Caucasue, or Caucasia, de-
notes, geographically, the region between the Blaclc and
Caspian Seas. Ethnologically, no term is more indefinite.
If we take it of the territory above indicated, it may be truly
said, that its inhabitants were, at this early time, and long
afterwards, the lowest in the human scale. "Where it was
not a^aTos epi7^ta,as described by iEschylus, it was occupied
by tribes proverbial for their barbarism. "The savage Cau-
casus " (cLTravdpijiTTOs, arepjTTjy) becomes a name for all that was
most rude and ferocious. See the account given by Herodo-
tus of the wretched hordes that then lived the lowest no-
madic life between these two seas, ajr iJAtjs aypijjs ^worra,
deriving their sustenance from the wild products of the for-
est, painting themselves with the figures of animals, and
living liise them, in ways so gross, that Rawlinson and others
omit the passage in their translations, — p.t^i.v re rovTur riav
aydpuiTTtiiv etvat ipi^avid Ka.r6.TTep Toiat TTpofiaroiai. HbroD.
i. 203. To say that the Egyptians and Phcenicians, oz
the Hamites in general, or any single branchrs of them,
" through an ennobling (durch Veredduvg) might make an
approach to the Caucasian culture, "-that is, be raised higher
in the scale of civilization, would be very much like ascrib-
ing a similar elevating influence to the Finns and the Lap-
landere, as exercised upon the French and English. The
savage, as we now understand the term, was not the primi-
tive condition of mankind ; but the earliest appearance of
it as a degeneracy, as a loss of the hujnanfi-ness, of spiritual
superiority, and a tendency to the wilder animal state, pre-
sented itself in this very region. The inhabitants have
shown the same ever since. No part of the earth, geograph-
ically kno^'n, has had less of a history, or been less connect-
ed with history (if that is a criterion of ethnological rank)
than this boasted Caucasia, or Circassia. The Kalmuc, and
other Tartar tribes that even now roam its wilds, though
perhaps possessing a more comely personal appearance, like
the wild horses of the same region, are inferior in civiliza-
tion, and in some kinds of literary culture, to the inhabitanta
of Bomou and other kingdoms of Central Africa, in which
the old Egyptian and Ethiopian humane-ness has not wholly
gone out, or has been kept alive through Arabian iniluence.
The sons of Japheth, who went north, were the earliest of
the human race to become wholly savage, and the longest
to continue such, until met, at a much later day, by tha
Southern and Mediterranean streams of civilization carry-
ing with it the Christian cultus. Even the Javanites, the
Greeks — not the earliest Pelasgi, merely, but the later Helo
lenes and Dorians — were, for a long time, the Barbarians,
as compared with the EgyptianB and the Phcenicians. See
how Homer everywhere speaks of these older and more civ--
ilized peoples, as compared with his own countrymen. The
ancient stream of light has 6:jic< turned northward, as it
may again he deflected to the south ; but aU the boasting
about Caucasian supremacy is in the face of history. It is a
carrying of the most modem ideas, and the most _ irrational
of modem prejudices, into our estimate of the ancient world,
or of the human race, during much the greater part of it!
existence.— T. L.]

348

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Christ must be reckoned at 20,000 years, — namely,
to the flood, 10,000, and from the flood to Abraham,
7,000 (see, on the contrary, Delitzsch, p. 291).
Takmg these 20,000 years, the ante-Christian human-
ity loses itself in a Thohu Vabohu running through
many thousand years of an unhistorical, beastly ex-
istence, wherein the human spirit fails to find any
recognition of its nobiUty.

Dehtzsch, in hig admirable section on the ethno-
logical table, remarks, p. 286 : " The line of the
promise with its chosen race, must be distinguished
from the confusion of the Gentiles ; such is the aim
of this great genealogical chart, and in accordance
with which it is constructed. It is a fundamental
characteristic of Israel, that it is to embrace all na-
tions as partakers of a like salvation in a participa-
tion of hope and love, — an idea unheard of in all
antiquity beside.* The whole ancient world has
nothing to show of hke universaUty with this table.
The earth-describing sections of the Epic poems of
the Hindoos, and some of the Puranas, go greatly
astray, even in respect to India, whilst the nearest
lands are lost in the wild and monstrous account that
is given of them. Their system of the seven world
islands (dvipas) that lay around the Meru, seems oc-
cupied with the worlds of gods and genii rather than
with the world of man. (Lassen, in the " Journal of
Oriental Knowledge," i. p. 341 ; Wilson, ITie Vishnu
Puranay Nowhere is there to be found so unique
a derivation of the national masses, or so universal
a survey of the national connections. A tinge of
hopeful green winds through the arid desert of this
ethnological register. It presents in perspective the
prospect that these far-sundered ways of the nations
shall, at the last, come together at the goal which
Jehovah has marked. Therefore does Baumgarten
complete the saying of Johannes von Miiller, " that
history has its beginning in this ethnological table,"
with a second equally true, "that in it also, as
its closing Umit, shall history find its end." We
may undervalue this table if we overlook the fact
that, in its actual historical and ethnological ground-
features it presents, symbolically, a universal image
of the one humanity in its genealogical divisions.
We may overvalue it, or rather, set a false value
upon it, when we attempt to trace back to it, with
full confidence, all the known nations now upon the
earth. Even the number 70, as the universal sym-
bol of national existences, can only be deduced from
it by an artificial method ; as, for example, in De-
litzsch, p. 289. It is only in the symbolical sense
that the catalogue may be regarded as amounting to
this number.

Neither can we derive this subdividing the na-
tions to such a multiplicity of national life, from the
confusion of languages at Babel. The natural sub-
division of the people has something of an ideal
aspect ; the increased impulse given to it at Babel
had its origin in sin. We regard it, therefore, as a

* [The most secluded people in ancient times, the only
one possessing, and carrying with tliem in their history, a
uj&rld-idea, and this dating from the very earliest period!
See Gen. xxviii. 14, and still earlier, Gen. iii. 15 : "In thee
and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth he hlessed."
This certainly presents the Jewish nation in a most remark-
able liflht, demanding the attention of all who talk about
the philosophy of history, and especially of those who are
fond of deBcribing the Old Testament as presenting an out-
ward, nan'ew, aud exclusive economy. How universaJ the
influence of Grecian culture and Boinan conquest, yet nei-
ther of them had what may be called a world-idea, or any-
thing like the Messianic conception. — T. L.]

strong proof of the canonical intuition that tliij
ethnological table precedes instead of following th«
history of the tower-building. Kurtz treats the his
tory of Babel as earlier than that of the register ; ani
Keil, too, would seem inclined to identify the diversitj
of the nations with the confusion of tongues (p. 107).
After these general remarks, we will conime oui*
selves to the most necessary particulars.

EXEGETIOAl AND CSITICAl.

1. Vers. 2-5. — The Japhethites. — Gomer. — Th«
Cimbri, as well as the Cumry or Cymry in Wales
and in Bretagne, are to be regarded as in relation
with the Cimmerians. They represent the north-
western portion of the Japhethan territory. — IVEagog
appears to represent tlie whole northeast, as the
Scythians, in the most general way, denote the cycle
of the northeastern nations. "The Sarmatians, for
the most part, lie to the west. The chief people in
the army of Gog, Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 3 ; xxxix. 1, is
'iJXl, that is the Rossi, or Russians." Knobel.
— Madai ; the Modes, who inhabit the south and
Southwest. — Javan, belonging to the south, the
Grseco-Italian family of nations. — Thubal and Me-
shech as well as Thogarma, inhabiting the middle
tracts ; Iberians, or Georgians, Armenians, Pontus,
the districts of Asia Minor generally. — G-omer's
Sons: Ashkenaz is referred to the Germans, by
others to Asia Minor, the Asiones. Ashkenaz is ex-
plained by Knobel as denoting the race of Asen.
The oldest son of the Germanic Mannus was called
Iskus, equivalent to Ask, Ascanios. — Riphat is re-
ferred by Knobel to the Celts, by Josephus to the
Paphlagonians ; in which there is no contradiction,
since the Celts also (the Gauls) had a home in Asia
(Galatia). — Thogarma. — ^The Armenians to this day
call themselves the House of Thorgom or Thorko-
matsi. — Sons of Javan : Elisa is referred to EUa
and to the JSohans, Tarshish to Tartessua, and also
to the Etruscans, whom, nevertheless, Delitzsch holds
to have been Shemites ; Eittim is referred to the
Cyprians and the Carians ; Dodanim to the Darda-
nians.

2. Vers. 6-20.— 77i« Hamites. The three first
sons of Ham settled in Northern Africa. 1. The
Ethiopians of the upper Nile ; 2. the Egyptians ol
the lower Nile ; 3. the Libyans, west of the Egyp-
tians, in the east of Northern Africa. The Cushitea
appear to have removed from the high northeast
(Oossse), passing over India, Babylonia, and Arabia,
in their course towards the south ; for " in these
lands the ancients recognized a dark-colored people,
who were designated by them as ^Ethiopians, and
who have since, in part, perished, whilst a few have
kept their place to this day." Knobeh — ^Mizraim.
— The name denotes narrowing, enclosing ; its dual
form denotes the double Egypt (upper and lower
Egypt) ; hi-yv-nTos is probably from Kah-ptah, land
of Ptah. The old Egyptian name is Kemi, Chemi,
(with reference to Ham). — Canaan. — Between the
Mediterranean Sea and the western shore of Jordan.
— The name Poeni (Puni), allied to <^ivo^, blood, and
(foii/cd, blood-red, denotes the Phoenicians in thei*
original Hamitic color. — Sons of Cush. Seba. — •
Meroe, which, at one time, according to Josephus,
was called Seba, — Ohavila. — In the Septuagint,
EiirXo. The Maorobians (or long living), JDthiopiana
of the modern Abyssinia. — Sabta. — Salibata, a capi-
tal city in Southern Arabia. " To this day there i!

CHAP. X. 1-32.

84£

in Yemen and Hadramant a dark race of men who
tie distinct from the light-colored Arabians. So it
is also in Oman on the Persian Gulf," Knobel.
— Raamah. — Septuagint: 'Pe-yfia, in Southeastern
Arabia — Oman. There, too, there are obscure indi-
cations of Raamah's sons Sheba and Dedan. — Sab-
techa. — Dark-colored men on the east side of the
Persian Gulf, In Garamania. — Aside from these,
Himrod is also made prominent as a son of Gush,
vers. 8-12. Knobel regards this section as a Jeho-
Tistic interpolation, and so does Delitzsoh. The
name Jehovah, however, as occurring here, is no
proof of such a fact ; it comes naturally out of the
accompanying thoughts. The only thing remarlsa-
ble is, that Nimrod is not named in immediate con-
nection with the other sons of Gush, but that the two
sons of Raamah go before him. It is, however, easy
enough to be understood, that the narrator wished
first to dispose of this lesser reference.* Interrup-
tions similar to it are of repeated occurrence in the
table, as is the case also in other genealogies (1 Chr.
iL 7 ; xxiii. 4, 22). — He vras a mighty hunter. — ■
" The author presents Nimrod as the son of Cusb,
putting him far back before the time of Abraham,
and assigns him to the Jithiopian race. In fact, the
classical writers recognize ^Ethiopians in Babylonia
in the earliest times. They speak, especially, of an
.Ethiopian king, Gepheus, who belongs to the mythi-
cal time, and there is mention of a trace of the Gepbe-
nians as existing to the north of Babylon." Knobel.
In the expression, " he began to be a hero, or a
mighty one upon the earth," there is no occasion for
calling him a "postdiluvian Lamech" (Delitzsch).
He began the unfolding of an extraordinary power
of will and deed, in the fact mentioned, that he be-
came a mighty hunter in the presence of Jehovah.
The hunting of ravenous beasts was in the early
time a beneficent act for the Imman race. Powerful
huntsmen appear as the pioneers of civilization ; a
fact which clearly proclaims itself in the myth of
Hercules. And so the expression, "Nimrod was a
mighty hunter before Jehovah," may mean, that he
was one who broke the way for the future institu-
tions of worship and culture which Jehovah intend-
ed in the midst of a wild and uncultivated nature.
There is another interpretation : he was so mighty a
hunter, that even by Jehovah, to whom, in other re-
spects, nothing is distinguished, he was recognized as
such (Knobel ; Delitzsch) ; but this seems to us to
have Uttle or no meaning. Keil holds fast to the
traditional interpretation : in defiance of Jehovah,
and, at the same time, takes ths literal sense of
animal-bunting in connection with the tropical sense
of hunting men, so that he explains it, with Herder,
as meaning an ensnarer of men by fraud and force.
Neither the expression itself, nor the proverb : " like
Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord," justifies
this view. By such a proverb, there may be denoted
» praiseworthy, Herculean pioneer of culture, as well
as a blameworthy and violent despot. In truth, the
chase of the animals was, for Nimrod, a preparatory
exercise for the subjugation of men. " For him and

[* Maimonides seems to give a better explanation of this.
He says ; " These, Seba and Havilah, were heads of peoples,
and tbe aons of Haamab became two penples : but Nimrod
did not become a people (genealogically), wherefore the
Senpture saith fimply, and ' Cush begat Mimrod,' and not,
wie ■ sons of Oush were Mmrod, and Seba, and Havilah.' "
■Hiat is, Nimrod does not come in the ethnological register
Df peoples, though he is mentioned afterwards as a histori-
lal person. He applies the same principle of interpretation
A other similar cases. — T. L.]

his companions, the chase was a training for war, ai
we are told by Xenophon (Kunegete, G. i.), the old
heroes were pupils of Chiron, and so, naSntraX Kwif
yeaiai', disciples of the chase." Delitzsch. — And
the beginning of hia kingdom was Babeli— .
Knobel : " His first kingdom in contrast with his
second." This, however, is not necessarily involved
in the expression, " the beginnmg." It denote*
rather the basis. In thus playing the hero, Nimrod
established, in the first place, a kingdom that em-
braced Babel, that is, Babylon, Erech, or Orech, in
the southwest of Babylonia, Akkad (in respect to
situation *A«k^t7j), in a northern direction, and ir
the Northeast, Galneh, in respect to territory corre-
spending to Chalonitis, or Ktisiphon, on the east
shore of the Tigris. This establishment of an em-
pire transforming the patriarchal clan-govemmenta
into one monarchy is not to be thought of as hap-
pening without force. The hunter becomes a subju-
gator of men, in other words, a conqueror. — Out of
that laud Tsrent forth Asshur. [Lange translates :
Out of that land went he forth towards Asshur.]
— The Septuagint, Vulgate, and many interpreters
(Luther, Calvin) regard Asshur as the grammatical
subject, and give it the sense : Asshur went forth
from Shinar. On the contrary, the Targum of Onke-
los, Targum of Jonathan, and many other authorities,
(Baumgarten, Delitzsch, Knobel) have rightly recog-
nized Nimrod as the subject. Still, it does not seem
clear, when Knobel supposes that Nimrod had lefl
his first kingdom for the sake of founding a sec
ond. Moreover, it is not to be supposed that h(
barely extended his rule over an uninhabited terri
tory for the purpose of colonizing it. It was rathei
characteristic of Nimrod, that he should seek still
more strongly to appropriate to himself the occupied
district of Assyria by the establishment of cities.
The first city was Nineveh (at this day the ruin-
district called Nimrud), above the place where the
Lycus ficws into the Tigris ; the second was Echo-
both, probably east of Nineveh ; the third Galah,
northward in the district of Kalachan, in which
there is found the place of ruins called Khorsabad ;
the fourth was Resen, between Nineveh and Calah.
— The same is a great city. — The first suggested
sense would seem to denote Resen as the great city,
or as the greater city in relation to the others named
with it. On the contrary, remarks Knobel : Reser
is nowhere else mentioned as known to antiquity,
and could not pobsibly have been so distinguished
as to be called in this short way the great city. Rath'
er does the expression denote the four cities taken
together, as making Nineveh in the wider sense, and
which, both by Htbrews and Assyrians, was thus
briefly called the great city." According to Ktesias,
it had a circumference of four hundred and eighty
stadia (twenty-four leagues), with which there well
agrees the three days' journey of Jonah iii. 8 ; it em-
braced the quarter founded by Nimrod, out of which
it grew in the times that followed Nimrod, when the
Assyrian kings gradually combined the four places
into one whole; thus the whole city was named Nin-
eveh after its most southern part. The ancient
assertions respecting the circuit of the city are coa-
firmed by the excavations. ''These four cities cor-
respond, probably, to the extensive ruins on the east
of the Tigris, that have lately been made known by
Layard and Botta, namely, Nebi-Junus and Kujund
schik, opposite Mosul, Khorsabad, five leagues north,
and Nimrud, eight leagues north of Mosul." Keil
See also the note (p. 112) on the agreement of Raw

350

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

linson, Grote, Niebuhr, and others, as opposed by
the conjectures of Hitzig and Bunsen. — The sons
of Mizraim: 1. Ludim. As distinguished from
the Shemidc Ludira, ver. 22 ; Movers regards it as
the old Berber race of Levatah that settled by the
Syrtis, — so called after the manner of other collect-
ive names of the Mauritanian races. According to
Knobel it wag the Shemitic Ludim, who, after the
Egyptian invasion, were called Hyksos. This is in
the face of the text. 2. Anamim. This is referred
by Knobel to the Egyptian Delta. 3. Lehabim.
.Egyptian Libyans, not to be confounded with Bis,
the Libyans proper. 4. Naphtuhim. According
to Knobel, the people of Phthah, the god of Mem-
phis, ill Middle Egypt; according to Bochart, it
agrees with t^e(pSrvs, that connects with the northern
coast-line of Egypt. 5. Fathrusim. Inhabitants of
Pathros, Meridian land, equivalent to Upper Egypt,
or Thebais. 6. Oaslvihim. The Colchians, " wlio,
according to Herod., ii. c. 105, had their descent
from the Egyptians." This may probably be held
of one branch of Mizraim ; whereas the origin of the
Cushites themselves would seem to point back to
Colchis (see Gen. ii.). — Out of Tiirhom came Philis-
tim. — The name is explained as meaning emigrants,
from the JSthiopian word fallasa. According to
Amos ix. 1 ; Jer. xlvii. 4, the Philistines went forth
from Caphtor. We may reconcile both these decla-
rations, by supposing that the beginning of the se^
tlement of the Philistines on the coast-line of Canaan,
had been a Ca«luhian colony, but that this was after-
wards strengthened by an immigration from Caphtor,
and then their territory enlarged by the dispossession
of the Avim, Dent. ii. 23. — And Caphtorim. — By
old Jewish interpreters these are described as Cap-
padocians ; they are regarded by Ewald as Cretans.
i3oth suppositions may agree in denoting the course
of migration taken by the Caphtorim. — The sons
of Canaan: — "Notwithstanding the Shemitic lan-
guage, the Phoenician Canaanites are here reckoned
among the Eamitic nations, and must, therefore,
have had their origin from the South. In fact, an-
cient writers affirm that they came from the Ery-
thraean Sea, that is, from the Persian Gulf, to the
Mediterranean. And with this agrees the mythology
which makes the Phoenician ancestors, Agenor and
Phoenix, akin, partly to Belus in Babylonia, and
partly with Egyptus (Danaus the jEthiopian)." Kno-
bel. 1. Zidon. Although originally the name of a
person, this does not exclude its relation to the fa-
mous city so called, T"S, primarily, to lay nets ; it
appears, however, to denote fishing as well as hunt-
ing proper. Sidon was the oldest city of the Phoeni-
cians. 2. Heth. This also stands as the name of a
person, whereas the designations of the Canaanites
that follow have the form of national appellations.
In this position of Heth, together with Sidon the
first-born, they would appear to be denoted as the
peculiar point of departure of the Canaanitish life.
The Hittites (Hethites) on the hill-land of Judah,
and especially in the neighborhood of Hebron, were
only a branch of the great original Hlttite family
(1 Kings X. 29; 2 Kings vii. 6). The Kittim also,
and the Tyrians, are, according to Knobel, compre-
hended in this name. 3. The Jebusites. Distin-
guished as the inhabitants of the old Jebus, Jerusa-
lem. 4. The Amorites. On the hill-land of Judah,
and on the other side of Jordan, the mightiest family
of the Canaanites ; therefore may their name em-
br»oe all Canaanites (chs. xv. 16 ; xlviii. 22.) 6. The

Girgasites. (ch. xv. 21 ; Deut. Tii. 1 ; Josh, xxiv
11) ; their relation to the Gergesenes (Matt. viii. 28
is very uncertain. 6. Hivites (or Hevites) ir
Sichem (ch. xxxiv. 2), at Gibeon (Josh. ix. 7), and
at the foot of Hermon (Josh. xi. 3). " The five last
sons of Canaan dwelt northward in Phoenicia." Kno
bel. The Arkites. Denoted from the city Ar^a,
north of Sidon. The Sinites. named from the citj
Sina, mentioned by Hieronymus, still farther north.
More northern still the Zemarites, named fit)m the
city Simyra (Simrah, by the moderns). Farthest
north the Arvadites (also on the island Aradus) ;
on the northeast, the Hamathites, name from the
city Hamath, stiU existing. — And afterwards were
spread abroad. — This spreading extends from the
Phoenician district along the coast. The Kenites,
mentioned ch. xv. 19-21, the Kenezites, and the
Kadmonites, are regarded by Delitzsch as people of
Hamitic descent. So also the Rephaim, besides
whom there are still farther named the Perezltes.
The same thing may probably be said of the Geshu-
rim, mentioned 1 Sam. xxvii. 8. The Susim and
Emim, ch. xiv., he (Delitzsch) holds to be not Ca-
naanites, but a people of a later introduction (p. 300).
An immigration of Shemites must, in truth, have
preceded that of the Hamites into Canaan. — The
sons of Shem (vers. 21-31). The father (ances-
tor) of all the children of Eber Tliis declara-
tion calls attention beforehand to the fact, that in
the sons of Eber the Shemitic line of the descend-
ants of Abraham separates again in Peleg, namely,
from Joktan or his Arabian descendants. 1. Elam.
Elamites, the most easterly Shemites who dwelt from
the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea ; at a later day
they are lost, together with their language, in the
Persians. 2. Asshur, Assyrians to the east of the
Tigris, from thence extending towards Syria and Asia
Minor. Their mother-country was a plain ; hence
the name (from lUJtf). Their Shemitic language also
underwent a change, and became foreign to the He-
brew. 3. Arphaxad, Their dwelling-place was in
Arrapachitis, on the east side of the Tigris, from
which they spread out ; by Ewald and Knobel it is
interpreteti as referring to the Chaldaeans, which
Keil, however, regards as uncertain. 4. Iiud. The
Lydians of Asia Minor, related to the Assyrians (see
Kjeil, p. 114; by Knobel they are referred to the
Canaanite and Arabian raees). 5. Aram. Arama"
ans, in Syria and Mesopotamia. — The sons oi
Aram : Uz and Gether, probably Arabians ; Hu]
and Mash, probably Syrians. — The sons of Al>
phaxad: — The names Salah and Eber (sending
forth and passing over) denote the already com-
mencing emigration of the Abrahamic race. The
two sons of Eber are called Peleg (division) and Jok-
tan (diminished^ small). With them there is a divi-
sion of the Abrahamic and the Arabian lines. Peleg
is the ancestor of the first. This is the explanation :
in this manner was it that " in his day the earth wad
divided." Fabri interprets this expression of a catas-
trophe that took place in the body of the earth,
whose form was then violently divided into the later
continental relations (in his treatise on the " Origin
of Heathenism," 1859) Delitzsch interprets it aa
referring, in general, to the division of the earlier
population ; Keil explains it of the division that took
place in consequence of the building of the tower of
Babel.* Knobel refers the language of the separa-

* [This would seem to t)e the interpretation which moBi
readily commends itself to the plain reader. The divieioil
of the earth is referred to as something easily known fran

CHAP. X. 1-82.

35

Son of tne two brothers, Peleg and Joktan, in which
Joktan and liis sona took their way to the south.
We find here indicated the germ of the facts by
which the earth, that is, the population of the earth,
became divided into Judaism and Heathenism. For
the separation of Abraham is no immediate or sud-
den event. The interrupted emigration of Terah had
been previously prepared in Salah and Eber ; fully
BO in Peleg. Therefore is Peleg's son called 1ST ,
friend of God. In contrast with Salah (the sent),
Eber (the passing over), and Peleg (the separating,
division), Serug denotes again the complicated or en-
tangled, Nahor, the panting, possibly the ineffectual
driving, and, finally, Terah, the loitering, the one
who tarries on the way. Then comes Abram, the
high father, with whom the race of the promise de-
cidedly begins. We have no hesitation in taking
these names as at the same time historical and sym-
DoEcsfl. — The sons of Joktan : In their multiplicity
they present a remarkably clear figure of the Arabian
tribes. " Thirteen names, some of which can still
be pointed out in places and districts of Arabia,
whilst others have not, as yet, been discovered, or
have been wholly extinguished." Knobel. Concern-
ing their strife, and perhaps, too, their merging in
the Karaites, who were in Arabia before them, com-
pare Knobel, p. 123 — ^The beni Eahtan, sons of
Joktan, or Joktanidse, fonn their leading point of
view in Northern Yeman. 1 . Almodad. The name
El Mohdad is found among the princes- of the Djor-
honiites, first in Yemen, and then in Hedjez. 2. She-
leph, the same as Sahf, the Salapenians in a district
of Yemen. 3. Hazarmaveth, the same as Hadra-
maut (court of death), in Southeastern Arabia, by
the Indian Ocean ; so named because of the un-
lealthy climate. 4. Jereh. Sons of the moon, wor-
ihippers of the moon ; south from Chaulan. 6. Ha-
loram. The Adramites, on the south coast of Ara-
oia. 6. Uzal, One with Sanaa, a city of Yemen.
t. Diblah, meaning the palm ; probably cultivator
of the palm-tree ; they may be placed conjecturally
in the Wady Nadjran, abounding in dates. 8. Obal,
Placed by Knobel with Gebal and the Gebanites.

9. Abimael. Father of Mael;* undetermined.

10. Sheba. The Sabseans, a trading people whose
capital city is Mariaba. 11. Ophir. Placed by
Knobel to the southwest of Arabif, the land of the
Himyarites. Lassen, Eitter, and Delitzsch, remove
Ophir to the mouths of the Indus. For the differ-
ent views, see Gesenius. It would appear, bow-
ever, that the point of departure for Ophir must still
be sought in Arabia. 12. Havilah. District of
Ohaulan, in Northern Yemen ; probably also colo-
nized in India (see Delttzsch, p. 308). 13. Jobab. —
And their dwelling was from IVIesha. — Con-

what is contained in the narrative, or is soon to be men-
tioned. Had there not been such a division so prominently
put fortb in the xlth chapter, there migbt be some room for
(peculation. But the obvious connection seems to shut out
every other view ; He was called Peleg (division), for in his
day did that great event take place that is soon to be men-
tioned, and which is the CTOond of all these genealogical
Sivisiona Bee Bochabt : Phaleg.— T. L.]

* [PSia^SN, Abi-mael — a kind of naming similar to
that by which Ham was designated, "SSD ^3^5. » -^^t-
Cfinaan, father of Canaan, a method which afterwards be-
comes quite common among the Arabians. In this, and in
the appearance of the article in Tniiabst , El-raodad, verse
26. above, we have germs of peculiar forms in the Arabic
dialect, showing that it was already deviating from the He-
brew, or the Hebrew from it, whichever may have been the
o'dest.— T. li.'

coming these undetermined bounding districts ol
Mesha and Sephar, compare Keil. — And by these
were the nations divided.— A preparation for
what follows, see the next chapter.

DOCTBINAl AlTD ETHICAI,.

See the Exegetical.

1. The religious significance of the ethnologica
table : 1. Personal characters form the basis of the
human world ; the relation of God to humanity is
conditioned by the personal relation of God to per-
sonal being. The revelation of salvation, therefore,
tends also to take upon itself a genealogical form.
The ethnological table is the extended ground-outline
of the relation between God and humanity, and of
those that men bear to one another. The genealo-
gies are trees of human life that God has planted.
2. In the christological point of view, the genealogi-
cal table is the prefiguration of the universality of
the gospel, corresponding to the universality of the
divine love, grace and compassion. 3. It gives us a
clear idea of the regular gravitation of humanity to
its centre in Shem, Eber, Abraham, Christ ; that is,
the genealogy of Clirist. 4. As the branching of the
three principal races places them in contrast, so, in
a special manner, is this the case with the branching
of the Hamitic race into the better lines, and in the
Canaanites ; and so also the branching of the Shem-
ites, or that of the sons of Eber in the hue of the
descendants of Joktan, and in the line of the promise.
5. The signs of preparation for the later calling of
Abraham are already contained iu the names of his
ancestors from Salah and Eber onward.

2. On the names Babel and Nineveh, compare
the Theological dictionaries ; on the history of Babel
and Nineveh, see the historical works. We must be
careful here, not to confound the beginning of this
very old city, including in it the Babylonian tower,
with its later world-historical development, and its
falling into ruin. Nevertheless, even the ruins of
that city are still a speaking witness, not only for
the fulfilling of the divine predictions and threaten-
ings, by the prophets, but also of the historical con-
sistency and truthfulness of these very narrations in
Genesis. Concerning the geographical relations,
especially the situation of Babylon on the Euphrates,
and of Nineveh on the Tigris, compare the maps of
the old world in the Bible-atlas of Welland and Ack-
erman ; the Historico-Geographical Atlas of the Old
World, by Kiepert ; the Atlas of Kutscheit, and oth-
ers. Already, in Xenophon's time, Nineveh lay in
ruins ; according to Strabo, it perished with the As-
syrian Empire (see in Herzog's " Real-Encyclopedia''
the article on the Euins of Nmeveh). Babylon was
much broken by the Persian kings, especially by
Xerxes ; Alexander the Great would have restored
it, but contributed only the more to its destruction ;
the founding of Seleucia laid it in ruins. As Seleu-
cia lies opposite to the ruins of Babylon, so does
Mosul to those of Nineveh.

3. Starke : In this chapter we see the origin of
many nations in all parts of the world, and therefore,
the power of the blessing which God, after the flood,
had renewed to men in respect to their multiplying
and propagation ; and so, finally, we learn the fathers
from whom Christ was bom according to the flesh.
Neither Noah nor his sons begat any offspring during
the time of the flood. The same may be conjectured
to be true of the animals which were shut up with him

352

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

in a daik dungeon, and as it were in the midst of
death. — Lange; Many readers, when they come to
this tenth chapter, are wont to regard it as of little
ralue ; pome really think it to be superfluous, or of
ittle use, on account of so many unknown names.
But, in truth, we ought to regard it as a right noble
^em in the crown of Holy Writ, the like of which
las never been, or can be shown, from any writings
of the old heathenism that yet remain to us.* —
Gerlach : There is no account of antiquity which
gives us po full and so general a survey of the an-
cient nations, as this ethnological table ; as appears
om the fact, that the exactness and truth of the
national divisions aa presented in the same, are over
more and more confinned. The heathen had no
other relations to people who were foreign to them,
than those of war and trade, with the addition, per-
haps, of a certain community of religious legends,
Knowledge, and culture; irrespective of this, how-
ever, each nation remained shut up witliin itself
Jn the history of revelation, on the other hand, be-
fore the narrative of the dispersion of the nations
stands the promise that Japheth shall find a home in
he tents of Shem. — Bcnsen : So much is now clear,
jiat the races of Shem are the Shemites of philology,
this is not clear at all ; just as little, in fact, as that
the GalUc Franks must be of Romanic origin. Com-
pare in other places the learned explanation of the
ethnological table by Bunsen. Says the same author-
.ty (vol. i. part 2, p. 63) ; " The ethnological table is
the most learned among all the ancient documents,
and the most ancient among the learned. For tra-
Jition predominates far above research, though the
itter is not wanting. In its core it must be regard-
ed as earlier than the time of Abraham ; but this
^y no means excludes the idea that Moses may
nave made investigations respecting it." So says
SctiuoDER ; " From this chapter must the whole uni-
versal history of the world take its beginning." To
tiie same effect Joh. von Miiller. Citation of the
nistorical catalogues of Heathen nations, as they are
found in the palace of Kamak, a ruin of the old city
Thebes, in Bendidad, and on the monuments of Per-
♦epohs. These have throughout a national charac-
ter. Ninirod's chase of the beasts was the bridge
of transition to the hunting of men (Jer. xvi. 16;
Lam. iii. 52 : iv. 18 ; Matt. iv. 19; Luke v. 10).

4. On the numbering of the seventy nations,
which the Rabbins make out of this table, as De-
litzsch farther constructs it, see Keil, p. 116. De-
litzsch traces a relation between the seventy peoples,
and the seventy disciples, Luke x. 1, and designates
the number as that of the divinely-ordained multi-
plicity of the human. Probably, also, the name
of the Septuagint has reference to the heathen na-
tions for whom the Alexandrian translation of the
Old Testament was designed. Keil objects, that the
numbering can only come out clean and round when
we assign the name of nations to Salah and Eber.
ButSalah might have actually had more sons. And,
besides, it is not necessai-y that the symbohcal num-
Ders should always literally correspond to the histor-
ical. This frequent appearance of the number sev-
enty resolves itself into some early symbolizing.
Seven is the number of God's work, including his

* [It is as essential to an understanding of the Bible,
and of liistory in general, as is Hffmer's catalogue, in the
second book: of the Hiadl to a true knowledge of the Ho-
aeric poems and the Homeric times. The Biblical student
KUL no more undervalue the one than the classical student
Unother.— T. LI

holy day of rest ; ten is the number of the perfecl
human development ; the seventy nations were
therefore, the entire outspreading of God's host, un
der his rule.

6. Nimrod's despotic power, at least if we judge
from the name, was denoted as a rebellion, as a rev-
olution. It partook of both forms of revolution
against the divine ordinance : 1 . From above down-
wards ; 2. from below upwards ; of which the firat
seems, in truth, to have been the oldest.

HOMILETICAl AND PRACTICAL.

In the homiletical treatment of the ethnological
ta:ble, we must, of all things, avoid giving way to un-
certain and etymological and historical conjectures.
It contains, however, enough points of certainty to
make it a page of Holy Writ rich in life and instruc-
tion. Thereto belongs the threefold division of the
nations according to the names Japheth, Ham, and
Shem, the wide, wide, world-wandering of Japheth,
in which the grandchildren and great-great-grand-
children disappear from the horizon of the theocratic
consciousness ; the early ripe, yet most ancient de-
velopment of the Ham i tic culture, with its corrup-
tions, in which the ungodly Cainitic culture once
more mirrors itself; the reciprocal intercourse of the
Shemites and the Hamites in the early time; finally,
the gradual, yet authentically historical preparation
for the calling of Abraham, and for the Messianic
theocracy in the line of Shem. If the sermon is
designed with reference to the ethnological table,
the best ground will be furnished by taking directly
ch. X. 1, or Deut. xxxii. 8 ; or better still, some New
Testament text most appropriate for the purpose, aa
Matt, xxviii. 19 ; John x. 16 ; Acts xiv. 16, 17 ; xv.
18 ; xvii. 26 ; Rom. xi. 32 ; Eph. iii. 6 ; 1 Pet. iv. 6 ;
Rev. xxi. 24. — The baptism of the fiood a forerun-
ning emblematic baptism of the whole human race.
As God knows the name of the stars (that is, their
most interior being, Isaiah xl.), so does he likewise
know the name of all men and of aU races (Matt,
xxii. 32). The theocratic, believing consciousness
hath ever proved itself to be also a humanitarian
consciousness, or one that embraces all humanity. —
The higher significance of historical tradition. — The
commendation of the world's history in the history
of God's kingdom. — The relation between the history
of God's kingdom and the world-history: 1. The
contrast; 2. the connection; 3. the unity (in its
wider sense is the whole world's history a history
of the kingdom of God). — Shem's history, the last
in the world, the first in the kingdom of God. — The
elect and their appointment to be salvation for all. —
The distinction : 1. Among the sons of Noah ; 2. of
Japheth ; 3. of Ham ; 4. of Shem — Nimrod's three-
fold position; 1. As the pioneer of civilization; 2. aa
oppressor ofthe patriarchal liberties; 3. aa the instru-
ment of God for the development of the world. — Pe-
leg, or the dividing and the uniting again of humanity.

Schroder: AI' these sons, the white pcsterity
of Japheth, the yellow and dark sons of Ham, how-
ever they may live in temporal separation, are all
still God's children, and brothers to one another.

[Excursus on the Hebrew Chronology — ths

STATE or THE PRIMITIVE MeN — THE RaPID BEGIN-
NINGS OE History. The brief Hebrew chronology
is urged as an objection to the Scriptures. Hence
the tendency, even among believeis, to prjfer the

CHAP. X. 1-32.

3.5.T

nombers given in the Septuagint. There is hardly
time enough, it is thought, for the great historical
commencements, and the scale on which they ap-
pear, so soon after the flood. Others, like Lepsius
and Bunsen, would go very far beyond the LXX.,
carrying up ihe human chronology, and that of the
Egyptian monarchy along with it, twenty thousand
years before the time of Christ, and twelve or fifteen
thousand years before the flood. The main ground
of this theory is not so much the monuments, though
Bunsen has much to say about them, as an assump-
tion respecting the earliest condition and slow prog-
ress of the human race. With regard to the monu-
ments, on which so much reliance is placed, there is
not space, nor occasion, to say much here. Those
who refer to them with most confidence have to ad-
mit that there is great difficulty in determining their
meaning as well as their historical authority, even
if rightly interpreted. It is made a question, too,
whether, in many cases, they represent successive
or ootemporaneous dynasties. Their barrenness in
respect to almost everything else but names, detracts
ilso from their chronological testimony. Lilie the
Chaldean, Hindoo, and Chinese statements, they are
hardly anytHng else but numbers. There is litile or
no filling up of these blank statistical spaces with
anything like a veritable life-like history. Had
much that is on these monuments been found in the
early Scriptures, it would have made them the scoff
of the infidel and the rationalist. There is, however,
one concise argument, which, if rightly considered,
ought to dispose of the whole matter. Egypt was
visited, two thousand three hundred years ago, by a
most intelligent Greek, whose valuable history has
come down to us entire. In faithful narrative of
what he saw, as he saw it, and of what he heard, as
he heard it, Herodotus is excelled by no writer, an-
cient or modern. His pains and fideUty are attested
by those immense journeys, whose extent would be
deemed a wonder, even with all the facilities of
modem travel. Now this most credible witness saw
these monuments in their freshness, and when they
were as intelligible to the Egyptian priests, as would
be to us the contents of a modern census. They de-
cipher for him these hieroglyphics, now so puzzling,
and give him, as deduced therefrom, what they un-
derstand to be the Egyptian history. It is contained
in his second book. Can we ever expect a better in-
terpretation than the one made under such circum-
rtances, and under the direction of such competent
guides? They had every motive to present their
nation in its most antique and imposing aspect,
knowing, as they doubtless did, that the inquirer
was collecting materials for a history of the world,
M then known. If they erred at all, it would most
likely have been on the side of an excessive anti-
quity. And yet, the chronology of Herodotus * may.

* [The Egyptian chronology here intended is that which
con be made out, though in a very general way, from the
outlines of actual history as derived by Herodotus from the
monuments, and the priests' interpretation of them, togeth-
er with other accounts, traditional or otherwise, which they
give to him. Menes was the first feing, who stands away
back at the beginning of Egyptian history. The next one
of any historical note is Moeris, who had not been dead 900

Searfl when Herodotus was in Egypt, and must have been,
lerefore, about 1,350 years before the time of Christ. All
that the priests had between these two was contained in a

Sapyrus roll, having the bare nam/:s of 330 monarchs, whom,
'real, a thousand years, or so, would easily dispose of, on
thf supposition of cotemporaneous dynasties, or frequent
revolutions, such as Egypt must have had as well as other
nafiona, reducing reigns to one or two years, and many of

23

without any great difiiculty, be made to agree with
that of the Bible — certainly with that of the Septua-
gint. In regard to the monuments, such a view
should be deemed conclusive. Herodotus is, after
all, the great historical authority in respect to the
antiquity of the Egyptian monarchy ; and he is Ukely
to remain so, since we have no reason to expect any
interpretation of these hieroglyphics that escaped his
eager search, or the intelligence of his well-informed
and zealous instructors.

The other ground, that is, the necessity of a veiy
long time to bring about such results in the slow
progress of mankind, is a sheer assumption, mai
may at once be met by arguments drawn from the
intrinsic aspects of the case. It all depends upon
the hypothesis with which we start in respect to
the condition of the primitive men; and this in-
volves, first of all, an inquiry as to the primitive
man, or the primiis homo, or whether there ever
really was such a distinct individual, the head of a
distinct race, having a supernatural beginning at a
distinct moment of time. Some, who favor the view
of the low primitive condition of man, from which
he struggled slowly up into language and a distinct
human consciousness, making his appearance in his-
tory only after he had been many ages upon the
earth, may still hold to something like a creation of
the species ; but logically it is very difficult to sepa-
rate such a doctrine from that eternal-development
theory, which, in opposition to the axiom de nihilo
nihil, or, what is equivalent to it, that more cannot
come out of less, would bring the highest life out of
the lowest forms of matter, and make God himself
(supposing it to acknowledge something under thai
name) the end instead of the beginning of nature.
On the contrary, the admission of a creation, in any
intelligible sense of the word, is the admission of a
distinct time, a distinct moment of time, when the
thing created began to be, which a moment before
was not. This, however, does not demand the idea
of an instantaneous coming from noihlng, or even
de novo, of everything belonging to, or connected
with the new existence, but only the new and dis-
tinct beginnning of that which especially malces it
whU it is, a new, peculiar entity, separate from
everything else. To apply this to man, the origin
of his physical, his earthly, may have been as re-
mote as any geological theory of life-periods, or any
bibhcal interpretation supposed to be in accordance
with it, may allow. If we admit the idea of growth,
or succession in creation, as perfectly consistent with
supernatural starts regarded as intervening and ori-
ginating its successive processes, then man may have
been long coming from the earth, from the deepest

them to months. Let the reader call to mind how rapidly
emperors succeed each other during some parts of the later
Eoman history. These other kings, the priests tell him,
were "persons of no account," with the exception of Mceris,
before mentioned, thus showing, that with all their parade
of rolls and dynasties, Menes and Moeris were the oiily two
conspicuous points in the Egyptian antiquity, until 1,400
years before Chris '^- Such are the only data for chronol-
ogy, though the Egyptian priests pretend to fill up this
empty, unhistorical space, with 341 generations, makir^
about 10,000 years (see Herod., ii. 100, 142); but this is
evidently due to that national pnde which elsewhere led
to the same extravagant reckomog. They found little or
nothing of record or monument to confirm it, or they cer-
tainly would have given it to the historian. What they
tell him, that during this period of 300 generations, the sun
had twice risen where he now sets, and twice set where he
now rises, is enough to show what historical value belongs
to the empty numbers with which they would fiilnp this
wa^ extent of time. See Bawlinson's Herodotus.— T, L. J

354

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

parts of ihe earth, ag ia said Ps. cxxxix. 15. The
formation of the human physical may have begun
in the earliest stages of the Krian, or world-buildmg.
The words nss ia , "from the dust," may denote a
process comparatively quick or slow. The essential
faith is satisfied either way; since it only demauds
two things^a dual derivation of the completed hu-
manity, and an order, that is, a succession, whether
in nature or in time (or in both), rather than any
precise duration. Even the common notion of an
outward plastic formation of the body implies the
use of a previous nature in a previous material or
materials — that is, a use of them according to such
natures. There is essentially the same idea in the
employment of previous growths and processes, as
in that of previous material, although with the con-
ception of such successions there necessarily comes
that of time, longer or shorter. How mnny steps
there were we cannot know; but in thus bringing up
the human physical through lower structural forms,
there may have been outwardly approximations to
the human, long before there was reached that hu-
manity proper in which nature and spirit unite.
Without scientific comparison and deduction, the
simplest inspection of nature is suflfieient to suggest
the thought that man is built upon types from below
him, even as he is formed in the image of that which
is above him. If then such a view of successive
evolutions from the dust, instead of an immediate
outward plastic formation of the human earthly, be
not inconsistent with the comprehensive language
of Sciipture, we should not be startled at the thought
of there having been anthropoidal forms* of various
degrees of approximation, some of them, perhaps,
larger than any now found upon earth, and which
may have perished, like some of the larger or mam-
moth species of mammalia. If the explorations of
science have brought to light any such remains, our
faith need not be disturbed by the question of their
pre-historicalness. The interpreter of Scripture is
little concerned, either in afifirmitfg or denying such
discoveries. Whatever be their date, we have not
yet come to the humanity proper, the Adamic hu-
manity, that humanity which Christ assumed and
raises to a still higher sphere. The animal world is
not yet surpassed. But there is a moment when the
human race now upon the earth had its distinct be-
ginning, and that, too, in a, primus homo, — the "first
Adam " — ^even as there is a " new man," a new hu-
manity, that is to have its finish or completion in a
second Adam, or last Adam {e<TxaToi ASkfi), as the
apostle calls him. This beginning of humanity upon
earth was not a physical act merely, or the mere
completion of a physical progress. It took place in
the spiritual sphere. The true creation of man was
not merely ?i formation, or an animation, but an irtspi-
ration, a direct, divine inspiration (Gen. ii. "7) ; and
now there is what before was not, a ns^ia, a new

* [There is so much of caricature and grotesquenesB in
the appearacoe nf tho simia tribe of animals, that we revolt
ftt the thougtit of any connection with them, even a^ a link
in the mere physical. Their actions are so absucd, tliey
ftre such a mere mimicry of reason, ludicrous, yet actually
lower than the sober instinct of other kinds, that the out-
ward resemblance makes us the more disdain the idea of
even a physical relationship. It is thus that the ape-nature
places itself in stronger contrast to the human than that of
other animals having less outward likeness, either in form
)T in action. And yet such resemblance, in some degree,
is very general. There is (something in the most common
animal-faces aronnd us, that would startle us by its human
kiok if we liad seen nothing of the kind before. — T. L.]

thing upon earth, not simply something higher phy»
ically (though efven that would require a divine in.
tervention), but an entity distinct as connected with
a higher or supernatural world. This Adamic man
thus divinely raised out of nature, and lifted above
the pure animality, is the one of whom the Biblo
gives us so particular an account. He was the one
who first awoke to a true rational human conscious*
ness. Thus man "became a living aoul." The em
phasis is in the manner of the inbreathing ; but to
distinguish it wholly from the animation of other
kinds who are also called nTI ms3, the wondroua
event is described in other language as a sealing, a
forming into a higher type, pattern, idea, or image,
— not physically, but spiritually. The all-important
article ol' faith is the dual succession, whether re-
garded as an order in time, or as an order of consti-
tution without reference to time : " first the naturai
{rb \l/vxiiiiiv, the animal), afterwards that which is
spiritual" {rh TTveiifxaTmov). First that which comei
from nature (ri ^k 77)9 xoi'^f^^), "from the earth,
earthy," second, that " which bore the image of the
heavenly," * or of " the Lord from heaven."

Corresponding to this is the specific designation
by which man is distinguished among the created
orders. The animals and plants are made each
^ns'^'lb, after its "1^0, elSos, species, form., denoting
difference in organic structure, and therefore some-
thing ultimately outward as exhibited in its last analy
sis, however hidden it may seem to the primary ob
servation of the sense. It is not to be thought that
the Scripture writers, in their simphcity, intended to
speak scientifically or philosophically, but a deeper
term was wanted in the case of man, and we have it
in a remarkable change of language. Man is nowhere
said to be sinD^'ob, juxta germs suum., or secundum
speciem suam, but when this new entity is to be
brought into the ko.^mos, God is represented as say-
ing to himself, or as though addressing some higher
associate than nature, "Let us make man IJoisa

* [There is a very great difficulty in confining this lan-
guage of the apostle, 1 Cor. xv. 46, 47, to the historical in-
carnation, or to the effect of the coming of Christ at the
beginning of the Christian era. It must refer to something
constitutive of humanity in the beginning, before the fell,
and in the vel-y process of the Decoming man. Othenrise
it would follow, that before such liistorical advent, man was
an animal merely, wholly earthly and sensual, i^u^^wcbj,
XoiiKos. If the irvivfxa ^iiioirot,ovv, the "life-giving spirit,"
in distinction fi-om ttie ^v-^ ^aiira, the soul of life, or merely
"living soul," was not in our humanity at its first consti-
tution, then not only Adam, but Enoch, Noah, Abraham^
Moses, David, Isaiah, were only natural men, animal min,
having nothing, in a true sense, spiritual about them. If
we would avoid this very strange consequence, the language
referred to must have something of a creative or constitu-
tive sense, and the n-i/eujua ^woTrotoOf, must be regarded ae
the (^ws <^uiTt^ov TTorTa avBpunrov, " the Light that lighteth
every man coining into the world " of John i. 9, making, In
the beginning, that peculiar constitution which we may call
the completed man, and which was never wholly lost as a
high spiritual power, however much it may have been mar-
red in tts ethical aspect. Christianity is indeed Katvi) KTi'ais,
"a new creation,' 2 Cor. v. 17, or the malcng of a "new
man," but this is not inconsistent with the idea of a resto*
ration, a re-creation, a renewed spirituality, or even the
bringing back to a higher state than that fi-om which man
fell. The second Adam was not absent from the creation
of the first. In the spiiitual image of Him who is himself
styled the express image, or hypostatic image, YapaKTija
vTToo-Too-eois, Heb. i. 3, was man spiritually formed. Through

It he became man, and therefore it is truly said of the incar-
nate Logos, that " he came to his own ; " and thus also ia
he truly bar-nosJto, son of man, the Hebrew and Syriacteim
for tbe"generic hoino. In his eternity, and in his historical
incarnation, he is "the root as well as the offspring" of
humanity.— T. L.l

CHAP. X. 1-

35f

,n our image.'" The dVs , therefore, in the case of
humanity, may be said to make the 'i''B, or to come
in place of it. hi other words, it is the spiritual
■mage here, and not the physical organization, that
makes the species ; and most important is the dis-
tinction in all our reasonings about the essential
oneness of humanity, and what most truly consti-
tutes it.

From this primas homo, thus inspired, thus
sealed, comes all of human kind that ever has been,
or is now upon the earth. To apply what has been
eaid to the more direct subject of this note, there is
here the decisive answer to that view which would
represent man as conmiencing in the savage state
regarded as barely and imperceptibly rising above
the animal. This inspiration is a great and glorious
beginning. It is a new divine force in the earth.
The fall does not at once destroy it, though giving a
tendency to spiritual death, and spiritual degeneracy,
carrying with it a physical decline. Even with this,
however, the primitive divine impulse in the first
man, and in the first men, makes them something
very different from what is now called the savage
state, and which is everywhere found to be the dregs
of a once higher condition, the setting instead of the
rising sun, the dying embers fast going out, instead
of the kindling and growing flame. All past and
present history may be confidently challenged to
present the contrary case. Among human tribes,
wholly left to themselves, the higher man never
comes out of the lower. Apparent exceptions do
ever, on closer examination, confirm the universality
of the rule in regard to particular peoples, whilst the
claim that is made for the world's general progress
can only be urged in opposition by ignoring the
supernal aids of revelation that have ever shone
somewhere, directly or collaterally, on the human
path.

The high creative impulse manifested itself in
the Antediluviiin period in its resistance to the death-
principle, which, through the spiritual, the fall had
introduced into the hujnan physical organization.
It showed itself in a rapidly developed, though a
suicidal or self-corrupting civilization, in the line of
Cain, and in an extreme longevity in the holier line
of Seth. With a branch of the latter it passed the
flood, impaired, it may be, but unspent. The pre-
served race, tending again to a sensual gregarious-
ness, received a new divine impulse, which may al-
most be regarded as resembling a second subordinate
creation. It was not the renewal of holiness, but of
spiritual vigor, making humanity sublime even in its
wickedness. It was the spirit of discovery, sending
men over the face of the before unknown earth. It
was the pioneering spirit, ever leading them on to
make new settlements, to overcome new difficulties,
to engage in great works, all the more astounding
when we consider the little they possessed of what
may be called science. What a grand conception
was that of building a tower that should reach unto
the skies, and make them independent of the muta-
tions they beheld in nature ! How has such a
thought, though taking far more scientific forms,
ever swayed mankind, showing itself still in the pre-
tentious claims of our present knowledge, so boast-
ing, yet so small in comparison with the great un-
known, and so little able to relieve the deep-seated
evils of our fallen race. " Go to," said they, " let
08 build a city and u tower," as a defence against
-eaven. It was the same language that was after-

wards re-echoed in the Promethean boast,* and that
we still sometimes hear from a godless science
vaunting that it "has annihilated space and tiioe."
that it has disarmed the lightning :

Eripuit ccelo fulmen —

that it will yet deprive the ocean of its terrors, end
introduce, at last, that millennium of human achievtv
ment which will make man independent of any power
above or without him.

It was b:it a short time after the flood, when
there appears this new heroic spirit, this vast ambi
tion, in the very opening of the world's history.
Scripture gives us but few points in the picture, but
these are most impressive: Nimrod, "the mighty
hunter before the Lord," beginning the kingdom of
Babylon; settlements rapidly following ft on the
upper Euphrates; the descendants of Ham already
upon the Nile ; tlie sons of Javan wending their way
by the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean ; Tyre
and Sidon taking their place "at the entry of the
sea," as though already looking out to become "the
merchant of the people for many isles." It was
the time of the tower-builders, the pyramid-builders,
the great city-builders, the empire-founders. Along
with the pioneering and colonizing spirit, there was
also the associative tendency, so different from any
thing we now see in any modern savagism. There
was, also, in vigorous exercise, the government idea,
or the government instinct, if any prefer thus tc:
name it, leading men to form great polities, and to
recognize in government something of a divine or
supernatural nature. We may call it hero-worship,
but it was something very diiferent from anything
now known in savage tribes, and led to results ut-
terly unknown as ever following from such a state.

Such were the primitive men as the Bible pre-
sents them to us, although their mere worldly great-
ness was to the Scripture writers a wholly subordin-
ate subject. Secular history confirms the account.
This it does in two ways : 1st, by its silence as to all
before. If men had been so many ages on the earth,
what were they doing all this time ? What traces
have they left of their existence ? At the most, only
a few ambiguous bones here and there discovered,
after the keenest search, and in respect to whose
real antiquity men of science are still contending.
We ask in vain for the marks of progress, or of any
transition state. A speaking silence, like that which
seems to come from the blank chamber of the great
pyramid, proclaims that man, the Adamic or Noachic
man, is not much older than the pyramids, — two
thousand years, perhaps, a little more or a little less.
If we pay no attention to this striking fact, of the
almost total absence of any human remains, it might,
perhaps, be said, that history only commences after
the emergence from the long savage state, and,
therefore, gives no testunony to the many ages of
human existence that might have been before it.
This, however, supposes a sudden emergence, such
as would seem to demand some new power, som&
thing Uke a divine or ab extra impulse, unfelt in the
ages before, and which would not greatly differ — at
least in the marveUousness and apparent supernatu-
ralness of it — from what the Bible tells us of a now
creation of humanity. It would imply someth'^g

* Tolov iraXat,<rT(iv vvv irapaxrKeva^eTat
*05 St) Kepavvov KpeiiTiTOv' evprja^i <^K6ytit
&a\a<r(ri.av re yrj^ Tivaxreipav voaov
Tpiaivav, cdxp-'^v r'rtv notretSwx'o? ff/ceSo.

Msc lYLUd, From, vinct. 91£k

356

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

coming into the human movement, greatly accelerat-
ing it, at least, if not wholly originating. It woulii
be something undeveloped, or very suddenly and
strangely developed, from what went before. And
this brings us to the second or positive evidence of
history. If it testifies by its silence, still more im-
pressive is it when it begins to speak, and this is
at the time when something in human action deemed
notable, or worthy of remembrance, demands its
voice. The strong self-consciousness which is the
result of awakened action immediately seeks its
record. The observation of passing times, or chro-
nology, begins with it. It is this commencement of
movement that creates history, whether in writing
of some kind — which there is good reason to believe
was among the very earliest things, and called out
by this very demand for a recording medium — or in
the measured language of song, or in formal tradi-
tions, which, however vague and exaggerated, pre-
sent an expressive contrast to an utterly unrecording
silence.

The history that thus begins to speak has not the
exactness of modern annals, but, as compared with
what might have been expected on the other theory,
its voice is loud and clear. It comes not with mut-
tered tones, inarticulate and unintelligible. Its ut-
terance is more emphatic in the very beginning than
in some of the lapsed ages that follow it. How
much more distinctly stand out the first Pharaohs,
whether of Siicred or secular history (see Herod., ii.
100, 101), than the later shadows upon the monu-
ments ! The earliest history bursts upon us, as it
were. It begins with men doing great things, raising
pyramids, building cities,* founding states. It opens
with the Egyptian and Babylonian empires, and
that, too, as new powers in fullest vigor, and pre-
senting every appearance of youthful greatness.
The proper names given to us, whether of men or
places, have nothing of the cloudy, mythical aspect,
but stand out with all the distinctness of veritable
life. Less is known of the most early East, of India
and China, but sufficient to warrant the belief, that
by the Ganges, as well as by the Nile and the

* [Four great cities are started in the very "beginning
of Nimrod's kingdom, Babel, and Ereoh, and Accad, and
Calneb in tbe land of Shinar," Gon. x. 10. This is con-
flrmed by Herodotus. He speaks of it as a remarkable
peculiarity of Assyria in his day — the number and great-
ness of its cities. They must have been founded in the
earliest times, and by a people who had a passion for great
structures — pco Herod., i. 178. Rawlinson regards this
large number of important cities as one of " the most strik-
ing features of the Assyrian greatness." He shows, too,
how remarkably it is confii-med by the modem discoveries
among the vast Assyrian ruins: "Grouped around Nine-
veh were Calah (Nimrud), Scripture Calneh ; Dur Sagina
(Khorraiad) ; Tarbisa (Ske.rifkhan) ; Arbel iArhil) ; Kha-
zeh fSliamamclc); and ABshur (Stiirgut). Lower down, the
banks of th'- Tigris exhibit an almost xinbroken line of
ruins from Teltrit to Baghdad, while Babylonia and Chaldea
are throughout studded with mounds from north to south,
the remains of the great capitals of which we read in the
inscriptions. Again, in upper Mesopotomia, between the
Tigiis and the Khabour, Mr. Layard found the whole coun-
try covered with mounds, the remnants of cities belonging
to the early Assyrian period." Rawlinson's Herodotus,
vol. i. p. 243. These go back to the very beginnings of his-
tory. They make history. There is none before them, as
there is no historical place for thom in later annals, when
these empires began to crumble, as they did at a very early
period, So everything confirms the idea, that the pyra-
mids and the great structures of Thebes and Memphis be-
.ong to the very beginnings of Egyptian history. They are
monuments of the primeeval men, Fi'om these ruins they
yet speak to us of a period of great action, of a vast ambi-
tion suddenly manifesting itself, and before which silence
teigned ovir all the earth, — T. L.]

Euphrates, a young humanity was giving evidence
of mighty bodily powers and high spiritual encgy ;
different, indeed, from the present, and presenting
some aspects strange to our modem conceptions, yot
very unlike the savage state, or a rise from such a
state, had such a rise been ever shown in any ea„7
or later history of the world. In bi ief — the first his-
torical appearances of men upon the earth are at ws.»
with this theory of savagism. Such independent
emergings as are contended for do not now take
place, and never have taken place within the times of
known hJiitory. The savage condition, as has been
said, and cannot be denied, is one ever sinking lower
and lower, until aid is brought to it from without ;
and at the early time referred to there was no such
aid except from a supernal and supernatural source.

On either view, we are compelled to admit the
fact of a great beginning of humanity on the earth.
The primitive man was a splendid being — not scien
tific, nor civilized, in our modem sense of the words
but possessing great power, both of body and soul
He had all to learn, yet learned most rapidly. Ee
searches among the earliest monuments sometimes
astonish us by the suggestions they offer of a knowl-
edge supposed to belong only to modern times, oi
to which, in some cases, modern discovery has not
yet reached. There is brought out evidence of re
suits in the arts, in manufactures, and in the em
ployment of mechanical aids, that we find it verj-
difficult to account for. If we cannot believe them
to have come from processes of investigation strictly
scientific, then must we ascribe them to other pow-
ers of a high order, and in which we fail to surpass
them — such as keen observation awake to every out-
ward application of natural forces, most acute senses,
and unrivalled manual skill. If it was the greatness
of force and magnitude, it was greatness still, such
as was never attained to by any savage people in
historical times. These early men had great aims,
they attempted great things, and they accomplished
them rapidly. We have only to take this view, forti-
fied as it is by Scripture and the early profane his-
tory, to account for what seems so wonderful to
some writers, and which has drawn them to their
long chronologies. As remarked elsewhere (p. 317),
the history of human progress has ever been one of
starts and impulses. As in the geological ages, so
also within historical times, there are periods in
which more has been done in a few generations,
than, under other circumstances, has been accom-
plished in many centuries. Thus the time that in-
tervened between the Scriptural flood and the first
mention of the Egyptian monarchy, even as reckoned
by the shorter chronology, may have brought on the
world's history faster than ages of comparative tor-
por, such as have appeared in the varied annals of
mankind.

Again, there is an intrinsic difficulty in such
views as that of Bunsen, which, when closely exam-
ined, presents a greater incredibility than anything
of which it professes to give the explanation. Ad-
mitting such idea of emergence after ages of unhis-
torical savagism, still the questions arise : Why was
not this more universal after it had commenced!
Why did it not appear in other parts of the earth?
Why did the early light confine itself to one people
for so long a time, making Mitzraim historicallj
what it is geographically and etymologieally, the
narrows, a line immense in length with the scantiest
breadth? During these fifteen thousand years, oi
more, of monumental history, all the rest of the

CHAP. XI. 1-9.

.?5-.

•arth was in comparative night. Established insti-
tutions, a regular monarchy for ten thousand years,
at least, king inheritinf; from king, or dynasty suc-
ceeding dynasty, a political state unbroken for a
period three times as long as the whole series of
Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Roman, Mongolian,
and Turkish empires — social orders uninterruptedly
transmitted, records of all this preserved, monu-
ments attesting it ! It is incredible in itself — much
more so when we consider the condition of the rest
of the earth, even the nearest parts. In Egypt,
ton thousand years of government, of civihzation, of
advanced agriculture, of social order, and all this
time Greece, Italy, and even Asia Minor, in total
darkness — uninhabiti-d, or in the lowest unhistorical
savagism ! It is very hard to believe this. It pre-
sents a marvel greater than anything recorded in
Genesis about the origin and early condition of man-
kind— greater for tlie imagination, far greater for the
reason. Egyptian history would be like an Egyptian
obelisk standing in the desert, spindling up to a vast
height, whilst all around was desolation in the view
that height presented. Such an antiquity in this one
people, should we reason from it a priori, and con-
nect with it the modem claim of progress, would
throw out of proportion all the other chapters of
history. It would bring the Roman empire before
the days of Abraham, and make our nineteenth cen-
'.ury antedate the Trojan war.

These considerations do not only support the
Sible chronology as prolonged in the LXX., but fur-
lish an argument in favor of the still shorter Hebrew
•eckoning. Taking the primitive men as the Bible
■epresents them, and the latter gives ample time for
Ul that is recorded. Connected with this there is

another thought. How came this Hebrew chrono;
ogv to present such an example of modesty as com
pared with the extravagant claims to antiquity madt
by all other nations ? The Jews, doubtless, had, ai
men, similar national pride, leading them to magnify
their age upou tlie earth, and run it up to thousand!
and myriads of years. How is it, that the people
whose actual records go back the farthest have the
briefest reckoning of all ? The only answer to this
is, that whilst others were left to their unrestrained
fancies, this strange nation of Israel were under a
providential guidance in the matter. A divine check
held them back from this folly. A holy reserve,
coming from a constant sense of the divine pupilage,
made them feel that " we are but of yesterday,"
whilst the inspiration that controlled their historians
directly taught them that man had been but a short
time upon the earth. They had the same motive
as others to swell out their national years ; that they
have not done so, is one of the strongest evidences
of the divine authority of their Scriptures. And
how fair is their representation ! Egypt, Babylon,
Assyria, Tyre, the early Javanio settlements, all
starting about the same time, and from the same
quarter of a late inhabited earth ; this is credible,
probable, making harmonious sacred and profane
history. The other view of the long and lonely
Egyptian dynasties is monstrous, out of all propor-
tion— incredible. Had the Bible given such a long,
narrow, solitary antiquity of twenty thousand, oi
even ten thousand, yi'ars, to the people whose his-
tory it mainly assumes to set forth, it would, doubt-
less, have called out the scoff of those whose sceptical
credulity so easily receives the fabulous chronology
of other nations. — T. L.)

FOURTH SECTION.

The Tower of Bahd, the Confusion of Languages, and the Disperbton of .ht, Natiam

Chapter XI. 1-9.

1 2 And the whole earth was of one language [lip], and of one speech.' And it came to
pass, as thev journeyed^ from the east', that they found a plain in the land of Shinar,

3 and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and
bum them thoroughly [literally, to a burning]. And they had brick for stone, and slime had

i they for mortar [cement' ". And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose
top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name [a signal, sign of renown], lest we be

5 scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see

6 the city and the tower which the children of men had builded. And the Lord said.
Behold, the people is one, and they have one language ; and this they begin to do : and

7 now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have in igined to do. Go to, let
us go down, and there confound their language [on the very spot], that they may not under-

8 stand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the

9 face of all the earth ; and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it

called Babel* [for b^ba,. division of speech, confusion; other explanations: ba :3 , gate of Belue, ba"ia ,

castle of Belus], because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and
from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth

55fe GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

(* Ver. 1. — C^ins D'^13'1^ npS InS^y J one Up and one words, as near as our English can come to it. LXX
»«iKos ei Ktti 4ni}vri fiia iracrt ; Vulg., labii unius et sermonum eoruTndem; the Syriac, ^m ^^^^O |-m P * mN
one tongue and one speech ; and bo the Targnm of Onkelos, ^n pb'C'll in 1UJ^3 . So Greek writers desciibe thos(
whu speak the pame language as 6/107AWTT01. and ofx6^^>lvot.. Eashi interprets D^^3"l as referring to the thoughts ano
couuaels rather than to language, regarding that as expressed by riDli? : "They came to an understanding," or *'int«
one counsel," PnX n^SJ IXH ; in which Yitringa agrees with htm. Kaulen makes a labored diitinction between ~Z'l1
aui D^'^jT . the first of which he refers to the subjective element in speech, producing the grammatical /orm, the othei
to the objective, or the words as the mailer of language. In proof, he cites such passages as Ps. xii. 3, mpbn TEIIJ
lip of flatteries ; Exod. vi. 12, uncircumcised Up; Prov. xii. 19, Ups of truth, etc. ; Is. xxxiii, 19, HSUJ ^[TTiS , dup of hp
Hut these examples only show that, when there is no contrast iritended, nSlU , Up, may be taken generally for langnag
(l.ke Ungua, the tongue ; see ver. 9, below), including not only words and pronunciation, but all of thought and expref ■
eion that belongs to it. To show that 0*^121 and HSUJ are not tautological here, he quotes Ps. lix. ISjiS^PElU "12^
the I'jortf of their lips. But this is needless. It is clear that they are not tautological. They express two distinct ideas ,
and yft we may doubt whether there is intended such a philosophical antithesis as Kaulen wou'd bring out, though most
true in itself, and most important to be considered in the science of language. The first thought -would be the other way,
namely, that 1~T (A0705) denoted the subjective, and HSC Up, the outward or objective in language; since the first is
used of a thought, thing, subject, that which is expressed, as well as the word or expression. The terms here are neithei
tautological, nor antithetical, but supplemental and intensive. It is the unity of language described in the most compre-
hensive manner: one Up, that is, on^ pronunciation, and the same words (D'^inX C^TZT, everyone of them (the plural
taken distributively), that is, one name for each thing, and one way of speaking it. When they are put in direct, con-
trast, then nnO, instead of the subjective element, as Kaulen maintains, would denote mere sound in distinction from
sense, as in the phrase C^nSU) 1!3'n , Is. xxxvi. 5 ; 2 Kings, xviii. 20 ; Prov. xiv. 23— speech of tlte Ups, that is, mere
?n.pty boasting, sound without sense. — T. L.]

['^ Ver. 2.— D2.'D33 , literally, in their pulUng up. It is used of the taking up the stakes of a tent (see it in its primary
=&Lse, Is. xxxviii 12),' and is thus pictorially descriptive of a nomadic life, like the Arabic A.^.. . It is used of the

marching in the wilderaess, and suggests here the idea of an encampment. The descendants of Noah had hitherto kept
'.c.'-cther in their rovings.—T. L.]

'J^ CTp'O —rendered from the East. Armenia, the supposed landing-place of the ark, was northwest of Shinar. Thia
has .ed some to suppose, that the early human race made a detour through Persia, and so were travelling east when they
came to Shinar. Others have regarded the ark-mountain as situated to the east, a view which can only be maintained
by supposing the naming of the Armenian Ararat to belong to a later period, as a transfer from an older and more east-
erly region (see text, note p. 308). The original Scripture does not, of itself, determine the location as either east or west ;
so that the Samaritan version, that makes it Serendib (in Ceylon) is not to be rejected, as in itself false or absurd, any
more than the Vulgate location in Armenia, or the Targum and Syriac mountains of Kardu, or the Arabian Mount Judi
wherever that may have been. Bashi seems thus to have regarded it when he interprets DIpTO as a joumeyiDg from
Dip in (mountainof the East), mentioned just above, ch. x. 30. Others would render Dlpl3 eastward, or to the east, refer-
ring to such passages as Gen. xiii. 11 ; Numb, xxxiv. 11 ; Josh. vii. 2 ; .Tudg. viii. 11, etc., in all of which, except the first,
the terra denotes po^titoTi instead of moving direction, and may, therefore, be regarded as determined from the standpoint,
real or assumed, of the narrator or describer. Bochart regards C"lp as a name given to all the country beyond the
Euphrates and Tigris, independent of the position of some parts of it in respect to other parts or to regions on the other
side. This would seem the best way, if we must render Clp^ from the east. But there is an older sense to the root,
which may well be regarded as intended here. This primary sense is ante, before, or in front of. Hence its application to
time as well as to space. The old country is afterwards called the East, and so T\^^p becomes a word of local direction.
This primary sense of anteriority gives the idea here demanded, which is not so much any particular direction (the
geography not being the thing chiefly in view), as it is the general idea of progress. As they journeyed onward, DlplS
right ahead, in their nomadic roving — from one before to another, or from the place before them to one still farther on—
they found a ni'pS , or plain country. Gen xiii. 12 seems to be like this, and may be rendered In the same way : Abra-
ham and Lot parted ; the former settled ( ^IT*^ ) in the land where they were ; or Abraham stopped, as we say in familiar
English, hut liot journeyed on, Dlpia 3JIS**1. Compare xi. 2, C12J *)~Ui1, and they stopped there (in Shinar), where
31U'si is in a similar contrast to the nomadic word y&'^ . Or it may be taken as a word of position : he pitched his tent
eastward. In this place the Targum of Onkelos has Nn^^1p3, in the East, regarding it as denoting position. So
also the Arabic , • w » 't \ - The LXX-, the Vulgate; and the Syriac render ii from the East.~T. L.]

[* Ver. 9.— bSa riTDlIJ Nip called its name Babel, b^3 OUJ "^D , because there he confounded (balel = balbel) the
language, etc. There is difficulty, sometimes, in the etymologies given in the Hebrew Bible, but this seems to be a re-
markably clear and consistent one. It seems strange that Dr. Xange should show himself inclined to the other fer-fetched
derivation, which would make it mean either the " gate of Bel," or " the gate of El." Naming cities from the gate is not
the most early way, thoagh It came in af-terwards, from the gate becoming the important place of commercial, judicial,
and political procedure. Schelling is right in saying that 3X3 , t^jU 5 ^°^ S**^' ^ confined alone to the Arabic, of all
the Shemitic tongues. It is e -.tjrely unknown to the Hebrew, and if it is ever found in any very late Syriac, it comes
from the comparatively 'nodem Arabic use. There is reason, too, to regaid 53 1 notwithstanding a doubt expressed hy
Eawlinson CRawlinson ; Herod., i. p. 247), as the same with bs3 , the deified power, or personage, that appears all over
the East,— Baal, Lord, Master, and which becomes a general name for monarchs, like Pharaoh in Egypt. In the Baby-
lonian, it becomes Bel or Belus ; and in addition to the Phoenician Baal, or Bal^ (appearing in many Phcenician and C;ir-
thaginian proper nnmes, such as Hannibal, Adsrubal, etc.), we find a Lybian Belus (see Virg. : ^n., i. 621), a Lydian
Bel, connected also with a Ninus (Herod., i. 7), besides the common Scriptural appellation of the idol deity so worshippod.
In view of these facts, there must he rejected the idea of an early Babylonian monarch, to whom the name was exclusively
given. They seem to have used the word in the plural, as the Phoenicians did (G^by3 , Baalim), and this accounts for
the form it takes, as expressed in Greek, in the Persm of iEscHTLUs, 657, ^aAi)I' apxalo^. Though with a singular adjective,
It can b€ nothing less than 'i''b3?3 iBaaUn), or, as the whole would be expressed in the later Hebrew, V?^"l?r! 'l*???

To make this very ancient and memorable name ^33 (Babel) equivalent to the Arabic Jo <^\^ , 33 3X3 or b^S 33,
pate of Bel or Baal, would be greatly straining etymology as well as history. Had such a derivation been found in thr

CHAP. XI. 1-9.

H5i

Bible, it would doubtless have been contemptiiouBly rejected, by some who go so far from tbe Bible to get it. Notlmi(
can be more direct and consistent tlian the etymology giren in Genesis. Tbe verb PP3 is the same with the intenaivl
form b^bs , balbal, £com which ?5- is softened after becoming a fixed and oft-pronounoed name. . bsbz , baibeL, is ar
onomatope, exactly like our word babble, and its sense of confusion is probably secondary, coming from this early onoma-
topic use. The letters L and R axe cognate and interchangeable, in tbe Greeli as well as in the Shemitic tongues. Ilencfl
b(Ubnl and fiap^ap are the same. Barbarian did not, originally, mean savage, but one who speaks a dlifcrent language,
or wiio seems to the hearer to babble. It was the place wbere men iirst became barbarians to each other (see 1 Cor. xiv
U), though the name, as an onomatope, would seem still to belong to them all. — T. L.]

GENERAL PEELIMXNABT DISCUSSION.

1. ?%« literatv/re: Bibelwerk, Matthew, p. 19.
The present work, p. 119, where the title of Nie-
buhr's work should be more correctly given : " His-
tory of Assur and Babel." Berlin, 1858. Kurtz:
"History of the Old Testament." HAno, on the
"Writing and Language of the Second Kind of Cu-
neiform Inscriptions." Gottingen, 1855. J. Beandis,
on the " Historical Results from the Deciphering of
the Assyrian Inscriptions." Berlin, 1856. Fabri :
" The Origin of Heathendom and the Problem of its
Mission." Barmen, 1859. Thelatest: Kaulen: "The
Confusion of Languages at Babel." Mainz, 1861.
Explorers of the ruins of Babylon, especially Rich,
Ker-Porter, Layard, Rawlinson, Oppert.

2. The history of the building the tower at Babel
forms the limit to the history of the primitive time.
It may be regarded as the genesis of the history of
the human striving after a false outward unity, of the
doom of confusion that God therefore imposed upon
it, of the dispersion of the nations into all the world,
and of the formation of heathendom as directly con-
nected therewith. In the proper treatment of this
there comes into consideration : 1. the relation of the
historical fact-consistency of the representation to its
universal symbolical significance for the history of
the world, and to its special symbolical significance
for the kingdom of God ; 2. the relation of the fact
itself to the common historical knowledge, as well as
to the history of the kingdom of God ; 3. the relation
of the confounding, therein represented, to the original
unity of the human race in its language, as well as to
the multiplicity that originally lay in human speech ;
4. the historical and archaeological testimonies ; 5.
the reflection of the historical fact in the mythical
stories.

3. Kurtz correctly maintains (History of the Ola
Testament, p. 95) against H. A. Hahn, that this
place forms the boundary between the history of the
primitive time and the history of the Old Testament.
Evidently is the history of primeval religion distin-
guished from the general history of the Old Testa-
ment by definite monuments, namely, by the charac-
teristic feature of the faith in promise, as presented
in the genealogies, through which faith .^braham, as
the type of the patriarchal religion, stands in contrast
with Melchidezek, the type of the primitive religion,
—even as the morning twilight of the new time
■lands in contrast with the evening twilight of the
old. And so, too, according to Gal. iii. and Rom. iv.,
it is not Moses who is the beginning of the covenant
religion, but Abraham. Moreover, in the history of
the tower-building there is brought out not only the
ground form for the historical configuration the
world is to assume, but also the contrast between
heathenism and the beginnings of the theocracy.
For the sake of this contrast, according to our view,
the section may still be regarded as belonging to the
first period from the beginnings of the Shemitic pa-
tnarcbalism ; although when regarded in itself alone,
•nd under the hiotorica] form of view of the Old Tes-

tament, it appears as an introduction to the historj
of Abraham.

4. The genesis of the human striving after a
false outward unity, or uniformity and coiifomiity.
As in the history of Cain, the first beginnings of cul-
ture in the building of cities, in the discoveries and
inventions of the means of living, of art, and of
weapons of defence, were buried in their own cor-
ruption (since the germs of culture, however law-
ful in themselves, are overwhelmed in their ungodly
worthlessness), and as in the history of Nimrod the
post-diluvian beginnings of civilization, and of out-
ward political institutions, were darkened by the in-
dications of despotic violence, so also, in the history
of the tower-building, must we distinguish the natu-
ral striving of the human race after an essential
unity, from their aberration in a bold and violent
effort to obtain an outward consistency, an outward
uniformity (or conformity rather) to be established
at the cost of the inward unity. Delitzsch says cor-
rectly (p. 310): " the unity which had hitherto bound
together the human family was the community of
one God, and of one divine worship. This unity did
not satisfy them ; inwardly they had already lost it ;
and therefore it was that they strove for another.
There is, therefore, an ungodly unity, which they
sought to reach through such self-invented, sensual,
outward means, whilst the very thing they feared
they predicted as their punishment. In its essence,
therefore, it was a Titanic heaven-defying undertak-
ing." * The inward unity of faith ought to have been
the centre of gravity, the rule and the measure of
their outward unity. The historical form of their
true unity was the reUgion of Shem; its concrete
middle point was Shem himself. It sounds, therefore,
like a derisive allusion to the despised blessing of
Shem, when they say: Go to, let us build a tower for
us, and make unto ourselves a name (a Shem).
When, therefore, the tower-building, the false out
ward idea of unity is frustrated, then it is that
Abraham must appear upon the stage as the effective
middle point of humanity, and the preparer of the
way for the unity that was to come. Abraham forma

♦ [The more carefully the peculiar language of this Ba-
bel history is considered, and especially its heaven-defying
look, the more probable will appear the view supported by
Bryant, which regards it as the origin of the heathen fable
of the war of the giants against the gods. The war of the
Titans was probably the same, though it appears as a dupli-
cate of the event in the Greek mythology. The latter, how-
ever, being set forth as the more ancient event, may, with
some reason, be referred to the antediluvian rebellion de-
scribed in Gen. vith. Both of these mvths must have had
some historical foundation in actual human history ; fol
nothing can be more wild in itself, or more inconsistent with
what we know, or may conceive, of the earliest thinkingp
than those representations of allegorical wars of which some
writers are so fond. In the first period of human life, men
were too much occupied with the great actual, and this is
shown by tbe very exaggerations of the form which it %&«
Bumed ill history. Myth-making and allegorizing camb to
afterwards. The war of ideas, of which some talk, showi
a previous philosophrzing, however crude. The sight of
gi eat physical convulsions may have suggested some of thesf
stories ; but the actual occurrence of great events in hnmaj
history was their more probable source. — T. Ji-.l

iOO

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

thethejcratic contrast to the heathen tower-building.
Since tliat time, however, the striving of human na-
ture has ever taken the other direction, namely, to
establish by force the outward unity of humanity at
the expense of the inward, and in contradiction to it ;
this has appeared as well in the history of the world
monarchies as in that of the hierarchies. The his-
tory of Babel had its prusignal in the city of Cain,
its symbol in the building of the tower, its beginning
in tlie Babylonian world-monarchy ; but its end,
according to Rev. xvi. 17, falls in the "last time."
The contrast to this history of an outward force-
unity is formed by Shem, Abraham, Zion, Christ, the
Church of believers, the bride of Christ, according
to Rev. xxi. 2, 9.

5. The genesis of the confounding to which it was
doomed by God. The germinal multiplicity, as con-
tained in the unity of the human race, is to be re-
garded as the natural basis of the event. We can-
not, as has been attempted by Origen and others,
derive an organic division of the nations in their
manifold contrasts (and just as little the varied multi-
plicity of life in the world) from the fall merely, or
from human corruption. To this effect it is well ob-
served by Delitzsch, that " even without that divine
and miraculous interposition, the one original lan-
guage, by virtue of the abundance of gifts and powers
that belong to humanity, would have run through an
advancing process of enrichment, spiritualization, and
diversity." This germinal multiplicity forms, there-
fore, the other side, or the higher, spiritual side, in
the confusion of languages ; but this, too, we must
distinguish in its genesis and in its world-historical
consequences. Since the Babylonian tower-building
denotes the genesis of the national separations as
the genesis of heathendom (but not the monstrous
development of heathendom which goes on ftirough
the ages), so, in like manner, does it denote the
genesis of the speech-confounding, but not its great
development in the course of time. This genesis,
however, is to be considered in reference to the fol-
lowing points : 1. With the violent striving after an
outward unity there is connected the crushing of the
diversity. 2. This violent suppression calls out, by
way of reaction, the effort and intensity of the diver-
sifying tendency, or the conflict of spirits. 3. With
this conflict of spirits there develops itself, also, the
contrast of varying views and modes of expression.
4. The disordered and broken unity becomes dis-
solved into partial unities, which form themselves
around the middle points of tribal affinity, and so
form their watchwords. Thus far goes on the pro-
cess of dissolution, in the sin and guilt of the strife
after an outward unity. But here comes in the
divine judgment in its miraculous imposition: the
spirits, the modes of conception, the modes of ex-
pression, the tongues themselves, are all so confound-
ed, that there becomes a perfect breach of unity, and
more than this, a hostile springing apart of unfet-
tered elements that had been bound up in a forced
unity. So did the divine doom establish a genesis
in the confusion of languages — ^a genesis which after-
wards, in the course of time, came to its full develop-
ment.

6. Tlie genesis of the dispersion of the peoples in
all the worlds and of the formation of heathendom
that from thence began. In opposition to the cen-
tripetal force of humanity, impaired by its own
Bupe;*»ensi(m and the outward alienating tendency,
comefl now the reaction of the morbid centrifugal
power set free by the sentence of God. So com-

mence the national emigrations of antiquity, sett.ng
away from the centre of community, forming in this
a contrast to the migrations of the Christian time,
which maintain their connection with the centre of
humanity, the host of the Christian church. In
greater and smaller waves of migration do the na/-
tions scatter abroad, and grow widely diverse in their
separate lands, and in the midst of the views which
they awaken ; and this to such a degree that every-
where they lose themselves in a peculiarly paganistic
autochthonic consciousness, or, as it may be generally
styled, a servile life of nature. The line of Shem
is least affected by the drawing of this centrifugal
power. It extends itself slowly from Babylon, in a
small degree to the east, and in great part to the
southwest. The main stream of the Hamites takes
a southwestern direction towards Canaan and Africa ;
another stream appears to have turned itself cast-
wardly over Persia and towards India. The great
stream of the Japhethites goes first northward, in or-
der to divide itself into a western and an eastern
current ; a part, however, in all probability, taking
a still more northern direction, until, through upper
Asia, it reaches the New World. The most evident
division of the Shemites is into three parts, which
still reflect themselves in the three main Shemitic
languages. The fundamental separation has gone
on into wider separations ; for example, into the
division of the Indian and the Persian Arians. These
divisions are, again, in a great degree, effaced by
combinations which proceeded from the contrast
between earlier and later migrations in the same di-
rection. So, for example, in eastern Asia, the Ja-
phethites appear to have supervened upon the Ham-
ites, in Asia Minor and Persia upon the Shemiti'S ;
and so, in many ways, have the earlier Japbethite
features been overlaid and set aside by the later. In
Canaan, on the other hand, the Hamites appear to
have supervened upon the original Shemitic inhabit-
ants ; and then, again, at a later date, the Israelites
supervened upon the Hamitic Canaanites.

The most direct consequence of this dispersioD
of the nations was the formation of races, in which
different factors cooperated : 1. The family type ; 2.
th» spiritual direction ; 3. the climate in its strong
effect upon the physical ground-forms which were
yet in their state of childlike flexibility, A further
consequence was the formation of ethnographical
contrasts in civilization. In reference to this there
must be distinguished ;

1) The contrast between the savage nations who
had become utterly unhistorical, or perfectly sepa-
rated from the central humanity, and the historical
nations.

2) The (jontrast of barbarian nations who for t.
long time preserved a state of negative indifference
as compared with the nations that were within the
community of culture.

3) The contrast presented by the nations and
tribes of isolated culture, as compared with the cen-
tralized culture, or that of the world monarchies as
it appeared in its latest form, the Graeco-Roman-
humanitarian sphere of culture.

4) The contrast presented by the nations of this
centralized cidture^ or as it finally appeared in the
Graeco-Roman-humanitariau culture, as compared
with the central theocratic people of cultus or re-
ligion.

The last contrasts reveal, as the second conse-
quence, a double counterworking against the pagan-
istic isolization ; the first is a tendency to the outei

CHAP. XL 1-9.

36i

unity (world-monarchy), the other a tendency to the
inner unitv (theocracy). A third consequence was
the war between them.

1. 2'he relation of the historical fact-consistency
of the Biblical representation to its symbolical signifi-
cance for the universal history of the world. It is
difficult to determine the chronological order of the
tower-building in the Biblical history ; it is still more
difficult to fix its place in the universal secular his-
tory. It is, however, more easy to do this when we
assume that the history of the tower-building was
that of a gradually elapsing event, which is here all
comprehended in its germinal transition-point (as the
commencing turning-point), conformably to the rep-
resentation of the religious historico-symbolical his-
toriography. Following the indications of the Bible
iteelf, we must distinguish two periods: first, the
founding of Babel, in consequence of an ungodly
centralization fancy of the first human race, and the
catastrophe of the commencing dissolution that
thereby came in ; secondly, the despotic founding of
the kingdom of Babel by Nimrod, as connected with
it. Add to this a third, which is in like manner at-
tested by the Bible, namely, the fuither development
of Babel as it continued on in spite of the disjSer-
sion, and to whose greatness the stories of Ninus
and Semiramis, as well as the world-historical ruins
of Babylon bear testimony. It is in perfect accord-
ance with the theocratic historiography, that events
which occupy periods are comprehended in the ger-
minal points of their peculiar epochs. As this is the
case with the tower-building, so does it also hold true
of the confusion of languages, and the dispersion of
the nations. In regard now to this germinal point
especially, it has been wrongly placed in the days of
Peleg, in supposed accordance with what was said,
ch. X. 25, concerning the meaning of the name Peleg.
Keil computes that Peleg was born one hundred
years after the flood, and draws from thence the wider
conclusion, that " in the course of one hundred and
fifty to one hundred and eighty years, and in the
rapid succession of births, the descendants of the
three sons of Noah, who were already married and
a hundred years old at the time of the flood, must
have already so greatly multipUed as to render cred-
ible their proceeding to build such a tower " (p. 120).
In respect to the third designated period of the tower-
building, Delitzsch thus remarks in relation to the
Biblical interpretation of the name Babel (for Balbel,
a pilpel form in which the first Lamed has fallen
out) : " The name Babel denotes the world city where
men became dispersed into nations, as the name Je-
rusalem denotes the city of God, where they are
again brought together as one family. As the name
Jerusalem obtains this sense in the light of prophecy,
so is the name given to Babel, no matter whether
ffith or without the design of the first namer, a sig-
lificaut hiero-glyph of that judgment of God which
»a3 interwoven in the very origin of this world-city,
ind of that tendency to an ungodly unity which it
nas evsr manifested. That the name, in the sense
of the world-city itself, may denote something else,
is not opposed to this. The Etymologicum Magnum
derives it airi toC SiiXov, and so, according to Masu-
di, do the learned Persians and Nahataeans. It has,
accordingly, been explained as the gate or the house,
or, according to Knobel, the castle of Belus (2 equal
to 33 or ni2 , or 13 for n-l''3). Schelling's re-
mark that bab in the sense of gate is peculiar to the
irabian dialect, is without ground ; it is just as much

Aramaic as Arabic. The verb 32 , intrare, like Da
ascencUre, is a very old derivative from S<2 , inire
But Rawlinson and Oppert have shown, on the au
thority of the inscriptions, that the name of tlie god
is not b2 , but b« (the Babylonian Phoenician
Kronos), and b33 , therefore, denotes the gate of
El." If the development of heathenism, in a relig-
ious sense, and, therefore, the development of idol-
atry, is regarded as a gradual process, the heathen-
ish tendency at the time of Nimrod could not have
been far advanced. Its more distant beginning ii
probably to be placed in the very time of the catas-
trophe ; for the confusion of fundamental religious
views may, in general, furnish of itself an essential
factor in the confusion of languages.

On the situation of the land of Shinar and Baby-
lon this side of the Euphrates, compare the Manuals
for the old geography by Forbiger and others.
Concerning the ruins of the old Babel, and Babel
itself, compare Winkr's "Real Lexicon," the "Dic-
tionary for Christian People," and Herzoo's " Real
Encyclopedia," under the article " Babel." In like
manner Delitzsch, p. 212; Knobel, p. 127, and
the catalogue of literature there given.

8. The special symbolic simificance of Babel for
the kinqdom of God. Here there are to be distin-
guished the following stages : 1. The significance of
the tower-building ; 2. the Babel of Nimrod, or the
despotic form of empire, and its tendency to con-
quest ; 3. the significance of the world-monarchy of
Nebuchadnezzar ; 4. the Old Testament symbolic
interpretation of Babel (Ps. cxxxvii. ; Is. xiv. ; Jer.
1. ; Dan. ii. 37 ; vii. 4 ; Habakuk) ; 5. The New-Tes-
tament apocalyptic Babylon (Rev. xiv., xvi., xvii.).
Throughout Holy Scripture, Babel forms a world-
historical antithesis to Zion.

9. The relation of the confounding, as presented,
to the original unity of the human race, as also to the
original multiplicity as lying at the foundation of
human speech. The two poles by which the catas-
trophe of the speech-confounding are limited, are
the following : In the first place, even after the con-
fusion of languages, there exists a fundamental unity ;
there is the logical unity of the ground-forms of lan-
guage (verb, substantive, etc.), the rhetorical unity
of figurative modes of expression, the lexical unity
of kindred fundamental sounds, the grammatical
unity of kindred linguistic families, such as the
Shemitic, the Indo-Germanic, and the historical
unity in the blending of different idioms ; as, for
example, in the Komr), or common dialect, there are
blended the most diverse dialects of the Greek ; so
in the New-Testament Greek, to a certain extent, the
Hebrew and old Greek ; in the Roman languages,
Latin, German, and Celtic dialects ; so, also, in the
English; in the Lutheran High German, too, there
are different dialects of Germany. Science takes
for its reconciling medium an ideal unity from the
beginning of the separations ; faith supposes a real
unity, and so, finally, Christendom and the Bible.
In the second place, however, it must be acknowl-
edged that in the original manifoldness of human
power and views there was already indicated a mani-
foldness of different modes of expression. " In-
deed," says Delitzsch, " even if this wonderful divine
interposition had not taken place, the one primitive
speech would not have remained in stagnant immo-
bility. By reason of the richness of the gifts thai
are stored in humanity, it would have run through a
process of progressive self-enrichment, spiritualiza

S62

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

tion, development, and manifold diversity ; but now,
when the linguistic unity of humanity was lost, to-
gether with its unity in God, and with it, also, the
unity of an all-defining consciousness, there came, in
the place of this multiplicity in unity, a breaking up,
a cleaving asunder, where all connection seems lost,
but which, nevertheless, through a thousand indices,
points back to the fact of an original oneness. For,
as Schelling says, confusion of language only origi-
nates wherever discordant elements which cannot
attain to unity can just as little come from one an-
other. In every developing speech the original unity
works on, even as the aSSnity partially shows ; a
taking away of all unity would be the taking away
of language itself; and, thereby, of everything hu-
man,— a limit to which, according to Sohelling's judg-
ment, the South American Indians are approaching,
as tribes that can never become nations, and which
are yet a living witness of a complete and inevitable
disorganization " (Delitzsch, p. 114, 115). In ac-
cordance with the religious character of Holy Scrip-
ture, we must, before all things, regard the confusion
of languages as a confusion of the religious under-
Btanding. Languages expressive mainly of the sub-
jective, languages of the objective, those of an
ingenuous directness, and those of acute or ingen-
ious accommodation, must very soon present great
contrasts.

In regard to the original language, which pre-
ceded the confusion, and formed its ground, the
learned men of the Jewish Synagogue, and after
them, the church fathers, as well as many orthodox
theologians (among the moderns with some limita-
tion, 'Pareau, Havernik, Von Gerlach, Baumgarten),
have expressed the opinion that the Hebrew was the
language of the primitive time and of Paradise, and
that it was propagated after the flood by the race
of Eber. On the contrary, however, it is observed
that Abraham himself did not originally speak He-
brew, but Aramaic* " On this account," says De-
litzsch, " we must regard as better grounded the po-
sition of the Syriao, Aramaic, and Persian writers,
that the Syriac, or the Nabatsean, was the primitive
speech, and that in the confusion of tongues it was
still retained as the language of Babylon. But,
moreover, the Shemitic in its general acceptation,"
he continues, " cannot lay claim to that perfection
which must have belonged to the primitive speech.
We find nothing to urge against the supposition that
the original language, as such, may have become lost
in those that are historically known" (Delitzsch,
p. 316 ; Keil, p. 119). Nevertheless, we do not be-
lieve that this supposition receives any strength from
what is a mere prejudice, namely, that in respect to
its structure the paradise language must have been
a very perfect one. The speech of holy innocence
has no need to prove its claims through forms devel-
oped with great exactness. As the Shemitic verbal
forms I'e in the middle between the monosyllabic
character of the Chinese and the polysyllabic char-
acter of the Indo-Germanic ; as they carry with

* rThere could, at this time, have been no great differ-
ence Detween Hebrew and Aramaic. Even in the days of
Jacob and Laban, they could not have diverged much ;
since they appear to have well understood each other in the
very bsginning of Jacob's residence. Afterwards, when
they parted, they gave two different names (n^^bs and
fi<r!liniiJ "15?' *^^n. xxxi. 47) to the monumental heap
of stones ; but in so doing, they probably sought as much
diversity as the growing change in their respective dialects
would afford.— T, L.]

themselves, also, in a high degree, that impressioi
of immediateness, of the onomatopic, of the sensible
presentation of the spiritual, of the spiritualizing of
the sensible, so, without doubt, do they lie speciallj
near to the ground-form of diiferent national tonguea
In respect to the relation of the different languages,
there may be compared the following writings a£
specially belonging to the subject, namely: De-
litzsch : " Jeschurun ; " FiJRST : " Concordance ; "
" Treatises of Kunic," Eenest Eenan ; see Delitzsch,
p. 632. Besides these, Kadlen, p. 70 (The Hebrew
in its peculiar character stands nearest to the con-
ception of the primitive speech).

Zahn, in his treatise (" The Kingdom of God," p.
90), preser's a clear idea of the similarity of different
languages. " The great ' Language Atlas ' of Balbi
is designed on the most carefully considered princi-
ples (Paris, 1826). After a keenly investigated di-
vision of language and dialect, he designates eight
hundred and sixty languages as spoken on the earth,
namely, fifty-three in Europe, one hundred and fifty-
three in Asia, one hundred and fifteen in Africa, four
hundred and twenty-two in America, one hundred
and seventeen in the fifth portion of the world ; and
yet at this day must the whole sum be taken at a
greater number, especially in consequence of re-
searches in Africa." Kaulen. Linguistic investiga-
tions that belong here are connected with the names
of Herder, Adelung, Vater, Klaproth, Balbi, Remii-
sat, W. Von Humboldt, Schleicher, Heyse, Bopp,
Steinthall, Pott, Schott, Ewald, Fiirst, Bunsen, Max
Miiller, Jones, Oppert, Haug, and others. In favor
of the original unity of languages, as against Pott
and others who call it in question, see Kaulen, p.
26 ; " Treatises on the Origin of Languages," by the
same author, p. 106.

10. The liMoncal and archceological testimonies
for the fact of the confusion of languages. Bdnsen ;

" Comparative Philology would have been compelled
to set forth as a postulate the supposition of some
such division of languages in Asia, especially on the
ground of the relation of the Egyptian language to
the Shemitic, even if the Bible had not assured ua
of the truth of this great historical event. It is
truly wonderful, it is matter of astonishment, [it is
more than a mere astounding fact,] that something
so purely historical [and yet divinely fixed], something
so conformable to reason, [and yet not to be con-
ceived of as a mere natural development], is hert
related to us out of the oldest primeval period, and
which now, for the first time, through the new sci-
ence of philology, has become capable of being his-
torically and philosophically explained." Between
this history and the previous chapter must lie the
primitive history of the eastern Asiatics, namely,
the time of the formation of the Chinese language,
that primitive speech that has no formative words,
that is, no inflecting forms. The Chinese can hardly
take rank as a radical language, but only as a very
ancient and strikingly one-sided ramification. To
the linguistic testimonies there may be added the fact
that Babylon became the oldest world-monarchy;
there is also its very ancient fame, and the fact that
the influence which went out from Babylon has In
the most varied forms pervaded the whole history
of the world, to say nothing of its giant ruins and
the desolation which has so long rested as a judg-
ment upon them."

11. The mirroring of the confusion of language!
ai found in the Mythical stories. See Delitzsch, p.
813 LiJOKEN, p. 278 ; Ecsebius, Frceparatio, ix

CHAP. XL 1-9.

363

14. Abtdescb: " Some say that the men who first
came forth from the earth, being confident in their
greatness and strength, and despising the gods in
their fancied estimation of their own powers, under-
took to build a high tower in the place where Baby-
lon now is. They would already have made a near
approach to the Heavens, had not the winds come to
;he help of the gods and overturned their tower.
1 ,s ruins have received the name of Babylon. Men
had hitherto spolcen but one language, but now, in
ttie purpose of the gods, their speech became di-
verse; to this belongs the war that brolte out be-
tween Kronos and Titan.

EXEGETIOAL AlTD CBITICAL.

1. Vers. 1 and 2. The settling in the land of
Shinar. — The whole earth, that is, the whole hu-
man race. — One language and one speech (Lange
more literally, one lip and one kind of wrords).
The form and the material of language were the
same for all. — Prom the East (Lange renders,
towards the East. Our margin, Eastivard). —
From the land of Ararat, southeast (aipQ as one
word: the land of, or from the East). — A plane.
— For them, as they came from the highlands, the
plane was the low country, a valley plane (nsp3). —
Shinar, the same as Babylonia, though extending
farther northward. — And they dvrelt there. — The
preference for the hill country does not appear to
have belonged to the young humanity. Under the
most obvious points of view, convenience, fertility,
and easier capability of cultivation, seem to have
given to these children of nature a preference for
the plain. Even at this day do the uncultivated in-
habitants of the hills sometimes manifest the same
choice. In this respect Babylon had for them the
charm of extraordinary fruitfulness. Zahn (" King-
dom of God," p. 86) gives extracts from Hippocrates
and Herodotus in proof of the singular productive-
ness of this land of the palm, where the grain yields
from two hundred to three hundred fold. Thence
came luxury, which was followed by the cultivation
of the paradisaical gardens (Gardens of Semiramia)
and a Ufe of sensuahty, together with a sensual re-
ligious worsliip.

2. Vers. 3 and 4. The building of the tower.
- -They said one to smother, Go to. — Expressive
of an animated, decided undertaking. — Let us
make brick. — The plain was deficient in stones,
whereas, on the contrary, it abounded in a clayey
soil which would serve for making bricks, and as-
phaltum, which was good for mortar. They burnt
them to stone instead of merely hardening them in
the sun, which otherwise was the more obvious prac-
tice.— ^And they said (again) Go to. — Their suc-
cess in preparing bricks for their dwellings encour-
aged them to go farther. They resolved upon the
building of a city, and a tower whose top may reach,
etc. At the ground of this there evidently lies the
impression of immensity as derived from the Baby-
lonian plane, which actually, in its great extent, as
tome travellers have described it, gives the concep-
tion of the sublime. The visible middle point of
the same must have been the tower, standing up as
a sign of unity for the whole human race. Accord-
ing to the representation, therefore, the words, " even
to the heaven," would mean that the heaven was
regarded as something that could be reached ; al-

though at a later period such language occurs in »
hyperbolical sense. — And let us make us a name
— The expression OS! ib niaS denotes the appoint
ing or establishing for one's self a signal of renown
(Is. Ixiii. 12, 14 ; Jer. xxxii. 2u). The sign of secu
rity shall be for them, at the same time, a sign of
their fame, and thus, doubtless, would they giva
themselves a name as a people. — Iiest we be scat-
tered abroad. — Not only as a visible signal, but bj
the glory of its fame shall the tower hold them to
gether. This is the expression of the pohtical and
popular feeling of antiquity ; in the pride of the na
tional spirit the individual is lost with his strength
and his conscience. Such is the characteri.stic fea-
ture of Babel everywhere, whether upon the Euphra.
tes, the Tiber, or the Seine. The individual with his
convictions, his freedom, his personality, must be
wholly sacrificed to the name of unifoi-mity, whether
it he worldly or ecclesiastical. What is said here
relates not merely to an ungodly, arbitrary, ambi-
tious, individually titanic undertaking, but to the
first introduction of that atheistical and antichristiau
principle which would not merely promote the pros-
perity and authority of the whole in connection with
the well-being and the freedom of the individual per-
son, but also make the individual an involuntary
sacrifice to a unity, which becomes, in that way, a
false unity, as well as a false idol placed on the
throne of the living God, — and this whether it be
called Babel, Rome, the Church, or " la grande
nation." Goethe :

'* Be it truth, or be it labia,

Tbat in thousand books \b shown,
All is but a tower of Babel, ,

TTnless love shall make them one."

Or we may adopt as a various reading.

When love of glory makes them one.

The question here relates to the destruction, in their
very principles, of the Sheraitic call to religion, and
the Japhethio tendency to civilization, by a Hainitic
confounding of religion and culture, to the obstruc-
tion of the true progress of the world and of the
state, by resolving the constitution of human history
into an immovable Hamitic naturalism. According
to Knobel, the whole significance of the fact becomes
resolved into one view. " This view (he says) the
author imputes to them after the event, since Baby-
lon, that most splendid city, as the Greeks regarded
it (Herod, i. 178), did, indeed, redound to the fame
of its builders, but, at the same time, would thereby
furnish a proof of their impious pride." And yet,
even in Knobel, the world-historical substratum in
the representation very clearly appears, when he
says, that " according to Berosus and Eupolemus,
there were stories among the Chaldajans that those
who weie saved in the flood, when they came to
Babylonia, again restored the place, and especially
built there a high tower. For that purpose there
met together in Babylonia diverse masses of people,
etc." He proceeds to say, moreover, that Batylon
in later times became the central point of the na-
tions, that it was, besides, a very ancient city, that
two thousand years before Semiramis it was built for
the son of Belus, and that, by reason of its huge
magnitude, its temple of Belus, its high towei"; and
its dissolute morals giving it the appearance of the
very home of sin (Curtius, v. 1, 36), as well as on
account of its name, it had a peculiar fitness for the
Scriptural author's narration. The symbolical slg

3(>4

GENESIS. OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

lutioaucc, however, of the appearance of Babylon, as
matter of fact, is, in this way, wholly eflfaced.

3. Vers. 5-8. Tiie interveniion of Jehovah^ his
counsel and his act. Without the thought of any
Jehovistic document, it would be readily conceived
th:it the frustration of such an undertaking must,
proceed from God as Jehovah, the founder and pro-
tector of the divine kingdom. The coming down *

* "Ter. 5.— mni ^"l'1 , And Ood came down. The Tar-
piiic. of Onkelos renders tliis ''^ ^bi^nX'', and Jehovah was
manifested, or revealed hi^mse]f. So inost of the other 3ew-
ifih authoriiies. They derived the idea, probably, from such
passages as Hosea v. 15, where the opposite expression seems
to represent God as retiring, and leaving the world to itself :
■^aip^; bx n2T-2<'1 Tt^X, / wUl go and return to my
place. ' So in the seventh verae, Onkelos renders it, Come,
Ut us be revealed. The Arabic follows the TargTim, and has
A.,'CV,'3 IfcLsJ'. Compare also Micah i. 8, nSH ■'3

^T'l ^'0^p^Q'0 XSi*^ nin*^, " For lo, Jehovah goes forth
from his place, and comes down and walks upon the high
places of the earth." There is a spirituality in Rabbi
Schelomo's interpretation of this which is lacking in most
Christian commentators. "It represents God," he says,
*' as cx)ming down from, his throne of mercies, D^^ni XOD ,
to his throne of judgment," "pin XD3 , as though the one
were in the serene upper heavens (comp. Ps. cxiii. 6), and
the other nearer to the sphere of this turbulent earth, — im-
plying also that the divme mercy is more retired, less visi-
ble to the sense, because more general and diffused, though
seen by the eye of faith as send'ng rain upon the just and
the unjust, whilst God's judgments in the world are more
manifest, more extraordinary, more palpable to the sense.
It is "his strartpe work," m^y^ "iT , Is,xxviii, 21 ; im^S'
11113 3, "his extraordinary doing." The commentary of
Aben'Ezra on Ti"^ , Gen. xi. 5, is very noteworthy : " This
is thus said, because every thing that takes place in the
world belou) depends from the powers that are above ; as is
seen in what is said (1 Sam. ii. 3) mb-^b?. ^330"^ Q-^^^rn^a.
from the Heavens events are arranged (in oiir English Ver-
sion it is given very poorly, actions are weighed). Where-
fore God i3 said to ride upon the Iteavr.ns (C'^'Oll'n 3Di*l .
Bent, xxxiii. 26) ; for thus the Scripture speaks with the
tongue of men." With this citation of Aben Ezra, comp.
Ps. Ixviii. 5, "Praise him that rideth on tlie Heavens by
his name Jah," although many modem commentators differ
from the Jewish in their rendering of mn*!?, . The ridiag
on the Heavens is explained, by the commentator on Aben
Ezra, as referring to the outer sphere (according to the astro-
logical technics), in which there are inherent the higher
or ultimate causalities, ae Rabbi Tauchum says nib^byi
should be rendered in the verse above quoted, 1 Sam. ii, 3
(see Tanchum ; "Comment." Lam. i. 12)" or ni3D , de-
flecting or turning causalities, as it is explained by him
(see 1 Kings xii. 15). Similar interpretations are given by
the Jewish commentaters of such words as n2!l , ver. 7,
6o to now. Let us go down. They are used to express the
most direct opposition between the ways and thoughts of
men and those of God. Says Rabbi Shelomo : "It is
rn^a I^OS irns, measure for measure (jjar j»art). Let
us build up, say they, and scale the heavens ; let us go down,
eays God, and defeat their impious thought." Other Bab-
bins, and Jewish grammarians, have a method of explain-
ing such passages by a very concise yet most significant
phrase. This mode of representing things, more humano,
they call "l^^iH "(llJb , the language or " tongue of the
event,*' or the action speaking. Thus Rabbi Tanchuna
characterizes the words HK"! Xb "^SlX , the Lord not see it,

Lam. iii. 36, as (JLif (jLwwJ j the tongue or speech of

the condition (the supposed language of the wicked actions
jusl before described), whether regnrded as actually uttered
or not. Thus here, (Jod speaks in what he does, inmost di-
rect contrariety to the ways and thoughts of men. The
event to be narrated by the sacred historian is the divine
inUrvention in counteraction of human wickedness and foliy.
To be intelligible, it necessarily includes some statement of
^e di viae thoughts or purposes, as inseparable parts uf the

of Jehovah forms a grand contrast to the rebellion
uprising of the Babylonians with their tower. Th«
higher they build, so much deeper, to speak anthro
popathically, must he descend that he may rlghtlj
look into the matter. Moreover, the expregsion ffc
tOf as used by God, forms an ironical contrast to the
two-fold go to ("^^I^ , come on, give way now), as used
by the Babylonians. The one nullifies the other an

res gestse. This must be done after the manner of men, or i|
cannot be done at all. These divine purposes and acts are,
therefore, represented as speaking. In tact ihey do speak ;
and this is what they say most emphatically. It is analo-
gous to the frequent usage in Homeric Greek of 4»>j^ii) to
spt'ak, for olofiat, to think ; and, in Hebrew, of "iST , wordt
for thought or thing, — a connection uf ideas which is obvioua
in the English thi?ik and thing, as also in the Gei-man ding
and denken. This language of the event, if it would be ex-
pressive, must be characteristic and idiomatic. The H^n ,
go to, of man, is met by a direct response on the part of Deity,
and to this end the very same teim is Ut=ed, not ironically,
as Lange thinks, but as the most speaking form of the anti-
thesis. This is not like the language of the prophet who
hears words spoken in vision. In that case they are truly,
though subjectively heard, as the mediate language of the
inspiring power, and not alone of the inspired human me-
dium. But in such narrations as these, nothing could better
d( scribe the rhetorical peculiarity than this foimula of the
Jewish critice. It is "the language of the occasion," not as
uttered objectively, or heard subjectively, but still as virtu-
ally representing most important parts of the event.

Those who are otlended at such a style cannot consist-
ently stop short of a denial of all revelation, as either actual
or possible. "When we make the objection, we should con-
Hider how far it goes. Not only is there shut out the
thought of any direct divine intervention in the world's
histoi'y, but also every idea whatever of any divine action
or personality. Look at the question carefully, and we are
compelled to say that thinking, in any such way as we think,
and even knowing, in the sense of any pai-ticular recognition
of anything finite as finite, are as truly anthropopathic ex-
ercises as remembering and speaking. It is truly pitiable,
therefore, when Kosenmuller, and other commentators like
him, indulge in their usual apologizing and patronizing
talk about the simple belief of the early ages, deos descendere,
atqut, ut ex antiqua persuasimie credebatur, ad humanuvi
morem consiUa agilare, deliberare, rebus ex omni parte per-
pensis, decernere, — "that the gods actually come down to
see, etc." How far have we got, in these respects, beyond
these simple "early peoples" What advantage has tiie
most rationalizing commentator over tbem in the use of any
language th^t will enable him to think of God, or talk of
God, without denying the divine personality on the one
hand, or bringing in something impliedly and essentially
anthropopathic on the other. This language is as much for
one age as for another ; since here all ages, and all human
minds, are very much on a par. But why, it may be asked,
could there not have been used terms more general, and
which would not have suggested such crude conceptions 1 It
might have been simply said, God intervened to prevent the
accomplishment of evil purposes, orhejsrouidedmeansinthe
course of his general providence, or government of nature
and the world, for such an end. This, it may he thought,
would have sounded better, and better preserved thedigruty
of the Scripture. But what is an intervention, but a coming
between, and 3.prevention but a going before, and aprovid-
ing, or a providence, but a looking into, a coming down to
see what the children of men are doing 1 We gain nothing
by them. Instead of helping the matter, our most philosoph-
ical language would only be the substituting of worn-out
terms, whose early primary images had faded out, or ceased
to aftect us conceptually, for other language equally repre-
sentative of the idea, whilst excelling in that pictorial vivid-
ness in which truly dwells that which we most need. This
is the suggestive and emotive power, making words some-
thing more than arbitrary signs of unlcnown quantities, like
the X y z of the algebraist, where the things signified are
mere notions, havngno meaning or value except as they
preserve the equilibrium of a logical equation. We would
have the Bible talk to us philosophically : ** the infinite in-
telligence condition•^ the finite ; the divine power is the con-
serving principle ever immanent in natiu'O." But hear how
much better the Scripture says this : "the God of old is thy
dwelling-place, and underneath are the everlasting arms,"
obiy ms'"i l , the arms of eternity, the arms that hold uj
the world. The divine wisdam has adopted this style. It
is a mode of diction ever fresh, yet equal to any other as a
representative of that which is strictly iue£Eablo, that is, on*

CHAP. XI. 1-9.

365

turns it against them. — This they beg^ to do,
and now nothing will be restrained from
them. — This reminds us of the declaration : Adam is
become like one of its. Under the form of apprehen-
sion there lies an ironical expression of the conscious
certainty of the divine rule. — And the Lord came
down. — Delitzsch here again reminds us that (ac-
• cording to Hoffman) Jehovah, after the judgment
of the flood, had transferred his throne to the
heaven. Keil, however, correctly finds, at least in
this place, only the anthropopathic expression of the
divine interposition. — Behold, the people is one. —
OS, connection, community. The people, as a com-
munity, physically self-unfolding, is called ""ia (from
mj, probably in the sense of mound-like, extending,
tmelling *) ; the people, as an ethical community, a
State, as constituted by an idea, is called CS, from DSS
(to bind together, to associate). — They begin to do.
— An indication of the future Babel in the world's
history: — And now nothing will be restrained
from them. — In truth, if God interpose not, the
prospect is opened, that the pride and confidence of
men will advance with extreme rapidity towards
the destruction of freedom, of the personal life,
of the divine seed and kingdom. — Let us go do'wn
and there confound their language. — Upon
the descent of Jehovah in his beholding, there fol-
lows his descent in his counsel. — Let ua. — And here,
again, according to Delitzsch, does Jehovah include
with himself his angels, the executors of his penal
justice. Here, as elsewhere, an inappropriate idea. —
Let us confound. — Knobel would understand by
bia to separate, and accordingly translates Babel as
meaning separation. But thereby is the conception
of the act carried into the unmeaning. What is said
does not refer properly to a separation merely of hu-
man speech. The manne ■ in which it is confounded
is not described. According to Koppen, the miracle
must have consisted wholly in an inward process, that
is, a taking away of the old associations of ideas con-
nected with words, and an immediate implanting of
new and diverse modes of expression. ■)• According
to Lilienthal, Hofiman (A. Feldholf and others) it

utterable in any of those sense-forms in wMch all human
language must terminate, though sti 11 belonging to the spir-
itual intelligence, and known by it as something that truly
is. Paul once heard the divine ideas expressed in their own
proper words (2 Cor. xii. 4), but he could not translate these
ipp-riTa pijfiara into the speech of the lower sphere. The lan-
guage of the Bible is the best that could be given us. It
inay present stumbling-blocks to the careless reader, or to
those who wish to stumble, but still is it true, that the more
we study the Holy Scriptures, even in their earliest parts,
the more reason do we find to thank God that they are
written just as they are. — T. L ]

* [The senses oifiowin{/ io^e^fter which GeseniuB gives, or
of extending, sweliivg, as here presented, are not found in
any use of the root "13 or nia, but are accommodated, as
supposed primary senses, to the meaning required. It is
better, however, to deduce t from the sense of iuieriorily,
inclusion (implying, exclusion, seclusion, separatenese),
which ia common in the Chaldeean and Syriac. Thus re-
giarded, it would be the political, rather than any physical
idea — a nation as a political unity by itself, separate from
all others — whilst OS would denote association. A com-
muuity within itself in its two aspects, of outward exclusion,
and inner binding.— T. L.]

t ^How easily this is done, whether by a power purely
physical or divine, is seen in the cases of paralytics, where,
the mind remaining clear, the connection between it and the
vocal organs is suddenly changed ; so that though speech is
not lost, its utterances are misplaced, the name of one thing
.3 given to another, or the connection between the usual
»crd and the usual idea seems almost wholly broken up.

must have been wholly an ontward process, a con
fusion of the lips, of pronunciation, of dialects ; whils'
Scaliger holds that differing meanings were connected
with like words or sounds. The historical symbolica
expression, however, may mean, perhaps, that tht
process of inward alienation and variation, the ground
of which lay in the manifoldness of dispositions, and
the reciprocity of spiritual tendencies, became fixed
in diverse forms of speech and modes of expression,
by reason of a sudden catastrophe brought upon them
by God. The heathenish Babylonian tendency r&
fleets itself still in the enigmatical, capriciously vary-
ing dialects of the same people, which is sometimes
to be remarked in different quarters of the same city,
or in the different peasantry of the same community,
but which must have especially had place in the
earher times, when isolization became predominant.
The first germ of the speech confounding must, ac-
cordingly, have shown itself as a diseased action
which the fall introduced into the original innate
germ of speech development. For a long time it re-
mained naturally latent in the family of Noah, but
manifested its full power in the time of the tower
building ; and then the effect of that epoch prolongs
itself through the whole history of the world. In
like manner, however, was there a counter influence,
too, from the days of Abraham onward. According
to Kaulen (p. 220), the miracle consists in this,
" that at that time, and in that region, there was in-
troduced a linguistic change which, although it would
have naturally come in in the course of things, would
nevertheless have required for its full development
other conditions of space and time than those pre-
sented." If there is meant by this only a wonderful
acceleration of a natural development, the view does
not satisfy. Rightly says Fabri (p. SI) : " A confound-
ing of languages presupposes a confusion of the con-
sciousness, a separation of the original speech into
many, a disorder and a breach in the original com-
mon consciousness in respect to God and the world.
— The history of the tower-building is the history of
the origin of heathenism." — So the Lord scattered
them abroad. — Out of their purpose comes its di-
rect opposite.— And they left off to build. — That
is, as a community of the human race with that dis-
tinct tendency. The idea, however, is not excluded,
that the Babylonians who remained behind kept on
building Babel. The success of the enterprise was
frustrated, but not analogous and limited undertak-
ings of the same tendency ; it appears, for example,
in the great world monarchies. This first disap-
pointment, however, was a type of all others, as they
successively become apparent in the catastrophes of
these world monarchies, and the last fulfilling will be
found in the fall of Babylon, as mentioned in the
Apocalypse. " That the structure itself was laid in
ruins by an exercise of divine power which after-
wards took place, is told -us, indeed, by the sibyl,
but not by the Scripture." Delitzsch.

4. Wherefore is the name of it caUed Babel.
— In deriving the name from bab, gate, gate of Bel,

The individual derangement is a very mysterious thing, aa
inexplicable now as in the earliest ages of the world. Na-
tional and popular derangements are more rare, but history
records strange movements, that suggest the thoustht, as the
truest, if not the only possible, explanation. Our knowledge
of man, of the immeasurable deep within him, of the infi-
nite unknown around and above him, is too small to war-
rant any positive denial of such statements, or the possibil-
ity of such events, whether regarded as supernatural, or ae
falling within those natural causalities of whi<!h we talk af
j much, and yet, comparatively, know so little.— T. L.i

366

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

n El, the authority of the religious interpretation is
Oct excluded, as Keil supposes in his second note p.
119. "Only we must distinguish between thefrustra-
tion of the tower-building and the destruction of the
later Babel that was still built on, and which, probably,
for the first after the dispersion of the nations, came to
be the seat of a heathenish worship." Concerning
the significance and the building material of Baby-
lon, the classical writers agree with the Old Testa-
tament, — for example: Heeod. i. ch. 178; Steabo,
16 ; DiODORUS, ii. 1 ; Aeeian, Alex. vii. IT ; Cuet.
Alex. 5, 1, 25 ; Eustath. ad Dyonys. Perieg. 1005.
According to them the huge walls of Babylon were
made of burnt brick, as were also the magnificent
structure of the temple of Belus, and the hanging
gardens. According to one, the circumference of the
city amounted to 480 stadia, or 60,000 paces; ac-
cording to others, 385 or 360 stadia (furlongs), mak-
ing, therefore, a journey of from 18 to 24 hours.
The building of most importance was the quad-
rangular temple of Belus, each side of which was two
furlongs in length ; out of this there arose, by eight
terraces, a strong, massive tower, which, according
to Herodotus, was one furlong in length and breadth,
and, according to Strabo, one stadium (that is 600
feet) high. The accounts of modem travellers amount
to a confirmation of the ancient statements. The re-
mains of the temple of Belus that was overthrown by
Xerxes, and now called Birs Nimrod, form a huge
mound of ruins, consisting of burnt and unburnt
bricks, cemented partly with lime and partly with
bitumen. The whole plain of Babylon is covered
with mounds of rubbish from the same materials (see
Kee-Poetee : " Travels," vol. ii. p. 301 ; Buckingham :
"Travels in Mesopotamia," p. 472 ; Latakd: "Nine-
veh and Babylon," p. 374 ; and Rittee's " Geography,"
xi. p. 876). " The ancients, for the most part, ascribe
the building of Babylon toSemiramis, but this can only
be true of its extension and fortification. According
to the ancient inscriptions, the city was older than
this (Knobel on the Genealogical Table, p. 346), and,
according to ch. x. 10, it must have been already in
existence at the time of Nimrod." Knobel. In re-
spect to the city, see also Heezog's Real-Encyclopa-
die, article "Babel." On the ruins of Babylon, see
Delitzsch, p. 312, with reference to the account of
the traveller, James Rich. The Arabians regard the
ruins of Bits Nimrod as the Babylonian tower that
was destroyed by fire from heaven. Delitzsch, who
at first regarded Birs Nimrod as the temple of Belus
(as Rawlinson, too, supposes), remarks now, on the
contrary, that the temple of Belus stood in the mid-
dle of the city, but that Birs Nimrod was situated in
the suburb Borsippa, two miles south. But now,
according to Oppert's supposition, Borsippa means
tower of languages, and, therefore, the opinion has
much in its favor that the Birs Nimrod had been
ah'eady in the very ancient time, the observatory of
the Chaldffian astrologers, with which the tower of the
speech-confounding stands in historical connection.
1*1 seems difl3cult to suppose that the tower, which
was to denote the centre of the earth, should be
Dlaced at a mile's distance outside of the city which
was distinctly regarded as the capital of the earth.
Moreover, this tower might, at a later day, have be-
come the tower of Belus. Bunsen, nevertheless, de-
cides for Birs Nimrod (with reference to Rawlinson),
and the name supports the conclusion that the tradi-
tion speaks for this place. Of special importance,
besides, is the inscription of Borsippa, as given by
Oppert, which introduces Nebuchadneizar as speak-

ing, and according to which the first building >f Bin
Nimrod is carried back, in its antiquity, 42 genera
tions. See Fabki, p. 49.

DOCTRINAL Al^D ETHICAL.

1. See the preliminary discussion. Analogous
to this gigantic undertaking of the young humanity
are the later monumental buildings of the Egyptians,
of the Indians, of Greece, and of other lands. Ijke
the mythological systems of the civilized nations of
antiquity, they present an historical contradiction of
a favorite modem view, according to which the whole
human race had only gradually worked itself out of an
animal or beastly state.

2. The character and the teleology of heathenism.
The essence of heathenism is strikingly characterized
in our narration as a diseased oscillation between the
attraction of humanity to unity, on the one hand,
and to multiplicity and unrestrained dismemberment
on the other. From the Babylonish striving after an
outward unity proceeds the first dispersion of the
nations. This afterwards takes the form of a dis-
memberment of the same in a peculiar sense ; it be-
comes, in other words, a heathenish, national, or
local consciousness, an idolatrous, antocfathonic
consciousness, growing wild with the notions of a
national earth and a national heavens, whilst, in its
utter disorder, it sinks down to the mere prejudice
which regards every stranger as an enemy (hostis),
and proceeds, at last, to that absolute exclusiveness
which causes the inhabitant of the island to put to
death any one from abroad, and the Bushman to
threaten every new comer with his poisoned arrows.
In the same manner, from a religious striving after a
pantheistic world-view, there originates the first de-
clining of the spirit into polytheism. And then, too,
the different world-monarchies furnish a proof that
the diseased centripetal drawing in the world ever
works in interchange with that centrifugal tendency.
Upon the downfall of any such world-monarchy,
there follows again, in various ways, a dissolution
and a dispersion of elements. Even in the history
of the Church do we find a shadowy outhne of th
same process ; and yet it is just the task and the
daily work of the essential Church to mediate more
and more the true development and appearance, both
of unity and variety, among the nations ; though in
truth it does this through the light and law of the
Gospel as it goes out from the spiritual Zion, or that
true kingdom of God which has its organization in
the Church. The true reciprocity between unity and
division constitutes the life of humanity. The false,
feverish, exaggerated reciprocity, which tends to the
overstraining, and, at the same time, the division and
dissolution of both these influences, is its disease
and its death. The striving of the world-monarchies
breaks down against the power of the national indi-
vidualities. Again, the national isolations are inter,
rupted and broken up by the world-monarchies.
But dispersion has the special effect to distribute the
evil, to dismember, to send one people as a judgment
upon another, until there is awakened in all a feeling
of the need of deliverance and unity. Here belong
the ethnographic and the mythologic systems. In
respect to the first, compare Lange's " Miscellaneous
Writings,"!, p. 74. On the last, see Lange's treatis*
entitled, Die Qeaeidich- Catholische Kirche als Sinn:
bild.

3. As the myth of the Titans reflects itself in th«

CHAP. XL 1-9.

36T

ereative periods, so does it also in the Babylonish
tower-building.

4. Fabri, p. 44 : " In a manner more or less dis-
tinctly marked, since the time of Babel, has every
nation, and every group of nations, had spread over
it its peculiar veil (Is. xxv. 7) which has impregnated
and penetrated the whole national consciousness.
Even in the present age of the world does this re-
main, not yet broken through, morally and spiritually,
by whole nations, but only by individuals out of every
nation, who in Christ have attained to the participa-
tion of a new and divine birth, — these, however,
being the very core and heart of such nations, and
forming with one another a people in a people. For
5n Christ alone does man awake to a universal thean-
thropic consciousness." [True ii-.deed, but Christ,
according to Matt, xiii., works aftei the manner of
leaven ; and in fact, as a principle ot new life for the
whole humanity (Rom. v. 12), and the veils of the
nations are gradually lifted up tefore they are
wholly removed or torn away. It is not the individ-
uals and the nations that form the contrast in the
oresent course of the world, but the grain (the elect)
and the chaff in the nations, — in other words, the
contrast between the believing and the unbelieving
— between people and people.]

6. The ironical element in the rule of the divine
righteousness (see ch. iii. 22) appears again in the
liistory of the tower-building, after its grandest dis-
play in the primitive time. It is just from the false
striving after the idol of an outward national unity,
that God suffers to go forth the dispersing of the na-
tions. Without doubt, too, is there an ironical force
in the words : " and now nothing will be restrained
from them " (ver. 1).

6. In this demonical efibrt of the Babylonians to
build a tower that should reach to heaven, there still
remains an element of good. By means of it, in
later times, they appeared as the oldest explorers of
the stars, who discovered the zodiac and many other
astronomical phenomena, — as astronomers, in fact,
ifith their searching gaze raised to heaven, although
their science was covered under an astrological veil.
The unfinished tower was transformed into an obser-
vatory ; and how vast the benefit that from thence
has come to man !

7. The heathenish yet Titanic energy of the
Babylonian spirit proves itself in the fact, that whilst
In the one direction their worship went to the ex-
treme of offering human sacrifices, it became, on
the other, a service of revolting licentiousness.

8. "Let us build us a tower and make us a
name." The antithetic relation which this watch-
word of theirs bore to Shem (the name), and the des-
tination that God had given to him that he should
be the potential central point of humanity, may
also be indicated by the name Nimrod ("i"ir3, come
on, now let us rebel). And so, according to the view
of Roos, may the race of Ham have become engaged
with special zeal in this tower-building, for the very
purpose of weakening the prophecy. But, then,
that would lead to the conclusion of a variance with
Ihe Shemites, and an overpowering of them, whereas
our history represents it as a universal understand-
ing. Moreover, in ch. a. 10, Nimrod appears, not as
the builder of Babel, but as the founder of the king-
dom of that name ; whereas ch. xi. relates to the
building of the city itself. We must, therefore, sup-
pose that in the understanding mentioned, oh. xi.,
the Shemites were either infatuated, or that they
• ere silenced. Tbe text, however, supposes an un-

derstanding of the races. We may, perhaps, assumt
that, in the designation of the tower, Shem's priority
was symbolically indicated, and that on this account
his race would be satisfied. There would result, then,
a distinct consequence. Upon this free federal co-
operation of the patriarchal races, there followed the
despotic exaltation of Nimrod, which contributed,
moreover, to hasten the Babylonic dissolution. We
make more difficult the view we take of the transac-
tion when we measure the greatness of the tower
before the dispersion by the later magnitude of the
tower of Belus, or of the Bris Nimrod. " Mesopo
tamia," says Bunsen, " is covered from north to
south with ruins and localities with which the name
of Nimrod is everywhere connected ; as in Babylonia
so also in Nineveh, lying farther off f,nd eastward
from upper Mesopotamia; even the country of the
Riphsean mountains, at the source of the Tigris, and
so the part of Armenia which lies north from Nine-
veh, and west of the lake Van, has its Mount Niro
rod."

HOMILBTICAIi AND PEACTICAI,.

The tower of Babel in its historical and figurative
significance : a gigantic undertaking, an apparent suc-
cess, a frustrated purpose, an eternal sign of warn-
ing. 2. The repeating of the same history in the
political and ecclesiastical spheres. — The spiritual
history of Babylon to its latest fulfilling according
to the Apocalypse. The confusion of languages at
Babel, and the scene of the Pentecost at Jerusalem.
— Babel and Zion. — Babel, confusion ; Jerusalem,
peace. Christianity, God's descent to earth, to
unite again the discordant languages. Christianity,
in what way it makes the languages one : 1. In that
from all spirits it makes one spirit of life ; 2. from
all peoples one people ; 3. from all witnessings, one
confession of faith, one doxology, one salutation of
love.

Starke : Supposition, that first after the flood
men drew from Armenia towards Persia, then east-
ward towards Babylon. Hedi.nger : Pride aims ever
at the highest. Avarice and ambition have no bounds
(Jer. xxiii. 23 ; Luke i. 61).

Lisco : The design of the tower-building is three-
fold : 1. To gratify the passion for glory which would
make itself a name; 2. defiance of God, reaching
even to the heaven, his seat of habitation ; 3. that
the tower might be a point of union and of rendez-
vous for the whole human race. Selfishness ever
separates ; so was it here ; love and humility alone
constitute the true and enduring bond ; but this ia
found only in the kingdom of God, never in the king-
dom of the world. As here, so evermore, is Babel
the name of pride, of show, of vain glory, of na-
tional subjugation, of fraud and tyranny upon the
earth. As in this place, so is it always the emblem
of 'nso.ence towards God, of soaring to heaven, of
" making its throne among the stars,' and, at the
same time, of confusion, of desolation, of God's de-
risive irony in view of the giant projects of men
(comp. Is. xiv. ; Rev. xviii.). — Gerlach: There are
now formed the sharply separated families of the
nations, each confined to itself alone, and standing
to others in an essentially hostile relation ; each must
now use and develop its own peculiar power. The
whole heathen world knows no more any unity of
the human race, until finally, through the Gospel,
men again recognize the fact that they are all of one

•S8S

GENESIS, OK THE FIEST BOOK Ut Jmjhlih.

slood, that they have all one great common want,
and have for their father one God, — until, in short,
the languages which the pride of Babel separated
become again united in the love and humility of
Zion.

Calwer Handbuch : It is worthy of remark that
the modern researches into language have recognized
the original affinity of most known languages to one
common original speech. The sundering and part-
ing of the nations is God's own work. As labor was
the penalty for the sin of paradise, so is separation
the punishment for this sin of piide. In both cases,
however, was the punishment at the same time a
blessing.

Schroder : It is the spirit of Nimrod that in-
flates humanity in the plane of Babylon. The tower,
as historical fact, is to form the apotheosis of hu-
manity.

Luther : They have no concern that God's name
be hallowed, but all their care arid planning turns to
lliia, that their own name may become great and

celebrated on the earth. This city and tower of mei
is fundamentally nothing else than an outward art!'
ficial substitute for the inner union before God, and
in God. — Roos : It is credible that Ham and his son
Canaan should have been especially zealous to hinder
this counsel of God, according to which a hard des-
tiny was to befall them — that is, that there should
be a separation of the nations, so that Canaan shciild
become the servant of Shem and Japheth. — Luthkr :
God comes down, that is, he gives special heed to
them, he ceases to be forbearing. His coming down
denotes his revelation of himself, his appearing in a
new and great act, whether taken in the sense of
mildness or severity. " 0 that thou wouldst rend
the heavens and come down " (Is. Ixiv.). — Ver. 1.
The salvation of men is a matter of deep concern to
our Lord ; the boundary he would set to them is the
barrier of grace and compassion. — G. D. Krumma-
CHER ; Human plans are confounded that the divine
order may proceed from them. Such is the coui so
of the world's history.

FIFTH SECT TON.

"f^ race of Shem. The Commenced and Interrupted Migration of Terah to Canaan,
of the Contrast between Heathendom and the germinat Pairiarchtilism.

The Oenem

Chapter 51. 10-32.

1. Genealogy of Shem — to Terah.

10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was a hundred years old and hr-gat

11 Arphaxad' [Knobei: proteWy, highland of Chaidffia] two years after the flood. And Siiem

12 Hved after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And

13 Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah [sending]: And Arphaxad
lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.

14 And Salah lived thirty years and begat Eber'' [one from the other side, pilgrim, emigrant].

15 And Salah Hved after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons

16 and daughters. And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg [division]:

17 And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons

18 and daughters. And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu [friendship, friend] :

19 And Peleg lived after he begat Eeu two hundred and nine years, and begat sona

20 and daughters. And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug' [vine-hranch] :

21 And Reu hved after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons

22 and daughters. And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor [ocsenius : panting] :

23 And Serug hved after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daugh-

24 ters. And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah [turning, tarrying] :

25 And Nahor lived after he begat Terah a hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons

26 and daughters. And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram [High father], Nahct

[see ver. 2], and Haran [Ocsenius : Montanus].

2. Terah, his Race and Emigration (vers. 27-32).

27 Now these are the generations of Terah : Terah bagat Abram, Nahor, and Haran ,

28 and Haran begat Lot [veil, concealed]. And Haran died before [thefiiceof] his father

29 Terah, in the lend of his nativity, in Ur [light; flame] of the Chaldees (oinrs). And
Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai [princess];
and the name of Nahoi's wife, Milcah [Queen], the daughter of Haran, the father of

CHAP. XI. 10-32.

369

30 Milcah, and the father of Iscah ' [spier, seeresa]. But Sarai was barren ; she had no cllild.

31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai hia
daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife ; and they went forth with them from Ur of the
Chaldees to go unto the land of Canaan ; and they came unto Haran and dwelt there

32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years ; and Terah died in Haran.

(1 Ver. 1. — ^ITDSS^X. Arphaxad, — pronunciation derived from the LXX., Ap^afaS; according to the Hebrew
pointing, Arpakshadl It is a compound, evidently, of which the principal part is ^'lUD , from which the later D^nU33 .
Chaldeeans. It would appear, on these accounts, to be the name of a people transferred to their ancestor, as in mdiiy
other cases. Among the early nations names were nc* fised, as they are with us in modem times. The birth name was
changed for something else — some deed the man had done, or some land he had settled, and that becomes his appeUation
In history. Sometimes the early personal name is given to the coimtiy, and then comes back in a changed form as a
designation of the ancestor. Thtis Josephus ppeaks of the five primitive *' Shemitic people, the Elamites (or Persians),
the AssyrianSf the Aramites (or Syrians), the Lydians (irom Lud), and the ArphaxaditeSj now called Chaldaeans." — T. L.l

[2 Ver 14. — "nS . The hne of Shem in Arphaxad seems to have remained a long time after the flood in the upper
country ; and.it may be doubted whether this branch of the Shemites, from whom Abraham was directly descended, were
with the great multitude of the human race in the plain of Shinar, or had much, if any thing, to do with building the
tower of Babel (see remarks of Lange, p. 367). Eber's descendants came over the river, and began the first migrations to
the south. The word 13? may mean over in respect to eitl.er side, and so it might be applied to one that went over, or
to one that remained. This passing over being a memorable event, the naming would come very naturally from it,
whether as given to the ancestor who stayed, or to the descendants who left the old country. Each side would be iranS'
ewpftm^eiwMiw to the other, and 60 truly ^^33? D^^SSJ , or Hebrews. It would be very much as we speak, or used to speak,
of the old countries as transatlantic, on the other side of, or over the Atlantic ; the Hebrew ^ZiV having every appearance
of being etymologically the same with the Greek uwep, German nber, and our Saxon over. Compare Gen. xiv. 13, where
■i"13S;i D"125< , Ahram the Hebrtio, is rendered 'k^pait 6 ^eparti^, Ahram tJie passenger. — T. L.]

■[3 Ver .'26.— 5^111) . Some would resort to the primary sense of SIU) or JTO to get the meaning entangled (veririck-
kelter), to make it correspond to some other derivations which are fancied here as denoting either the advance, or the
retarding, of this early Shemitic movement. But besides the faintness and uncertainty of such derivations, the names
they seem to indicate could only have been given long afterwards, when the facts on which they are supponed to be
grounded had acquired a historical importance. Gesenius would render it palmeSf a young vine-shoot (from :mr , to wind,
twist). No name-giving could be more natural and easy than this. Compare CJTliU , Gen xl. 10, 12 ; Joel i. 7 ; and
what is said in the blessing of Joseph, Gen. xlix. 22, nnQ 13 1)011 nnS , fruitfiJness Joseph, son of fruitfulness— our
translation, a wen/ /rMi(/MZ 6o«^ft. — T. L.]

[' Ver. 29.— nSD^, Iscah. The Jewish interpretere, generally, say that Iscah and Sarah were the same. Thus
Eashi— "Iscah, that is, Sarah, so called becatise she was a seeress (MD'O) by the Holy Spirit, and because all gazed upon
her beauty," for which he refers to Gen. xii. 14. The root 1IDO (see, gaze upon) is quite common in the Syriac, the oldest
branch of the Shemitic, though it does not come in the Hebrew. It is revived, and becomes frequent, in the Rabbinical
It is equivalent to the Hebrew riTln , Prophet or Seer. Aben Ezra has the same interpretation. — T. L.]

THE SIGNIPICANCE OF THE GENEAI.OGICAL TA-
BLE OF THE SHEMITES.

This genealogy of the Shemites is really an ap-
pendage to that of the Sethites, ch. v., and in this
way forms a genealogical series extending from Adam
to Abraham. It is continued on the line of Nahor
(ch. xxii. 20-24), on that of Keturah (ch. xxv. 1^),
of Ishmael (ch. xxt. 12, etc.), of Esau (ch. xxxvi.
1, etc.), on the line of Jacob (ch. xlvi. 8-27), etc.
(See the article: "Genealogical Register," in Hee-
zog's Real Encyclopadie.) According to Knobel this
table has the character of an element of fundamental
Scripture (p. 129); we are satisfied to designate it
as elohistic universalistic, since it embraces not only
Abraham's race, but also the nearest branches of it
that at a later period became heathen. The table
of the Shemites embraces ten generations, as does
the table of the Sethites. The first (conformably to
the number ten) denotes a perfect development, which
runs out in Abraham, the " father of the faithful,"
representing, as he does, a numberless race of the
believing out of all humanity. Abraham must be
reckoned here with the tenth, as Noah in ch. v. It
is clear, too, that this table is designed to indicate
the growth, or establishment of the patriarchal faith,
together with its previous history. Most distinctly
is this expressed in the migrations of Terah, — and
in the individual names of the patriarchs. In the
BOn of Arphaxad, Salah, there is announced a send-
»ny, or mission, in Eber the emigration, in Peleg the

24

division of the theocratic line from the untheocrattc,
in Reu the dmne frieTidship, in Serug the entangling
or the restraint of the development, in Nahor a con^
Jlict or a striving, in Terah a .letting out from the
heathen world which in his tarrying comes to a stop.
And so is the way prepared for Abraham's departure.
We cannot maintain, with Knobel, that these Shem-
itic patriarchs must have been all of them first-born.
They are, throughout, the first-born only in the sense
of the promise. Bunsen interprets the name Eber
as one who comes over the Tigris. But in a wider
sense Eber may also mean pilgrim. The names Reu
and Serug he interprets of Odessa and Osroene. As
coming, however, in the midst of personal names,
these also must have been expressed as personal
names, from which, indeed, the names of countries
may have been derived. On the interpolation of
Cainan in the Septuagint, and which is followed bv
Luke (ch. iii. 36), compare Knobel, as also on the
varying dates of the ages, as given in the Samaritan
text and in the Septuagint. The numbers we have
here are 600, 438, 433, 464, 239, 239, 230, 148, 205,
and 175 years. Here, too, as in the case of the
Sethites, we can get no symbolical significance from
the respective numbers, although Knobel is unwilling
to recognize their historical character. In connec-
tion, however, with the general gradual diminution
of the power of life, there is clearly reflected the in-
dividual difference ; Eber lives to a greater age than
both his forefathers, Arphaxad and Salah. Nahor,
the panting (the impetuous), dies earliest. According

370

GENESIS. OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

to Kaobel, the genealogical table advances from the
mythical to the legendary period ; at least we have
no sufficient grousds, he thinks, to deny to Abraham
and his brothers an historical existence. The same
must hold true, also, of his fathers, whose names,
with their theocratic characteristics, must have be-
longed, without doubt, to the most lasting theocratic
reminiscences. The table before us is distinguished
from the Sethitic by being less full, in that it divides
the life-time of each ancestor into two parts, by the
date of the tlieocratic first-bom, whilst it leaves the
Bumming up of both numbers to the reader. " In
Ter. 26 this genealogy, just hke the one in ch. t, 32,
concludes with the naming of three sons of Terah,
since all these have a significance for the history to
come : namely, Abram as the ancestor of the elect
race, Nahor as the grandfather of Rebecca (comp.
ver. 29 with ch. xxii. 20-23), and Haran as the father
of Lot (ver. 27)." Keil. The table in Delitzsch gives
us a good view of the series of Shemitic families (p.
324). According to Bertheau the Septuagint is right in
its interpolation of Cainan, Delitzsch disputes this ;
comp. p. 322. " The Alexandrian translators insert-
ed this name because the Oriental traditions have so
much to say of him as the founder of astronomical
science ; and, therefore, they were unwilling to leave
out so famous a name. There may have been a
brother of Salah, through whom the main line was
not propagated." Lisco. Delitzsch gives a reason
for its not being called the tholedoth, or generations
of Abraham, from the fact that the author makes
the history of Abraham himself a large and principal
part. That, however, would not have prevented the
Betting forth of Abraham's genealogical history. But
in such a representation there might have been, per-
haps, an obscuring of the idea that the seed of Abra-
ham in the natural sense goes through the whole Old
Testament, whilst, in a spiritual sense, it pervades
the New (see Rom. iv. cf Gen. 15).

EXBQBTIOAL AND CRITICAL.

1. Ch. xi. 10-26. — Shem vraa a hundred years

old. — See the computations of Knobel and Keil. —
Two years after the flood. — This must be under-
stood of the beginning of the flood. — And begat
sons and daughters, — See the ethnological table ;
ilso, ver. 17. "For the sake of tracing the line of
the Joktanides the author had already given, in ch.
X. 21-25, the patriarchal series from Shem to Peleg;
he repeats it here, where he would lay down fully
the line from Shem to Abraham, with the addition
of the ages."— Arphaxad Arrapachitis, "in north-
em Assyria, the original seat of the collective Chal-
daean family." Knobel. " It was the home of the
Xa\5aioi and KapSovxoi mentioned by Xenophon and
Strabo, as well as of the modem Kurds." The same
writer refers the names that follow to cities or terri-
tories, to which we attach no special importance,
since in any case the districts here would be them-
selves derived from the names of persons.

2. Vers. 27-32. The family line of Terah. Ac-
cording to Keil, this superscription must embrace
the history of Abraham, so that the tholedoth of
lahmael, oh. xxv. 12, and of Isaac, oh. xxv. 19, cor-
respond with it. But then, in the spiritual relation,
Abraham wouid be subordinate to Terah, which can-
not be 8U)iposed.^And Haran begat. — " Accord-
ing to the constant plan of Genesis, it is here related
of Haran, the youngest son of Terah, that he begat

Lot, because Lot went with Abraham to Canaan (ch
xii. 4), and Haran died before his father Terah,
whereby the band which would have retained Lot in
his father-land was loosed." Keil. — Before his
father Terah. — Properly, m hii presence, so that he
must have seen it ; it does not, therefore, mean
simply in his life-time. The first case of a natural
death of a son before the death of his father, is •
new sign of increasing mortality. — Ur of the Chal
dees. — This must either be sought in the name Ur
which Ammianus calls Persicum Castellum, between
Patra and Nisibis, not far from Arrapachitis, or in
Orhoi (Armenian, Urrhai), the old name of Edessa,
now called Urfa (see Kiepert and Weissenbokn :
'Nmeveh and its Territory,' p. 7)." Keil. Delitzsch,
correctly perhaps, decides for the castle Ur men-
tioned by Ammianus, although, doubtless, the 0r
in our text has a more general, territorial, and, at
the same time, symbolical meaning. " The old Jew-
ish and ecclesiastical interpretation reads 'out of
"nx' (fire), meaning that Abraham, as an acknowl-
edger of the one God, and a denier of the gods of
Nimrod, was cast into the fire, but was miraculously
preserved by God." Delitzsch. The same writer
finds therein the idea that Abraham was plucked as
a brand from the tire of heathendom, or from its
heathenish fury. We would rather suppose, on the
contrary, that by Ur is meant a region in Chaldaea,
where the ancient monotheistic symbolical view of
the heavenly lights and flames had passed over into
a mythical heathenish worship of the stars, as a wor-
ship of Light and Fire ; wherefore it is that the
starry heaven was shown to Abraham as a symbol
of his believing progeny (ch. xv.), whilst, for the hea-
then Chaldseans, it was a region of divine (or deified)
forces. Knobel explains the word as meaning J/bw^i
of the Chaldceans. Rawlinson holds to the reading
"lis as equivalent to "i'SJ (city). The interpreting
it of light and fire is both etymologically and ac-
tually the more correct. " The family of terah had
its home to the north of Nimrod's kingdom (in north-
eastern Mesopotamia), and worshipped strange gods;
as is clear from Josh. xxiv. 2." Delitzsch. — Iskah.
— By Josephus, the Talmud, the Targum of Jona-
than, and others, this name is held to be one with
Sarah. On the other hand, Knobel properly remarks
that according to ch. xx. 12, Sarah was the daughter
of Terah, and, according to ch. xvii. 17, only ten
years younger than Abraham ; she could not, there-
fore, have been a daughter of Abraham's younger
bro'ther. It is probably the case that the Jews, in
deference to their later law, sought by means of this
hypothesis to weaken as much as possible Abraham's
kinsmanship to Sarah. Delitzsch assumes the possi-
bility that Haran was a much older half-brother of
Abraham, and that Abraham, as also Nahor, had
married one of his daughters. According to a con-
jecture of Ewald, Iscah is mentioned because she
became Lot's wife. But it may be that Iscah was
thought worthy to be incorporated in the theocratic
tradition because she wag a woman of eminence, a
seeress like Miriam, according to the signification
of her name. Knobel alludes to the fact that Abra-
ham had his sister to wife, without calling to mind
that she was a half-sister (ch. xx. 12), or might even
have been his adopted sister. So also he says that
Nahor married his niece, and that in like mannel
Isaac and Jacob did not many strangers, but theii
own kindred. He accounts foi this on the ground
of a peculiar family affection in the hous* of Terah

CHAP. XI. 10-32.

371

(oh. xxiv. 3, 4 ; xxvi. 36 ; Txvii. 46 ; xxviii. \) ; just
«8 at the present day many Arabian families evar
marry in their own, and do not permit one to take a
wife from any other (Seetzen : " Trarels," iii. p. 22).
The ground, however, of such liindred marriage in
the house of Terah and Abraham, is a theocratic
one, and thus far are the children of Abraham placed
in a condition similar to that of the children of
Adam. As for the latter, there were, in general, no
" daughters of men," out of their own immediate
kindred, so for the sons of the theocracy there were
no spiritual daughters of like birth with themselves,
tha; is, of monotheistic or theocratic faith, out of
the circle of nearest natural affinity. In this respect,
however, they did not venture to tread in the foot-
steps of the SetJiites (Gen. vi.) ; for it was theirs to
propagate a believing race through consecrated mar-
riage.— But Sarah ■was barren. — A prelude to the
history that foUows. — And Terah took Abram
his son. — Without doubt has this removal a reli-
pons theocratic importance. At all events, this di-
vinely accomplished withdrawal from Ur of the Chal-
dees must mean more than a mere providential guid-
ance, as Keil supposes. — And they -went forth
vrith them. — The word ons (rendered, with them)
makes a difficulty. It may be easiest understood as
meaning with one another. On the other hand, De-
litzsch reminds us that the suffix may have a reflex
sense, instead of a reciprocal (ch. xxii. 3). This i^s
the very question, as otherwise the sentence would
be indefinite ; the expression, therefore, must mean
not only with one another, but by themselves ; that
is, they withdrew as one united, exclusive commu-
nity. Besides this, there are two modes of taking
it. Keil understands only Lot and Sarah as the sub-
ject of the verb, and, therefore, refers cnx to Terah
ind Abraham. There are three things in the way
of this : 1. The withdrawing (or going forth) would
be separated from the previous introductory expres-
sion ; Terah took Abraham, etc., which will not do ;
2. it would be a withdrawing from that which leads,
and the accompanying would become the principal
persons ; 3. Abraham would have to be regarded as
a co-leader, which is contrary to what is said : Terah
took Abraham. Moreover, Abraham, regarded as an
independent leader, would have been bound in duty
to go further on when Terah broke off from his pil-
grimage in Mesopotamia. Delitzsch, on the other
hand, together with Jarchi, Eosenmiiller, and others,
refers the words they went forth to the members of
the family who are not named, namely, they went
forth with those named ; but this is clearly against
the context. By the expression with them, it would
be more correct to understand, with those, namely,
with the first-named (Terah, etc.), went forth those
just previously mentioned, or named immediately
after them. Later, is Haran denoted as the city of
Nahor (ch. xxiv. 10 as compared with ch. xxvii. 43 ;
xxix. 4 and xxxi. 53). For other interpretations see
Knobel. — And they came unto Haran. — Terah
intended to go from Ur to Canaan, but he stops in
Haran, wlierefore he also retains his people there.
Accordmg to Knobel, the mention of Canaan is an
anticipation of the history that follows. — Haran —
CajTo, Charran, lay in northwestern Mesopotamia
(Padan Aram, xxv. 20), ten leagues southeast from
Edesifi, in a fertile region, though not abounding in
»ater. The city now Ues in ruins. It was the capi-
tal of the Gabians, who had here a temple of the
Moon goddess, which they referred back to the time

of Abraham. In its neighborhood Crassus was slain
by the Parthians. More fully on the subject, see iu
Schroder, p. 520 ; also in Knobel and Delitzsch. —
And Terah died in Hsiran. — Terah was two hun-
dred and five years old. If Abraham, therefore, Wiis
seventy-five years old when he migrated from Meso-
potamia, and Terah was seventy years old at his
birth, then must Abraham have set forth sixty yeari
before the death of Terah. And this is very impur-
tant. The emigration had a religious motive which
would not allow him to wait till the death of his
father. As Delitzsch remarks, the manner of repre-
sentation in Genesis disposes of the history of the
less important personages, before relating the maii.
history. The Samaritan text has set the age of
Terah at one hundred and forty-five, under the idea
that Abraham did not set out on his migration until
after the death of Haran. Tlie representation of
Stephen, Acts vii. 4, connects itself with the general
course of the narration.

DOCTEINAL AND ETHICAl.

See above : The significance of the genealogical
table of the Shemites.

1. The decrease in the extent of human life. In
the manifold weakenings of the highest life endur-
ance, in the genealogy of Shem, there are, neverthe
less, distinctly observable a number of abrupt breaks :

1 . From Shem to Arphaxad, or from 600 years to 438 ;

2. from Eber to Peleg, or from 464 years to 239 ; 3.
from Serug to Nahor, or from 230 years to 148 ; be-
yond which last, again, there extend the lives of
Terah with his 205, and of Abraham with his 175
years. Farther on we have Isaac with 180 year.=!,
Jacob 14'7, and Joseph 110. So gradually does the
human term of fife approach the limit set by the
Psalmist, Pa. xc. 10. Moses reached the age of 120
years. The deadly efficacy goes on still in the bodily
sphere, although the counter-working of salvation
has commenced in the spiritual. Keil, with others,
finds the causes of this decrease in the catastrophe
of the flood, and in the separation of humanity into
various nations.

2. Ohaldcea and the ChaldfBans. — See the Theo-
logical Real Lexicons, especially Herzog's Encyelo-
pcedie, The Fragments of the Chaldiean Author,
Berosus, as found ir. the Chronicon of Eusebius, and
the Chronographia of Syncellus. This people seem
to have been early, and, in an especial sense, a
wandering tribe. The priestly castes of ChaldaBans
in Babylonia must have come out of Egypt. Strabo
and others transfer the land of the Chaldaeans to a
region in lower Babylonia, in the marshy district of
the Euphrates near the Persian Gulf; the same
author, however, finds also, as others have done, the
seat of the ChaldasanB in the Chaldasan Mountains,
very near to Armenia and the Black Sea. The
proper home of the Chaldaeans was, therefore, at the
head waters of the Tigris.

3. TJr in Chaldsea. See above.

4. On the indication of a great yet gradu;,': pro
vision for the variance that was to take p'ace between
the race of Eber and the heathen, see the ??xc/;ejical
and Critical. The later Biblical accounts of Terah
and the forefathers of Abraham appear, in general,
to owe their form to the reciproo-iil influence of
Israelitish tradition and the Israelitish exegesis o'
the passage before us. According to the language
of Stephen, Acts vii. 2, Abraham was already called

872

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

at TIr in Chaldsea. We must, therefore, regard him
»s the proper author of the migration of his father,
Terah. The passage, Josh. xxiv. 2, according to
which Abraham's forefathers, and Terah especially,
dwelt beyond the river (the Euphrates), and served
other gods, has special relation to this fact of
Terah's suffering himself to be detained in Haran.—
This, then, is to be so understood, that in consequence
of the universal infection, idolatry began to take up
its abode very near to the adoration of the one God,
as still maintained in Terah's family (see ch. xxix,
82, 33, 35 ; xxx. 24, 27 ; and to this belongs what is
said, ch. xxxi. 34, about the teraphim of Laban).
We may well suppose that Joshua, from his stem,
legal stand-point, judged and condemned that ming-
ling of worships, or that image worship, as strongly
as Moses did the setting up of the golden calf. The
little group of wanderers, ver. 31, appears to have
originated from a similarity of feeling which, after
long conflicts in the line of Eber, was finally to tear
itself away from this conjectural capital of the Light
and Fire worship in Chaldsea, and, in that way, from
heathenism altogether. Their aim was Canaan, be-
cause there, partly from their decidedly foreign "tate,
partly by reason of Iheir antagonism to the Hamitic
race, they would be protected from the contagion.
But Terah cannot get beyond Haran, and to this not
only does Joshua refer, but also the later Jewish
tradition respecting Terah. To this place, where he
settles down, Terah seems to have given the name
of his dead son, in loving remembrance, and it may
have been this name, as well as the fair land and ap-
parent security, that bound him there. The circum-
stance that Abraham, according to ver 32, does not
appear to have departed before the death of Terah
(with which, however, the history otherwise does not
agree), has been interpreted by Syncellus and others
as implying that Terah was spiritually dead. A like
untenable Jewish hypothesis, which Hieronymus gives
us, assumes that the 75 years which are ascribed to
Abraham, ch. xii. 4, are not to be dated from his natu-
ral birth, but from the time of his deliverance from
the furnace of fire, which was like a new birth. But
that Abraham tore himself away before his father's
death has, at all events, the important meaning that,
in the strife between filial piety and the call of faith,
he obeyed the higher voice. The family group in
Haran. however, is thus distinctly denoted, because
it now forms the provisional earthly homestead of the
wandering patriarchs, and because, also, as the later
history informs us, it was to furnish wives of like
theocratic birth for their sons.

5. Legends concerning the migration of Abra-
ham. SeeRAHMEE, " The Hebrew Traditions " (Bres-
lau, 1861, p. 24). According to a Hebrew Midrash
(Rabba 88, in Hieronymus), Abraham, at Ur, was
cast into a furnace of fire, because he would not
adore the fire which the Chaldieans worshipped, but
was miraculously preserved by God. His brother
Haran, on the contrary, was consumed, because he
was unresolved whether to adore the fire or not. It
was Nimrod who had him cast into the furnace.
Here belongs, also, the Treatise of Beer, entitled
" The Lil'e of Abraham, according to the Jewish tra-
ditions." Leip., 1859.

HOMILETIOAL AND PRACTICAL.

As -Abraham's life of faith develops itself in his
posterity, so did it have its root in the life of his fore-

fathers.— How the life of all great men of God reste
upon a previous hidden history. — Comparison of the
two lines of faith, that of Beth to Noah, and from
Shem to Abraham: 1. outwardly, ever less (at last
reduced to one point) ; 2. inwardly, ever stronger
(attaining at last to the one who makes the transition)
[Thus Noah passed through the corrupted rac«
and through the flood; thus Abraham made the
transition through heathenism.] — Terah's migration
to Canaan: 1, its spirited beginning; 2. its failura
to go on.. — Abraham and his kinsmen: 1. He was
probably the author of their movement; 2. they,
probably, the cause of his tarrying in Haran. — The
death of children before the eyes of their parents
(ver. 28). — Sarah's barrenness, the long and silent
trial in the life of Abraham.

Starke : The Sethites, among whom the true
church is preserved. — God's remembrance of the
righteous abides in his blessing. — Osiander: A
Christian when he is called, must, for the sake of
God, leave joyfully his fatherland ; he must forsaki
all that he loves, all that is pleasing to him in thi
world ; he must follow God obediently, and only
where He leads.

[ExCtTRSUS ON THE CoNPUSION OF LANGUAGES. —

That there was here a supernatural intervention the
language of Scripture will not permit us to doubt.
We need not, however, trouble ourselves with the
question how far each variety of human speech is
connected with it, or regard, as essentially affecting
the argument, the greatness or smallness of the num-
ber of languages now spoken upon the earth. There
is, doubtless, many a local jargon, the result of iso-
lation, or of unnatural mixtures, that has but little,
if anything, to do with an inquiry in respect to this
most ancient and world-historical event. It is so
difficult to determine what is a language in distinc-
tion from a dialect, or mere local variety of idiom
and pronunciation, that such lists as those of Balbi
and others can have but little philological value. For
all essential purposes of such inquiry, therefore, there
is no need to extend our view beyond that district
of earth in which languages now existing, either as
spoken or in their literature, can be historically or
philologically traced to peoples coimected with the
earliest ki_o^vn appearances •)f the human race. We
give this a very wide sweep when we include in it
Southern and Middle Europe, Western Asia, and
Northern Africa. Here philological science, though
yet very imperfect, has found great encouragement
in its inquiries, and within this district has it begun
to make out, with some clearness, what must have
been the earliest divisions of language. The result
thus far, as stated by some of the latest and best
writers, has been the recognition of three general
families or groups. In giving names to thfse, there
has also been recognized, to some extent, the ethno-
logical division supposed to be made from the sons
of Noah ; and hence some have been inclined to call
them the Japhethic, Shemitic, and Hamitic (Bunaen,
Khamism and Semism). It was early perceived,
however, that the ethnologic and linguistic lines do
not exactly correspond even in the Shemitic ; and
there is still more of aberration and intersection
within the supposed limits of the two others. The
first group has therefore been called the Indo-Gei'-
manic, and of late the Arian. In the third the term
Hamitic has been generally dropped for that of Tn-
ranian. The general correspondence, however, givee
much countenance to the first ethnological naming

CHAP. XL 10-32.

37»

But whatever method be adopted, it does not affect
the main characteristics belonging to each of the
three. These may be thus stated. The Shemitic is
the smallest, the most unique, both in its matter and
its form, the most enduring, the most easily recog-
iized, and having the least diversity in its several
branches. The group termed Arian, Indo-Germanic,
or Japhethan, is lees marked in all these character-
istics, though retaining enough of them to make clear
the family relationship in all the best-known branch-
es. The third is so different from both these, it
seems so utterly broken up, that Pritchard, and other
philologists, have given it, as a whole, the name
AUophylian, using it simply as a convenience of no-
menclature. There exist, however, marks of affinity
that show it to be something more than a mere arbi-
trarily separated mass (see Max Mitller " Languages
of the Seat of War," pp. 88, 90, and Rawlinson :
" Herodotus," vol. i. 524). To make use of geo-
logical analogies, as Bunsen has done, the Shemitic
may be Ukened to the primitive rooks, the Arian to
the stratified formations, broken, yet presenting much
clearness of outline and direction, the Turanian to
confused volcanic masses projected fiom some force
unknown, or solitary boulders scattered here and
there in ways inexplicable, yet showing marks of the
localities from whence they came, and evidence of
some original correspondence in the very irregulari-
ties of their fracture. Or we may compare them,
the first, to a temple stUl entire in its structural
form, though presenting tokens of catastrophes by
which it has been affected ; the second, to wide-spread
ruins, where whole architectural rows and avenues
still show a clear coherence, whilst even the broken
arches, fallen columns, displaced capitals, give evi-
lence by which we are enabled to make out the
mginal plan ; the third, to scattered mounds of rub-
bish, in which shattered slabs, obscurely stamped
bricks, and faint marks of some joining cement,
alone testify to a structure having once a local unity
at least, though uow exhibiting little of inward plan
and harmony. To drop all such figures, it may be
said that the Shemitic has preserved what was most
enduring of the original form, the Arian what was
most permanent of the original matter , whilst in the
Turanian has fallen all that was most frangible in
the one, or most easily deformed or defaced in the
other.

Now to account for such a condition of things in
language, especially in its earliest appearance, is
equally difficult, whether we hypothesize the primi-
tive movement as a tendency to gregariousness and
to a consequent unity of speech, or as a tendency in
the opposite direction, or as being both combined in
an attractive and repulsive polarity. The phenomena
Jn each and all are at war with every such induction.
There is in the one family a strangely preserved
unity. There is in another a totally different pecu-
liarity of form stamped upon it from times that pre-
cede all historical memory ; it is full where the first
Beems to be scant, free where the other is tense ;
Mmetimes just the reverse,* having as a whole a look

• fThua the Shemitic greatly excels in the number of
what are called its conjugations, or ways of modifying the
primary sense of the verb. Otherwise its form may be char-
ftctemed as the very ^andeur of simplicity, suggesting the
comparison of the majestic palm, whilst the Greek and S;m-
writ may be likem d to the branching oak. And so, again,
n some of its aspects, the Shemitic presents a surprising
bareness. In the Hebrew and Syria*, for example, there is
the least show, or rather, only the rudimentary appearance
>f tny optative or eubjiinctive modality, that is, in outward

so exceedingly foreign as never to be mistaken, ye<
with an equally unmistakable familiarity, or famUj
likeness, of its own, within which the many dissimili-
tudes among its different branches never efface th«
strong and seemingly ineradicable affinities. There
is a third so marked by an almost total dissolution
that its very looseness would seem to make its only
classifying feature, were it not that certain indices
found in every branch (such as the numerals and
some pronominal forms), point to a community of
origin, whilst appearances of correspondence, even
in its fractures, suggest a common disorganizing
catastrophe. Viewing these three families in their
relations to each other, we find that there is not only
separation, and that of long standing, but great di-
versity of separation. The original cleaving dates
from a most ancient period, before which nothing ia
known, and in its general aspect remains unaffected
by time. The Hamitio, or Turanian, seems to have
been confused and tumultuous from the begiiming.
Such is said to be its appearance on the early triUn
gual inscriptions made to accommodate the incon-
gruous peoples in the Assyrian empire who had, in
some way, been here and there wedged between the
Arian and Shemitic portions. See Rawlinson's
" Herodotus," i. 527. Again, the Shemitic, though
oftentimes in close contiguity, has put on none of the
essential features of the Arian, nor the Arian of the
Shemitic. The German and Arabic are as distinct in
modern times, as anciently the Greek and Hebrew.
The minor specific divisions in each family have va-
ried more or less, but the great generic differences
have remained the same from age to age, still show-
ing no signs of blending, or of mutual development
into some common comprehending genus, according
to the process which Bimsen supposes to have pro-
duced such changes in the antehistorical times,
Wliat has stamped theiri with features so ancient and
so diverse ? Nothing of any known natural develop-
ment, either of one from the other, or of all from
a common antecedent stock, can account for it. If
Sinism, or Chinesian (the name given to this hypo-
thetical beginning of human speech), developed
Khamism, and Kliamism Semism, and Semism Ari-
aiiism, how is it that we find nothing like it as actual
fact in historical times, and no marks of any transi-
tion-period in the ages before ? Surely, if Bunsen's
favorite comparisons be good for anything, we ought
to find in language, as geologists do in the rocks, the
visible marks of the process, or if we are compelled
to adopt a theory of sudden or eruptive breakings in

modal form, since all the subjective states may be clearly
and eflfectively expressed by particles, or in some other way.
It is the same, even now, in the Arabic, only that this em-
bryotic appearance is a little moie brought out. Three
thousand years, and, within the last third of that time, a
most copious use (philosophic, scientific, and commercial, as
well as colloquial), have given it nothing, in this respect,
that can be called structural growth, nothing that can be
regarded as an approach to the exuberant forms of moiiality
to be found in the Greek and Latin even in their earliest
stages. It has kept to the mould in which it was first run.
So also in the expression of time, the Shemitic still preserves
its rigidnesB. It keeps its two tenses umnodified in form,
though it has ways of denoting all varieties of time, relative
or absolute, that any other language can express. Compare
it with the Greek and Sanscrit copiousness of temporal
forms ; how early bom are they, and how fruitful, in the ons
case, how unyielding, how stubbornly barren, we may say,
in the other ! Surely, one who carefully considers such phe-
nomena as these, must admit that there is in the birth and
perpetuity of language some other power— either as favor-
ing or resisting — than that of mot .lal development, or re-
ciprocal change, however long the peric-is that may be a»
sumed for it as a convenience to certain .heories. — T. L. 1

S74

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

the one ca&e (whether we call them supernatural or
extraordinary matters but little to the argument) why
should a similar idea be regarded as irrational in the
other. Thus there are no linguistic marks in Greek
and Hebrew (regarded as early representatives of two
great families), or in Syriac and Sanscrit, showing
that at any time they were a common language,* or
any begimiing of mutual divergency as traced down-
wards, or any evidences of convergency as we fol-
low them up the stream of time. In fact, they stand
in most direct contrast in their earliest stages; even
as the fresh geological rupture must present, doubts
less, a more distinct breakage than is shown after
ages of wear and abrasion. When history opens,
those languages stand abruptly facing each other.
This may be said with some degree of confidence,
for our knowledge here is not scanty. We have the
Shemitic all along from the very dawn of history to
our latest times. The Arabic of the present day,
copious as it has become in its derivative vocabulary,
is as rigid in its Shemitic features as the oldest
known Hebrew. There is some reason for regarding
it as retaining even still more of the primitive type.
The Greek was in its perfection in the days of Ho-
mer, and as Homer found it. It has never been sur-
passed since in all that makes the glory of language
as a spiritual structure, in its classifications f of out-
ward things, in its still higher classification of ideas,

* [This is said more especially in reference to the form,
or what may be called the soul of each language respectively.
Of the matter, or vocalized material, as it may be styled,
there is a good deal that is common. There are many roots
in the Axian that are evidently the same with the Shemitic,
whether coming from a common original stock of sounds,
or from a later borrowing from each other. "Words pass
fiom one language to another, or original vocal utterances
are broken up, in an immense variety of ways; but the
structural forms are xmyielding. In this resides the char-
acterizing piinciple of perpetuity ; so that it is no paradox
to afBrm a generic identity in largnage, in which the greater
part, or even all the articulated sounds had been changed,
or have given place to others. When we consider the great
facility of mere phonetic changes, through cognate lettei*s
or those of the same organ, through transition letters, by
whose intervention there is a passage from one family into
another (as i and y make a transition from, the dentals to
the gutturals, and w ot v from the gutturals to the labials),
or through nasal combinations, such as n^, nd, mb, which,
on dissolution, may carry the syllable in the new direction
of either element with all its afanities, thus making, as it
were, a bridge between them— when we bear in mind how
sounds wear out in the beginning or at the end of words,
entirely disappearing, or easily admitting in their attenu-
ated state the substitution of others belonging to a different
organ, or how, in the middle of words, the compression of
syllables bringing together harsh combinations, crushes out
letters in some cases (especially if they be g-utturals), or in-
troduce-8 a new element demanded by euphony — we cease to
wonder at the great variety and extent of vocal changes.
It is seen how in various ways any one letter almost, or
syllabic soimd, may paps into almost any other, and how the
same word, as traced through its phonetic changes, presents
an appeaiance in one language that neither the eye nor the
ear would recognize in another. To take one example that
may stand for an illustration of some of the most important
of such changes, who, by the sight or sound alone, or by
any outward marks, woiUd recognize the Latin dies in the
French jour, or the English tt'ar (teaghr, SaKpv) in the Latin
laCT, lacrima, or the English head in the Latin caput and
the Oxeek xe^aA^, though nothing can be more certain than
their relationship a/i ti-aced by the phonetic laws. The i-eal
wonder is that the changes in this department have not
been greater than they are found to be. It is the soul of
language, the unyielding rigidity of its form, that, by its
association, prevents the utter dissolution and mutation of
the material. Its conservatism, in this respect, is shown in
the case of languages that are merely spoken. It has its
most complete tdfect in those that have a written and print-
ed literature. — T. L.J

t [The arrangement, in the mind, of things to be named,
belongs to the foiination of language, as much as the nsim-
mg, if it may not rather be said to be the most important

in its precision and richness of epithet, in the pw
found presentation of moral and gesthetic di&)inctioD8|
—in tins respect ever in advance of the people who
used it — in the elements it contained for the expres-
sion of philosophic thought whenever its stores should
be required for that purpose, and, withall, in the
melodiousness, the flexibihty, and the exuberance of
its vocal forms. The Thucydidian Greek falls below
it in all these respects. Certainly it had not risen
above it. It is the tendency of language, when left
to itself, to dechne in the attributes mentioned. The
assertion may be hazarded that the evidence of thia
fact is exhibited in most modem tongues. More co
pious are they doubtless, better adapted to a quick
pohtical, social, or commercial intercourse, or to cer-
tain forms of civilization in which a greater commu-
nity of action, or of understood conventional pro-
ceedings, makes up for the want of pictorial and
dialectical clearness as inherent in the words them-
selves— ^but everywhere, in their old worn state, pre-
senting a lack of that vividness, that exquisite shad-
ing of ideas, that power of emotion, which aston*
ishes us in the early languages just mentioned. The
tendency, in fact, is towards Sinism, or a language
of loose arbitrary symbols, not away from it. A?
savagism is the dregs of a former higher civilization,
so Sinism is the remains of language, bearing evi-
dence of attrition and fracture ; and this, however
copious it may be, or however adapted it may be to
a mere worldly civilization, such as that in which the
Chinese have long been stationary, or slowly falling,
and to which a godless culture, with all its science,
is ever tending. There is in language accretion, ad-
dition, looseness, decay ; but we rarely find, if we
ever find, in any speech that has long been used,
what may be truly calffed growth in the sense of or-
ganic vigor, or inward structural harmony.* That
young and vigorous constitution which is discovered
in the earliest Arian and Shemitic speech, they must
have received in some way for which it is very diffi-
cult to account on any natural or ordinary grounds.

part of the naming itself. Things, thus regarded, may be
divided into three general classes: 1. Outward sensible
objects ; 2. actions, qualities, etc., as the ground of their
naming, and themselves, therefore, demanding an antece-
dent naming ; 3. mental acts and states, thoughts, think-
ings, emotions, etc., regarded as wholly spiritual. In r*;-
spect to the first, it may, indeed, be said that nature makes
the c^-essification, but the mind must recognize it, more or
less correctly, before it can give the names. The second liea
in both departments ; since acts {dolvgs, sufferings) must be
the soui"ce whence direct names are (nuwn for the first, and
figures, picturoB, or spiritual representatives, for the third,
as is shown in that large class of words that are said to have
secondary meanings, or abstract ideas denoted by something
material or sensible in the root. The third classification ia
wholly spiritual or within, though its namings are thus
drawn from without. We find all this work done for ua
when we are bom. The earliest languages have it as vivid-
ly as the latest, more vividly, we may say, if not carried to
so wide an extent in the classification of outward objects,
more profound, as analysis would show, in the distinctions
of moral and sesthetical ideas. "Whence came it? "Wo
must ascend to the very taproot of humanity to find an an-
swer, if we are not to set^k still farther in some d ivine teach-
ing or inspiration. The phenomena lie ever before us ;
their commonness should not diminish our wonder at the
mystery they present. — T. L,]

* [We may thank Q-od that some of the noblest (an-
guages (Greek, Hebrew, Sanscrit, Latin) died long ag-o, or
m their comparative youth. They have thus been em-
balmed, preserved from decay, made immortal, ever yoiui?,
— their expressive words and forms still remaining as a re«
serve store for the highest philosophical, theological, and
even scientific use. They are called " the dead languaeea ; "
but that which some would make an objection to what haa
lon^: and justly been deemed their place in oduo«tion, is thf
very ground of their excellence.— T. L.l

CHAP. XI. 10-32.

37S

Convention will not explain it, as Plato saw long ago
In the very dawn of philological inquiry ; onoma-
topic theories fail altogether to account for the first
words, to say nothing of grammatical forms ; devel-
opment is found to be mere cant, giving no real in-
sight into the mystery. If the originating processes
fall wholly within the sphere of the human, then
must we suppose some instinctive logic, some sure
intelligence working below consciousness, and some-
how belonging to the race, or races, rather than to
the individual. If this is difficult to conceive, or to
nnderstand, then there remains for us that which
hardly surpasses it in wonder, whilst it falls short of
it in mystery, namely, the idea of some ab extra
supernatural power once operating on the human
soul in its early youth — whether in the first cre-
ation, or in some subsequent early stages of re-
markable development, — and now comparatively
unknown.*

When we study language on the map, the diffi-
culty of any mere development theory bringing one
of these families from the other, or from a common
original stock, is greatly increased. Whiilst the Avi-
an and Shemitic present, in the main, certain geo-
graphical allotments tolerably distinct, this Hamitic
or Turanian conglomerate is found dispersed in the
most irregular manner. It is everywhere in spots
throughout the regions occupied by the more organic
famiUes ; sometimes in sporadic clusters, as in parts
of Western Asia, sometimes driven far off to the
confines as is the case with the Finnic and Lap lan-
guage, or, again, wedged into corners, like the Basque
language in Spain, lying between two branches of the
Arian, the Roman and the Celtic.

Had we found rocks lying in such strange ways,
it would at once have been said : no slow depositing,
no long attrition, no gradual elevation or depression,
has done all this. They ujay have exerted a modi-
fying influence ; but they are not alone sufficient to
account for what appears. Here has been some
eruptive or explosive force, some ab extra power,
whether from above or beneath, sudden and extraor-

* [It is not extravagant to suppose something^ like this
Btill lying at the groimd of that mysterious process which
we witness without wonder, because so common, — the rapid
acquisition of language by the iii^nt mind. It is not the
mere learning to speak the names of outward, sensible, in-
dividual things — there is nothing much more strange in
that than in teaching a parrot to talk, — but the quick seiz-
ing of those hidden relations of things, or rather of thought
about things (ideas of the soul's own with which it clothes
things), and which it afterwards tasks all our outward logic
to explain. How rapidly does this infant mind adapt words,
not merely to chairs and tables, but to the relational notions
of number, case, substance, attribute, qualifying degree,
subjective modality, time relative and absolute, time as
past, present, and ftiture, or time as continuous and event-
ual, knowing nothing indeed of these as technical names,
but grasping immediately the ideas, and seeing, with such
amazing quickness, the adaptability to them of certain
forms of expression, a mere termination, perhaps, or the
Caintest inilection, and that, too, with no outward imitative
indices from the sense, such as may aid in the learning of
the names of mere sensible objects. This indeed is wonder-
ful, however common it may be. We never do it but once.
All other acquisition of languages, in adult years, is by a
process of memory, comparison, and conscioiis reasoni ng —
En other words, a strictly scientific process, however certain
abbreviationa of it may be called the learning of a foreign
tongue by " the method of nature " and of infancy. Some-
thing in the race analogous to this process in the individual
iBfant soul, may be, not irrationally, supposed to have
eharacterized the earliest human history of language. The
bilure of every system of artificial language, though at-
tempted by the most philosophical minds, aided by the
iughest culture, shows that neither convention nor imitation
bad »a,Tlhin£: to do with its origin.— T. Ii.]

dinary in its effect, however generated in its causali
ity, and however we may style that causality, whethei
natural or supernatural, simply inexplicable, or di-
vine. Such eruptive forces are not confined to rockc
and strata, or to sudden changes in material organi
zation. They have place also in the spiritual world
in the movements of history, in the souls of men, it
remarkable changes and formations lof language.
There are spiritual phenomena, if the term may b«
used, for which we cannot otherwise easily account.
The evidence here of any such intervening power
may be less striking, because less startling to the
sawe, but to the calm and reverent recmon they may
be even more marked than anything analagous to
them in the outer world of matter. Great confusion
has arisen in our theological reasoning from confin-
ing this word miraculous solely to some supposed
breakage or deflection in the natural sphere.

To say the least, therefore, it is not irrational to
carry this view into the history of man regarded as
under the influence of supernatural, as well as natu-
ral, agencies. And thus here, as we contemplate the
remarkable position of the early languages of the
world, and especially of the three great families,
some force from without, sudden, eruptive, breaking
up a previous movement, extraordinary to say the
least, would be the causal idea suggested, even if the
Scripture had said nothing about it. A primitive
formation has been left comparatively but Uttle af-
fected ; all around it, east and west, are linguistic
appearances presenting the most striking coutrasta
to the first, and yet the most remarkable family like-
nesses to each other ; elsewhere, as a third class of
elements show, the eruptive or flooding force has
broken everything into fragments, and scattered them
far and wide. Philology caimot account for it ; but
when we study the tenth and eleventh of Genesis
in what they fairly imply as well as clearly express,
we have revealed to us an aucient causation adequate,
alone adequate, we may say, to the singular effect
produced. The language of the account is general,
as in other parts of Scripture where a mighty change
is to be described, universal in its direct and collat-
eral historical effect, without requiring us to main-
tain an absolute universality in the incipient move-
ment. Prom some such general terms in the com-
mencement of chapter xi. it might seem, indeed, as
though every man of the human race was in this
plane of Shinar, and directly engaged in the impious
imdertaking described. Taking, however, the two
chapters together — and it is too much to say, as
most commentators do, in the very face of the ar-
rangement, that the eleventh chapter is wholly prior
to the tenth — we must conclude that one line, at
least, of the sons of Shem, that of Arphaxad, the
ancestor of the Chaldseans, and of Eber, the more
direct progenitor of the Hebrews, remained in the
upper country of the Euphrates. It is fairly to be
inferred, too, that the Joktan migration to Arabia
had commenced, carrying with it the Shemitic ele-
ment of speech to modify or transform the Cushite,
whether introduced before or after it. Some of the
sons of Japheth may have already set off, west and
east, in their long wanderings (to Greece and India
perhaps), whilst Sidon, a descendant of Ham, had
even at this early day, founded a maritime settle
ment, and ventured upon the seas. It is not easy to
understand why the narration of the tenth chapter
should have had its place before that of the eleventh,
unless a portion, at least, of the movements ther«
recorded, had been antecedent in time. It is com

576

GEITESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

monly said that the tenth is anticipatory in respect
to what follows, but this is not altogether satisfac-
tory. As the story of the greater scattering comes
after the ethnological divisions in the order of nar-
ration, it may be consistently maintained that it was
subsequent to some of them, at least, in the order
of time, whilst the seeming universaUty of the lan-
guage may be explained on the ground of the mag-
nitude of the later event, and its world-wide effect in
the human history. A close examination, however,
shows that, even in the diction, this universality is
not so strict as some interpretations would make it.
After these earlier departures, as we may supply from
chapter x., it proceeds to say, " the whole earth (land
country) was (yet) of one language and one speech."
It had not been broken up, though it may have be-
gun to be affected by causes which would naturally
produce changes of dialect. " And in their journey-
ing," or " as they journeyed onward (Dlpis), they
found a plain in the land of Slrinar." '' As they
journeyed," that is, as men journeyed onward, or
migrated more and more. Who or how many they
were is not said, and these indefinite pronouns give
us no right to say that every man of the human race,
all of Noaehian kind, were in this plain of Shinar.
There is the strongest proof to the contrary. We
cannot beliuve that Noah was there, although he
lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood,
or that Shem was there, who lived one hundred and
fifty years later, and even in the days of Abraham.
The idea is abhorrent that one so highly blessed of
God, and in " whose tents " God had promised " to
dwell " — Shem, the Name, the preserver of the holy
speech, and the direct antithesis of that false " name "
which these bold rebels sought to make unto them-
selves— should have had any participation, even by
his presence, in so unholy a proceeding. As little
can we believe it of any of the line from which came
Abraham, or even of their not remote cortaanyuinei,
the Joktanite Arabians. The same feehng arises
when we think of the pious fathers of Melchizedek,
king of Salem, king of righteousness, and who had
consecrated him a priest to El Elion, that Most High
God of the Heavens (see Gen. xiv. 18), who is here so
blasphemously defied.* Who were they, then, that
composed this strange assemblage on the plain of
Shinar? A vast multitude doubtless, a majority of
Noah's descendants perhaps, yet still, as is most
likely, a colluvies gentium, a gathering of the bad,
the bold, the adventurous, from every family, but
with the Hamitic character decidedly predominant.!
Nimrodian, perhaps, might they be called with more
propriety, if we take the constant Jewish tradition
that Nimrod was their leader in rebellion. The no-
bler sons of Ham are to be distinguished from these

* [Thud RasVii interprets their nDil , " Go to, now let ns
climb the firmament and make war upon the most High."
Melchiaedek and his forefathers were, in all probability,
Oanaanites. There might by piety and faith even among
theae, as is instanced, afterwards, and in a time of still great-
er corruption, in the case of Rahah, who was a direct ances-
tress of our Lord 1 "What Paul says (Heb. vii. 3) of Mel-
chizedek'a being an-iiTajp and d/A^Twp, " without father and
Without mother," is not intended to deny his having any
earthly lineage.— T.L.]

* [The opinion that the men in the plain of Shinar were
not the wholo human race, but predominantly Hamites,
or followers uf Nimrod, is maintained by Augustine, and,
Among modern authorities, by Luther and Calvin. Ser also
the account of Jobkphos ("Ant." 1. 4), who makes Nim-
rod the great leader ol' the wholo rebellious movement. —
T. L.5

Babylonian Hamites. The founder of the Egyptian
monarchy, and, perhaps, the Arabian Cushites, had
in all probability gone to their respective settlements.
The very name, Nimrod, shows a difference between
them. It is not the name of a country, or of a fam-
ily of descendants, like the others mentioned Gen. i.
8 ; a fact of which Maimonides takes notice (see
marg. note, p. 349) when he calls attention to the
manner in which Nimrod is mentioned irregularly, at
it were, or out of the fine, after the other sons of
Gush had been disposed of. He was not, like them,
a " father of a people," a patriarch, or ancestor, but
a bold adventurer, a "mighty hunter of men before
the Lord," or in defiance of the Lord, who gathered
together, out of every people, those who were like
himself, not to settle the world, but to prevent its
peaceful settlement by engaging in bold and reckless
enterprises of an opposite nature. He may be said
to have represented the empire founding, instead of
the planting or colonizing, tendency. He was the
postdiluvian Cain, and there would seem to be a sig-
nificance not to be disregarded in the fact that here
there is given to this rebelUous multitude that same
name, cTNn ^i3 , " sons of men," which, in its fem-
inine form, is used Gen. vi. 4 (DTSil m33) to denote
the godless in distinction from the more pious. The
line here indicated, between the sons of God and the
" sons of men," was less distinct, perhaps, than that
which was drawn between the Sethites and the Cain
ites, yet it still existed to some extent, making a di-
vision between the better branches of the Shemites,
with some from both the other lines, and this vast
rabble of the sensual and ungodly. The grammat
ical form of the name Nimrod (which is very unusna
for such a purpose) shows that it had a popular, in-
stead of a family, origin. It is the first person plural
future jussive, Ticj , " come let us rebel." It wap
the watchword of the impious leader, afterwardf
given to him as a title by his applauding followers .
" Let us break Jehovah's bands, let us cast his cords
from us," let us build a tower that shall reach Him
in the Heavens.*

On this impious host of Nimroii, predominantly,
although not solely, Hamitic, fell etpeeially the scat-
tering and confounding blow, like the bolts froBP
heaven aimed at the rebellious Titans ; and hencn
this rabble of tongues called Hamitic or Turanian,
or these allophylic conglomerates which philologists
find so remarkable as compared with the enduring
unity of the Shemitic, and the diversified, yet unmis-
takable Arian relationship. These two were, doubt-
less, affected by the shock ; one of them may have
had much of its subsequent modification, if not its
origin, from it; but on the Hamitic host fell tiif

* [^It was a thought exceedingly wicked, yet having in
it a kind of terrific sublimity. Neither could the idea of
reaching the heavens, or sky, be called irrational, or abaurd,
however unscientific. They reasoned inducti\ ely, Baconian-
ly, we may say, from sense and observation. Their limited
experience was not against it. It showed a vast ambition.
It was not an undertaking of savages, but of men possessed
with the idea of somehow getting above nature, and having
much of that spirit which, even at the present day, cliarac
terizes some Kinds of scientific boasting (see remarks, p.
355). It was not the success merely ol the undertaking
(from wnich we are yet as far as ever), but the impioua
thought, that God meant to confound, and to strike down,
whenever it arose in the minds of men. History is full of
overthrown Babels ; and it is still to he tested whether om
excessive modern boasting about what is going to be fcchiev*
ed by science, progress, and democi-acy, vnXl Ibi-m an 3Z0«p
tive case. — T. L.J

CHAP, XI. 10-32.

371

itone that ground them to powder. *'For there*
Jehovah corfounded the language of all the earth"
{land or country). This Nimrodian Babel of tongues
wrought more or less of confusion everywhere, mak-
'iDg the universality in the effect rather than in the
immediate causality — a view perfectly consistent with
the soberest interpretation of the artless language of
Holy Scripture.

The causative influence, we may believe, waa
primarily a spiritual one. It was a confounding not
only of their purposes (nb ninttinia, Gen. vi. 5) —
thus introducing confusion, madness,! ^^^ discord,
into their camp — but also of their ordinary thinkings
and conceivings, rwv ivbvfj.T}aeo}if Ka\ ivyoicov KapSi'as,
Heb. iv. 12, "reaching to the dividing line of soul
andspirit" ^vx^is re koI Tri'€ (J^aros, holding back the
divine gift of reason, and thus introducing disorder
into the sense and the utterance through a prior con-
fusion in the spirit. It deranged their word-forma-
tions by a previous derangement of their thoughts.

The difficulty attending the mere outer view,
here, arises from a fundamental error which may be
found even in acute treatises of philology. Words
do not represent things, as outer existences merely,
according to the common notion, but rather what we
think about things. They are in truth symbols of our
own inner world as affected by the outer world of
things around us. They translate to us our own
thoughts as well as help us to make them known to
others. The animal has no such inner world, and
therefore it is that he cannot use speech to represent
it to himself or to other animals. This would be

* [D'J "^3; for there. It may denote fact or circutn-
stance as well as place. For there — ^in that event, or in tliat
confusion. Compare Ps. cxxxiii. 3, where tliis particle,
DttJ , is used in just the same way to denote the opposite
condition of trotherly love, and the opposite effect :
nilT* tl^'H Diy ''^ , "for there Jehovah commanded the
blessLQg, even life forever more; "not in "Mount Her-
mon," or "the mountains of ZioD," merely, but as belong-
ing to this holy affection of brotherly love. Compare 1 John
iii. 14.-T. L.]

t [For a notable example of this, see 2 Chron. xx. 23,
where the hosts of Ammon, of Moab, and of Mount Seir,
who rose up against Jehoshaphat, are suddenly turned
against each other. Profane history records such events as
taking place, now and then, in great armies ; cases of sud-
den and irretrievable confusion, giving rise to hostility as
well as flight. They are called panics, whether the term
means simply universal disorder, or what was sometimes
called "the wrath of Pan" (TLavhs opy^, see Euhip. "Me-
dea," 1169), bringing madness upon an individual or a mul-
titude; it denotes something inexplicable, even if we refuse
to call it supernatural. See Polt^ktjs : De Strateg., ch. 1 ;
also a very striking passage in the "Odyssey," xx. 346,
which shows, at all events, the common belief m such sud-
den madness falling upon multitudes of men, whatever may
De the explanation of it :

fXVTiaT^pcrt Se lEoAAas 'AOiqirrf
Sff^trrov yiXia S)p<re Trapi7rKay$€V 8e v6rifi.a.

Among the suitors Pallas roused
"Wild laughter irrepressible, and made
Their mind to wander fax.

Even where there is nothing startling to the sense, how
many examples are there — they can be cited even from very
modern times— where the minds of assemblies, composed
Bometimes of those who claim to be most shrewd and intel-
ligent, seena strangely confounded, and, without reason, and
against all apparent motive, they do the very thing which
isthe destruction of all their schemea They seem seized
with a sudden fatuity, and act in a manner which is after-
wards unaccountable to themselves. We may explain it as
we will; but so strong is the conviction of an ab extra
power somehow operating in such cases, that it has passed
mto one of the most common of proverbs, quos Dens vuU
perdere prius dementai — "those whom God would destroy,
he first makes mad."— T. L.]

readily admitted in respect to words representatirs
of thought alone ; but it is true also of that larga
class that seem to stand directly for outward sensibU
things per se. Here, too, the word called the nam*
represents only remotely the thing named, but nearl'V
and primarily, some thinking, conceiving, or emotion,
in our souls, connected with the thing, and ^ving
rise to its name.* As proper names are last of al][

* [The first thing denoted in outward language must
have been something purely inward ; a conscious state of
soul, a thought or an emotion, which demanded an outward
sign in some articulated sound representing it, not arbitra-
rily, nor accidentally, but by a conscious fitness for it, such
as other sounds do not possess, and of which there can no
more be given an explanation than of the correspondence
between a thought, or an emotion, and an outward look. It
is as real, and, at the same time, aa inexplicable, as the har-
mony which is felt to have place between a feeling, or an
idea, and a musical modulation. From the primary root-9
representing these most interior states, and which must be
comparatively few in number, comes the next order of
names, namely, those of qualities and actions of outward
things regarded as afiecting us. From these, in the third
place, come the names of outward things themselves, aa
having such qualities or actions, and as denoted by them.
Later, indeed, though still very early, there arise meta-
phorical words, or words derived from the second and third
classes, with secondary tropical senses intended to represent
mental states as pictured m some outward thing, scene, oi
act ; but these do not belong to the prime elements of speech,
which must begin with radical sounds supposed to represent
something inward by a real or imagined fitness. That there
is some such primary fitness seems to be assumed by some
of the best philological writers, as by Kaulon in his Sprach^
verwirrung, and William Von Humboldt, in his work on the
Ka-wi language, although they are unable to explain it.
it is not likely that philology will ever penetrate the mys-
tery. The gi-eat argument, however, for the reality of such
a correspondence between articulated sound and thought,
is, that, on the reverse theory, language is arbitrary
throughout, which we cannot believe it to be. The denial
brings more difficulty than the assumption, however inex-
plicable the latter may be.

On this deeper psychology of language we have a hint,
it may be reverently said, in what is told us, 1 Cor. xiv.,
concerning the mysterious "gift of tongues." It teaches ua
an important fact, though revealing nothing of its nature
or mode. Although miraculous, it must be founded on
something in the essential human spiritual constitution.
There was a real language here. It is a profane trifling
with a most sacred matter to treat it as a mere thaumaturgio
babble, designed only to astonish or confound the unbeliev-
ing beholders. It was the true outward expression of an
elevated inward state. The words uttered muf-t have been
not only articulate (that is, formed of vowels and conso-
nants) hut truly representative. They were none of them
ai^wj'ot (ver. 10), or mere 4>9oyyoi, sounds, or noises. They
had a real fiuVa/Aiy -njs ^to!-^^ (ver. 11), a true " power of
voice," and this could he nothing else than an inherent fit-
ness in the utterance to represent the entranced state, not
generally, merely, but in its diversities of ecstatic idea or
emotion. They were not understood by the hearers, be-
cause, in their ordinai-y state, there was nothing within
them corresponding to it. Even the utterers could not
translate it into the common logical language of the vous
(ver. 14), or understanding. They were spoken ev TrvevfiaTi^
in the spirit, and only in the spirit could they he under-
stood, like the words that Paul heard in his entranced state,
" whether in the body, or out of the body, he could not
telL" Paul certainly does not mean to deny, or disparagej
the greatness of the spiritual gift in what he says, ver. 19^
but only to set forth the greater outward usefulness of tho
prophetic charisma. " 1 thank God," he says (ver. 18) " 1
speak with tongues more than you all." He was often in
the state that demanded this language to express itself to
itself. In respect to the connection of this peculiar case
with the eeneral argument, the analogy holds thus far,
namely, that these ecstatic utterances were real represents^
tive words. They represented an inward spiritual state of
thought, or emotion, or both, from a real inherent fitness ta
do 60. We may, therefore, rationally conclude that a simi-
lar correspondence between words and ideas was at the be-
ginning of all human speech. Had man remained spirit lal,
this connection would have continued as something inlui-
tively perceived, and leading ever to a right application of
ariiculate sounds to the things or acts signified, as, jt seema
to have giuded the first humanity in the naming offimimalj
from some spiritual eff'ect their appearance producicd^ Thii
primitive gift or faculty of intuition became darkened by

378

GENESIS, OR THE FTRf/T BOOK OF MOSES.

BO these names of outward objects must h.ive come
after words denoting action or quality, and from
which their own naming, unless supposed to be purely
arbitrary, could alone have been derived. Originally
they must have been all descriptive, that is, they had
a meaning beyond their mere sign significance. In
proportion as such primary meanings have faded out
in modem languages, have words lost vividness and
emotive power, though still remaining as a convenient
classifying notation. Thus in early speech tke names
of animals, for example, were all descriptive. We
find it so even now, as far as we can trace them in
the significance of their roots. They invariably de-
note something which the animal does^ or suffers, or
is, or is supposed to do, to suffer, or to be — thus
ever implying some judgment of the human mind
respecting it ; and this corresponds to what is said
in the Scripture of the animals being brought before
Adam to see (n^S*b for Adam to see, judge, decide)
what name should be given to each one. This name
is ever taken from something more general, and the
name of that from something more general still, and
*^o back from the concrete to the more and more ab-
stract, until we are lost in the mystery, and compelled
to admit that there is something in ourselves, and in
language, which it is not easy to understand. We
may be sure, however, that in all these primary names
of animals there was something descriptive, though
in many it may have been long lost. In some cases
;t still shines dimly through the wear of time and
usage, enabling us to infer it universally. Thus bird,
we may be certain, means something more than bird,
and doff than dog, even b.s fowl, fugel, vogel, still car-
ries with it some faint image oi flying, and chien,
hund, KviDv, canis {cano, canorus, ns'^p), suggests
the clear, ringing, houndlike sound that denoted the
animal in the earliest Arian speech.* Connected
with this there is another thought that has impor-
tance here. The first impression is that nouns, or
the names of things, must be older in language than
verbs. Examination, however, shows just the con-
trary as a fact, and then we see that it must be so,
if names are not arbitrary, but ever imply some ac-
tion or quality of the thing, and so an antecedent
naming of that action or passion. But not to pur-
sue this farther, it is enough to show that the spring

sin, sensuality, and eartlilmesa tuminK the mind outward,
and thus tendinp:, more and more, to make words mere ar-
bitrary signs. "With all this, there is evidence that in the
eaiiiest speech of men there was more of vividness, more
of a conBcious living connection between words and that
which they signified, than afterwards existed when lan-
guages became more copious and more mixed. In this way
may we suppose that the early roote, though comparatively
few in number, had more of a self-interpreting power, and
that, in proportion as this continued, there was the greater
security against the changes and diversities which a lower
spu-itual state must necessarily bring into language. A
total loss of it among this rebellious Hamitic host may have
led to a more rapid confounding of words and forms, and,
of consequence, a greater ruin of language than ever came
from any other event in human history. There are exam-

•ies enough to aiiow how soon the best language becomes a
jargon in a community of very bad men, such eis thieves
and evil adventurers. Here was a similar case, as we may
eonceive it, only on a vast iy larger scale. — T. L.]

* [The name given to an animal could never, of course,
be a lull description. It is the selection of some predomi-
naat trait, action, or habit, as the distinguishing or naming
feature. This may vary among different people. In one
tongrue the same animal may be denoted by his color, if it
has something peculiar, m another by his manner of move-
ment^ in another by a bun'owing property, or by his method
of seizing his prey. These different conceivings may give
rise tfi different names; and yet if the actions so repre-
lented by these names have the same or similar verbal roots

hey may be indicative of a remoter unity.— T. L.]

of language is in the thought, the conceiving, th«
aflfectioD^ as the source of names for things, and foi
the relations of things. Confusion here is confutioM
throughout, and this would be much more operal'iTf
in a multitude thus affected than in an individual
Break up the community of thought and the com-
munity of language is broken up, or begins to break
up along with it. It affects not only the matter but
the form, the soul, the grammatical structure.* Go-
ing still deeper, it changes tne mode of lexical deri-
vation, or the process through which secondary senses
(as they exist in almost all abstract words) come from
the primary — the inward etymologies, as they may
be called, which are of more importance in determin-
ing the afl&nities of languages than the outward pho-
netic etymologies on which some philologists almost
exclusively insist, and which are so easily lost — all
the more easily and rapidly when the more spiritual
bonds are loosed. So, on the other hand, the main
taining secure against mutation the higher ideas that
dwell in a language, especially its religious ideas, is
most conservative both of its matter and form. Thus
may we account, in some degree, for the way In
which the Shemitic endured the shock that left all
around it those masses of friigments which philolo-
gists call the Hamitic or Turanian. The f?reat name
of God was in it in fulfilment of the promise. Those
other remarkable appellations of Deity, El, Allah,
Eloah, Elohim, Adonai, El Shaddai, El Elion, El
01am, TravTOKpdrwp, v\l/icnos, aitvi'ios, have been to it
like a rock of ages, giving security to its other re-
ligious ideas, whilst these again have entered exten-

* [If our modes of conceiving individual sensible objects
have such an effect upon language, much more important, in
this respect, are the more abstract conceptions, snch as those
of time, relative or absolute. The conserving power thus
arising may receive an illustration from the scanty, yet most
tenacious, Shemitic tenses, as compared with the Greek.
In the Tlebrew, time is conceived of as reckoned from a
moving ^present, making all that comes after it, future, al-
though it may be past to the absolute present of the narra-
tor or describer, and all before it, past. It need not be said
how much more of a subjective character this imparts to
the language, especially in its poetry. It has had, besides,
the effect of giving a peculiar form to the two tenses, and
of making these, deficient as they may seem in number, de-
note all the varieties of time th;\t are expressed in other
languages, but in a more graphic manner. Whilst dispens-
ing with an absolute present form, which would make it
fixed and rigid, It has a flowing presence which may become
absolute whenever the narration or description demands it.
In the Indo-Germanic tongues, on the other hand, there is
a fixed present and a fixed form for it, which will not allow
a departure from the absolute time, except as sometimes
implied in the assumption of a poetical style. Hence a
much greater number of tense forms are demanded, not
only for the past, present, and future, simply, but for a past
and futuie to the past and futui-e respectively, besides an
indefinite or aorist form. Thus there is a wide machinery
performing these offices— accurately, indeed, though with
little more precision than is found in the Shemitic— whilst
there is a loss of piotorial and dramatic power. There is no
time, relative or absolute, denoted by the Greek tense fonns,
that may not, in some way, be expressed in the Arabic;
whilst the manner in which! the latter shifts its present, aa
we may say, by hanging it on a particle, or making it de-
pend upon its place before or after, gives a greater vividness
of narration. It is astonishing how such scantiness of mode
and tense escapes confusion and ambiguity ; and yet there
is a comparative test of this which is conclusive. The
Arabic is written and read without anything lUie capital
letters or italics, without any grammatical or logical punc-
tuation, of any kind, making any division of paragraphs,
sentences, or clauses. From the beginning of a book to the
end, there are none of these helps to relieve deficiencies of
expression, whether the result of carelessness, or comini
from unavoidable looseness in the language. In English
this could not be done. "Without such outward helps, thfl
most accurate writer, take he ever so much pains, would b<
full of grammatical constructions that might be taken il
different waytt, and not a lew unsolrable logical am[ile;u>
ties.— T. li.i

CHAP. XI. 10-82.

37j

(ivel; into its proper names, its common nouns and
verba, conserving it against the corruption and de-
generacy of those who spoke it, and giving even to
its Arabic and Syriac branches a holy and rehgious
aspect beyond anything presented in any ancient or
modern tongue. Well and worthily have the Jewish
Rabbis called it lUmpn -jlfflb , the holy tongue.
Truly it is so, whether we regard it as the original
Noachian speech, or something later preserved entire
from the wreck of the Babel confusion.*

How this extraordinary breaking up of language
took place we may not easily know, though main-
taining its possibility, and its strong probability, as a
fact, aside from the express Scriptural declaration.
There is no department of human inquiry in which
we so soon come to the mysterious and inexplicable
BS in that of language. Some have maintained its
onomatopic origin, as has been lately done in a very
clear and able treatise by Prof. Whitney. If this,
liowever, is confined to vocal resemblances in the
names of sounds themselves, it accounts for only an
exceedingly small number of words ; if carried far-
ther, to supposed analogies between the names of
certain acts, or efforts, and the effort of tlie organs
in pronouncing them, it takes in a very few more ;
beyond this it would be that idea of some inherent
fitness in sounds which has been already considered
in the note, p. 377, and to which the name onoma-
topic may be given in its widest sense ; though then,
instead of being the easiest, it would be the least
explicable of all. So the philologist may endeavor
to find the beginning of speech, especially in the
names of animals, in the imitation of animal sounds ;
or he may absurdly trace it to a conventional nam-
ing, overlooking the truth that for the initiation of
such a proceeding language itself is required — or he
may deduce it from accident, or, give him time enough
— and a past eternity is very long — he may fancy it
coming out of inarticulate or merely Lnterjectional
sounds, making its random "natural selections,"
until, after ages of chaos, a light inexplicable begins
to gleam, an intelligence somehow enters into the
process, and thus, at last, language comes into form,
as a vehicle of rational, that is, of logical \ thought.
But for human minds, K6yoi, speech, and logos, reason,

* [This is on the supposition that the Shemitic (for any
difference here between the earliest Hebrew, Arabic, and
3yriac, is of little consequence) was the primitive Noachian
epeech that came out of the ark. The best argument for it
ia that there is no good argument to the contrary. If no
other has any better claim on inward philological grounds,
the Bible history greatly fevors the idea, to say the legist,
that this language of the ark continued the purest in the
line of Shem. Kanlen, however, in his Sprachvermirrung
*u Bab&l, presents a philological argument that certainly
seems to have weight, though, in itself, it may not be deemed
conclusive. He insists upon the fact that throughout tllis
family, the most important modifications of the verbal idea
are mJtde by vowel changes in the root itself, and not merely
by additions more or less loosely made to a fixed root, grow-
ing: only by agglutination. Thus from one root, k-t-l (as
written without vowels), we have katal, katel, kotel, katol,
* Vatul, kiltel, kattel, kuttal, ktal, ktel, klot, etc., all presenting
iistinct though varying ideas. The modification of the idea
IS in the root, not atta^jhed to it, as in the Indo-Germanic
languages, by a modal or tense letter or syllable, taken
from somethuig without. The author connects this with a
riew he maintains, that the vowels, as distinct from the
oonsonauts, represent the more spiritual element in lan-
n age. For the argument in its detail the reader is refeiTCd
ID the very able work above named, p. 73.— T. L.]

t [See the distinction that Plato makes in the Dialogue
de Zegibus, 5. 895, D, between the lldng, its spiritual word
01 Aoyof (which is, in fact, the reason of the thing, or that
wbich makes it what it is for the mind, its constituting idea),
nd the oi'o^a, the vocal name representative of the spirit-
»il word itself.—!. L.]

are one ; and the seiious thinker, *ho cannot sepa
rate them, takes but a few steps in this mysterioul
search before he is forced, either to acknowledgj
something superhuman, or to admit that in the birth
and growth of language, the instrument of all rea^
soning, there must be some strange generic intelli-
gence, if such a thing can be conceived, that wa
utterly fail to discover in the individual logic. In
other words, men as a race, or races, do what the
individual singly never does, something of which h3
is wholly unconscious, and which he cannot under-
stand. The thought of divine intervention is ths
less strange ; it presents the less difficulty, and is,
therefore, the more rational. We are not to be un-
necessarily introducing a, divine agency into the
world's drama, but here, surely, it is a nodus vindici
dignus, a knot which a divine intelligence can alone
unbind. There is not in all nature anything like
that spiritual mystery which meets us on the very
threshold of an inquiry into the origin and develop-
ment of human speech.

Leaving these more abstruse regions, and de-
scending again to the clearer field of inductive obser-
vation, there still meet us those geographical difficul-
ties to which some attention has already been given
as inexplicable on any theory of gradual or mutual
development. Allusion was before made to the
appearances presented by those broken allophylio
tongues to which has been given the common name
Turanian — showing themselves among the other
families, sometimes in contiguous beds, and then
again as lying far away and far apart in space, even
as they indicate a remote location in time. In such
cases everything indicates the sudden projection of
an early people, and of an early speech, entire. Suc-
ceeding waves of migration have pressed upon their
shores, but changed no feature of their language.
That seems to have had its form fixed in the begin-
ning, and to defy mutation. Its isolated state,
though surrounded by hostile elements, has only ren-
dered it more unyielding in this respect. It will
perish rather than change into anything else. There
may be pointed out another geographical anomaly
on a larger scale, and only explicable, too, on the
ground of some early intervention to change the
course' of what might otherwise have been the ordi-
nary historical development. A little less than a
century ago, the learned began to perceive a striking
resemblance between the Greek and the ancient lan-
guage of India ; a resemblance both in matter and
form. They are both of the Arian or Indo-Ger-
manic family, and yet we have no right to say that
one has been derived from the other. From a period
transcending all history they have been widely part-
ed, territorially, from each other. They stood in the
days of Alexander as distinctly separate as at any
time before or after. In all the antecedent period
there is no record or tradition of any colonizing on
either side, of any military expedition of any com-
mercial or literary intercourse, that could have pro-
duced any assimilating effect. All this time, and
for long after, there lay directly between them a
territory and a people, or peoples, having nothing,
socially or politically, in common with either, and
speaking a language, of all others, the most directly
foreign to both, or to any common language of which
they both could be considered as branches. From
Southern Arabia to Northern Syria, or the head
waters of the Euphrates nearly, there was the con-
tinuous strip of the Shemitic, unbroken and unaf
fected during all that time. This, as has before beei

380

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

remarked, was, and is, the most tenacious and en-
during of all linguistic families. It is still a wide
living speech, although Greek and Sanscrit have
both died, and been embalmed in their common and
sacred literature, and although this partiug language,
until comparatively modem times, had no liteiature
except the scanty and most secluded Biblical writ-
ings. A branch of the Shemitic, if we may not
rather call it the Shemitic itself, continuous and un-
changed, is still living, strong and copious. Not-
withstanding the addition of many new words, and
many new senses that have attached themselves to
the old, the Bedouin still talks in a manner that
wo'jld have been recognized as familiar in the days
of Abraham. Could we suppose the patriarch now
listening to it, he would hear some strange words
mingled with the great body of its earliest roots, and.
some few later forms, but in its pronouns, its prepo-
sitions, its tenses, its conjugations, its logical and
rhetorical particles, in the nerves and sinews as well
as in the bones of the language, it would strike him
as substantially the same kind of talk that had
passed between him and his sons Isaac and Ishmael.*
This most enduring ancient speech has suffered no-
thing that could be called development from any-
thing on either side of it ; end there has been no
development across it from one parted shore to the
other. Such theories as that of Bunsen, by which
he gets Ehamism out of Sinism, and Semism out of
Khamism, and so on, would never explain this. The
difficulty clears up somewhat if we bring in the ex-
traordinary, and suppose some early supernatural
cleaving and transformation, leaving one primitive
type standing in its place, another, greatly changed,
to b<3 carried east and west by one people suddenly
parted, and meeting again historically after ages of
separation, whilst another type, broken into frag-

* [This would especially be the case in respect to sub-
jects falling into the Scriptural or KoraBic style. In Reck-
endorf's Hebrew translation of the Koran (Leip., 1857),
there are, sometimes, whole verses in which the Arabic and
Hebrew are almost wholly identical, both in the roots and
in the forms.— T.L.l

ments, is dispersed far and wide to remote portionj
of the earth. This may be called cutting or break-
ing the knot, rather than untying, but even if th(
Bible had been silent, it is better than any hypothe-
sis called natural, yet found to be wholly inadequate
to explain the extraordinary phenomena to which it
is applied. It is true, give a theorist time enough,
and hypothetical conditions enough, and he maj
seem to develop almost anything out of anythina
else. Grant him enough of " natural selections,
and he may show us how to make worlds and lan-
guages by producing, at last, seeming congruities,
falMng into place after infinite incongruities. But
then, such a method of proceeding, supposed to be
inherent in the nature of things, caimot stop (if it
goes right on without cycles) until it has abohshed
all things seemingly incongruous or extraordinary,
and introduced a perfect level of congruity every-
where, in the physical, social, and philological
world. Only take time enough, or rather suppose,
as some do, a past eternity of such working, and the
only conceivable result is a perfect sameness ; aU
disorders must long since have been gone, all species
must have become one, and that the highest or the
lowest, all languages must have become one, and that
the best or the poorest — something rising in its
linguistic architecture far above the Greek and San-
scrit, or sinking in its looseness below anything called
Turanian or Siuitic. The extraordinary, now and
then, would be not only the easier conception, but
an actual relief from the weariness of such a physi-
cal monotony.

But we have a more sure word of testimony.
The great Bible-fact for the believer is, that, in order
to prevent a very evil development of humanity, at
a very early day, God interfered with men and con-
founded their language. There is nothing irrational
in this if we believe in a God at all. The manner
of doing it is not told us. What is said in Gen. xi.
may not wholly explain the linguistic phenomena so
early presented, and even now so remarkable ; but
it may be safely aflirmed that far greater difiiculties
oppose themselves to any other sdution that h&i
been, or may yet be offered. — T. L.]

CHAP. Xn. 1-20. 38 i

SECOND PERIOD.

The Genesis of the patriarchal faith in the promise and of the covenant religion j
of the antagonistic relation, between the faith in the promise and heathenism;
of the harmonious oppositions between the patriarchs and the human civiliza-
tion of the heathen world. Patriarchal religion and patriarchal customs. —
Ch. XII. 1. -XXX VI. 43.

A.

ABRAHAM, THE FRIEND OP GOD, AND HIS ACTS OF FAITH. Ch. XH. 1.-5XV. 10.

FIRST SECTION.

Th4 call of Abram. The emigration to Canaan. The first promise of God. His companionship witk

Lot, The first manifestation of God in Canaan, and the first homeless alienage in

the land of promise. Abram in Egypt and Pharaoh.

Chapter Xn. 1-20.

1 Now the Lord had said [rather, said] to Abram, Get thee [for thyself, T^b J out of thy
country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will

2 show thee [through a revelation]. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bles3

3 thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing : And I will bless them
that bless thee, and cur.se him that curseth thee : and in thee shall all families of the

4 earth be blessed [not hleas themselves, which is expressed by the use of the Hithpael, ch. xxii. isl. So

Abram departed [went forth] as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him :

5 and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And
Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance [gains]
that they had gathered, and the souls [ail the hving] that they had gotten in Haran ; and
they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came.

6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem [shoulder, ridge oi
water-shed] unto the plain [grove] of Moreh [teacher, owner]. And [Although] the Canaanite

1 was then [already] in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, Unto
thy seed will I give this land ; and there builded he an altar unto the Lord who

8 appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of
Bethel [house of God] and pitched his tent, having Bethel [nowBeitin] on the west [seawards],
and Hai [heaps] on the east; and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called

9 upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed, going on still [gradually further and

10 further] toward the south. And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went

11 down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land. And it
came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his
wife, Behold now I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon [or of fair appearance] ;

12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say,
.3 This is his wife : and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray

thee, thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake ; and my soul shall
live because of thee.

382

GENESIS, OE THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

14 And it came to pass, that -when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians

15 beheld the woman that she was very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and
commended her before Pharaoh [Purst, 5"ibJ : and the woman was taken into Pharaoh'a

16 house. And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep [smaU cattle] and
oxen, and he-aases, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses and camels.

17 And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house because of Sarai, Abram's wife.

18 And Pharaoh called Abram and said. What is this that thou hast done unto me 1

19 Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Whysaidst thou, She is my sister!
so I might have taken her to me to wife; now, therefore, behold thy wife, take hei

20 and go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him : and they sent
him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

GENERAL PRELIMINAET QUESTIONS.

1. The age and state of the world at the patriarch-
al period. A multitude of nations who were to share
in the salvation, through the faith of Abram, were
not yet born into the world, especially the Roman
and English people. The Germanic tribes lay still
in the bosom of the Scythian nomadic life. A ihou-
saud years must roll away before the development of
the Greek life, and a much longer period before the
historical appearance of Rome. The foundation of
the patriarchal family, out of whose fuller develop-
ment into the twelve tribes the Jewish people sprang,
begins with Abram. Patriarchalism appears still as
the fundamental form under which the popular life
exists and works. But out of this constitution a
multitude of small kingdoms have grown up in
Canaan and Syria. The first feeble attempt at
founding a grand world-monarchy was made by
Nimrod at Baliel and Nineveh. In Egypt the king-
dom of the Pharaohs already existed. The forma-
tion of national divisions began with the migrations
of the people, and to these we may probably trace
the rise of castes. The mechanical resemblance of
the kingdom of heaven in the dynasty Hia in China
appears to have been complete in its outline and
characteristic features, before the definite foundation
of the organic and living kingdom of heaven was
begun in Abram.

2. The Biblework will treat more fully of the
land of Canaan in the division, " Book of Joshua."
We refer in passing to the Bible-dictionaries, the
geographies, and journals of travellers. See also
Zahn : " The Kingdom of God," i. p. 105. In this
section we notice especially Sichem, Bethel, Ai, and
the central part of Palestine ; the Soidh, especially
the vicinity of Hebron. Sichem (now Nablous)
lying between Gerizim and Ebal, about eighteen
hours from Jerusalem and sixteen from Nazareth,
marks the northern principal residence of the patri-
archs. Hebron (also Kirjath-Arba, from the giant
Arba, now El Kalil, i. c, friend, beloved, in honor
of Abram), south eily about eight hours from Jeru-
salem, a very old city, the city of Abram and David,
lying in a blooming and beautiful region, was their
pujncipal dwelling-place in the south. Their cen-
tral residence is the region of Bethel (the name is
hei"; anticipated — originally Luz, ch. xxviii. 19, now
the ruins of Beitin), and Ai (the old Canaanitish
royal city, Josh. vii. 2, two hours easterly from
Beitin, northerly from Jerusalem, now Medineh), an
elevated rich pasture-ground.

3. The nomadic life forms the natural basis of
ie patriarchal society. The Greek term nomad
[co/itis from vojuiij pasture ground) designates the

herdsman in a specific sense, as one who roams with
his herds over uncultivated tracts, which as commons
are in one aspect wastes, in another pasture-grounds.
The nomads are thus pastoral tribes and nations
which have no fixed dwelling-place. According to
the Conversations-lexicon, " they stand higher in the
scale of human society than the tribes who live by
hunting and fishing, and lower than those who follow
agriculture and trade, and belong essentially to the
grade of barbarians." But as an original form of
human life, and indeed as the form of the most
quiet and retired life, the nomadic state is the basis
upon which both the highest human culture and the
most extreme savage wUdness rest. Original thought-
ful minds grew up to be the spiritual princes of hu-
manity in the quietude of the nomadic life ; mere
common natures grew wild and savage under the
same influences. The nomadic state still covers
large portions of the race. " In Europe we find
only weak nomadic tribes on the •great steppes skirts
ing the Black sea, and in the high uncultivated
northern latitudes, there Tartar and Turkish, here
Finnish tribes. Asia and Africa are the congenial
homes of the nomadic life. Nearly all the Finnish,
Mongolian, and Turkish tribes, and the mixed tribes
which have sprung from them, in the steppes and
wastes in the northern, central, and border Asia are
nomads; so also the Kurds and Bedouin Arabs of
border Asia and North Africa, and nearly all the
tribes of Southern Africa, Caffres, Betschuanas,
Koranas, and the Hottentots. In South America the
Gauchos, and in many respects some Indian tribes,
are to be regarded as nomads." For the nomadic
tribes of the East see Schroder, p. 273, Kohleadsch,
a description of the Caravan March, p. 282. For
the shepherd, herdsman, wilderness, tents, see the
articles in Winer [Kitto, Smith, Bible dictionaries.
—A. G.]

4. 2Tie Period of the Patriarchal Religion, avd
Form of Religion. " In the New Testament the
term waTpidpxv is applied to Abraham, Heb. vii. 4,
to the twelve sons of Jacob, Acts vii. 8 f., and to David,
Acts ii. 29. Generally it designates the sacred an-
cestors of the early periods of the Israelites (Tob.
vi. 21, Vulgate) whom Paul, Rom. ix. 5, xi. 28, calls
oi iraTf'pf s. Hence it has become customary even in
historical language to call all the fathers of the early
human races, and especially of the Israelitish people
(including the twelve sons of Jacob), who are refer-
red to and distinguished in biblical history. Patriarchs
(German Erzvater). Its history, from the old theo-
logical point of view, is given by J. H. Heidegger,
exercitat. select, de historia sacra pairiarchar. (Am-
sterdam, 1667-8, Zurich, 1729), and is, perhaps, more
critically treated by J. Jak. Hess : " History of th«

CHAP. XIL 1-20.

383

Patriarchs" (Ziirich, 111&). Winer. The patriarch
is the begiimpr or founder of a race or family (the
word is formed from &pxof and -naTpid). The Hebrew
designation niai* llJxS , which the Septuagint trans-
lates &pxovT€s Tuv narpiov (1 Chron. ix. 9 ; xxiv.
31), but in 1 Chron. xxvii. 22, where the Hebrew
term is ^N'^SJ'? °'t)3'Ji "'"ito , and 2 Chron. xix. 8, 6
iraTpiopxiS) does not refer to our patriarchs (which
Bretschneider labors in his lexicon to authorize'), but
to the heads of individual branches of the tribes of
Israel Even in the New Testament, as is clear
from Acts ii. 29, the word has a more comprehensive
meaning. In Herzog's Real-Encyclopedia, article
Patriarchs, there is a threefold distinction drawn
between the biblical and theological, the Jewish
nsage as to the synagogue ofiBcers, and the churchly
and ofBcial idea of the word. The Jews, e. g., even
after the destruction of Jerusalem, call the presidents
of the two schools at Tiberias and Babylon, patriarchs.
In the Christian Church all bishops were originally
termed patriarchs, but the council of Cbalcodon
limited the name to those renowned bishops who
tad raised themselves above bishops, and metro-
politans. Here we are dealing only with the
bibUcal and theological meaning of the term. In this
relation we must distinguish the geueriil, the narrow-
er, and the most restricted idea of the word. In the
general and widest sense, all the theocratic ancestors
are included in the term, since the patriarchal faith,
as the faith of salvation, forma the highest unity
running through the Old and New Testaments. In
the wider, earlier usual acceptation, the patriarchal
period is viewed as including the pious ancestors of
biblical history, from Adam to the twelve sons of
Jacob, or to the Mosaic era. See Winer, the article
in question, the work of Heidegger above referred to,
and Base's Hutterus redivivus (Religio patriarchalis
aniediluviana et postdiluviana). Still, Hess, in his
history of the patriarchs, has correctly placed the
patriarchs before Abram in an introductory history,
and begins the history itself with Abram. The
earlier division of the Old Testament revelation into
patriarchal, Mosaic, and prophetic religion (i. e., form
of religion) is not now at all satisfactory. This divi-
sion must be completed in one direction through the
period of the national IsraeUtish piety or religious-
ness (from Malachi to Christ), and in the other
through the period of the symliolic original mono-
theism from Adam to Abram, which may be again
divided into the two halves of the antediluvian and
postdiluvian primitive history. The symbolic mono-
theism is distinguished from the patriarchal period
both as to form and essence. As to the form of the
revelation, the symbol has there the first place, the
explanatory word the second (paradise and the para-
disaic word, the rainbow and the covenant with
Noah) ; but in the history of the patriarchs the word
«f revelation holds the first rank, and the signs of the
theophany enter in a second line, as its confirmation.
Thus also the patriarchal religion stands in a
relation of opposition and coherence with the
Mosaic system. " The Mosaic system is a removM-
ing of the patriarchal rehgion so far as Israel,
grown mto a people in Egypt, may require a prepa-
ratory, and thus a legal and symbolic instruction as
to the nature of the faith of Abram and to receive
that faith ; it is a lower form of that religion so far
as the religious life, which already in the patriarchs
began to be viewed as an inward life, is here set be-
fore the people, who are strangers to it, as an exter-

nal law ; but is also a higher form of that religion so
far as the ideas of the religion of promise are unfold-
ed in the law, and in this explicit form are introduc-
ed into the life of the people. The law, however,
is not the fundamental type of the dd Testament,
but the faith of Abram. In the patriarchal religion
the word of God is prominent, the symbol is subor-
dinate ; the Mosaic system, as also the primitive re-
ligion, brings the symbol into prominence (although
the symbol as an institution). In Abram the di-
vine promise occupies the foreground, the divine
command rests upon it ; in the legal period, as to the
outward appearance the relation is just the reverse.
Evidently the patriarchal religion, as also the pro-
phetic period succeeding to the Mosaic system, re-
garded in a narrower sense, bears a marked resem-
blance to Protestantism, while the Mosaic system ap-
pears as the primitive type of the Mediaeval Catholic
Church." (See Herzog's Encyclopedia, article Pa-
triarchs.)

As to its nature, the faith of Abram is distin-
guished from the faith of the pious ancestors in this,
that he obtains and holds the promise of salvation,
not only for himself, but for his family; and from
the Mosaic system, by the fact that it expressly holds
the promised blessing, in the seed of Abram, as a
blessing for all people. In reference to the first,
there were earlier lines of the promise: the line of
Seth in contrast to that of Cain, the line of Shem
in opposition to those of Japheth and Ham. But
the line of Seth, through its corruption, is gradually
lost in the line of Cain, and the line of Shem forms
no well-defined opposition to the one all-prevailing
heathenism. It is gradually infected with the taint
of heathenism, whUe on the other band pious be-
heving lives appear in the descendants of Japheth
and Ham. Melchisedec, with his eminent piety, be-
longs to the Canaanitish people, and thus to the
family of Ham. During the whole period of the
symbolic primitive religion, the theocratic and hea-
then elements are mingled together. The dark
aspect of this religion is a mythological, ever-grow-
ing heathenism ; its light side the symbolical, ever-
waning, primeval monotheism. Heathenism gathers
gradually, as a general twilight, through which glim-
mer the men of God, as individual stars. Thus Mel-
chisedec stands in the surrounding heathenism. In
a rehgious point of view he is airaTwp, a.fj.T]Twp, aye-
veaX6-fi\Tos. And he is so far greater than Abram,
as he stands as the last shining representative in the
Old Testament of the primitive religion looking
backwards to the lost paradise (which, however, did
not entirely cease in the whole Old Testament pe-
riod, aud is not absolutely extinguished even in later
periods of the world) ; while Abram stands as the
first representative of the decided religion of the
future, who, as such, has already the promise, that
in his seed all the famihes of the earth should be
blessed, who is neither aytvfa\6yri'^os nor airarttip,
since the beginning of his calling appears already in
his father, Terah. But the old religion develops
itself more definitely into the religion of the future
at every step, when the corruption for the time has
reached such a degree, that faith, looking out beyond
the present and the judgment resting upon it, muit
fix in its eye a new beginning of salvation. Thus it
was in Noah, thus also later in the Messianic proph-
ets. But while Noah out of the fiood of waters
saved a new race of men, Abram has, thro^igh the
overflowing flood of heathenism, to founil a new
particular people of faith, who should be a blessing

334

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

for all. The blessing is already a very advanced
idea of the salvation. For Eve the salvation as-
Bumes the idea of victory, for Lameoh, rest, for
Noah, the preservation of the divine name and the
human race ; for Abram, it forms the opposition
to the curse. For as the curse is the endless, mys-
terious, progressive destruction of life, so the bless-
ing is the endless, mysterious, progressive enriching
and conservation of life. As the condition, indeed,
Abram must go out from the heathen world. It is
only as in opposition to it, that he can introduce
the blessing which is promised in his seed. The
pious forefathers had indeed already taken the first
step of faith (Heb. xi.). They have, by faith in the
creation of the world, uttered the denial of the in-
dependence of matter, the fundamental dogma of
heathenism (Heb. xi. 3). Abel has taken the second
step of faith ; he hag introduced the sacrifice of faith
into the world, and on account of it sacrificed his
own life. Enoch has taken the third ; he sealed the
faith in the new life and rewards beyond the present.
Noah carried faith on to the salvation of God in the
divine judgments. Abram, through the required re-
nunciation of the world, introduced the Israelitish
faith of the future, the hope for the eternal inherit-
ance of God, and its introduction through the inher-
itance of his blessing. It was the legitimate result
of his renunciation of the world that he sealed it
through the sacrifice of Isaac. The succeeding
patriarchs have developed this faith more fully, each
in his own way. Isaac learned to prefer the first-
born of the spirit before the first-born of blood ;
Jacob pointed out Judah as the central line of bless-
ing within the blessings of his sons ; Joseph proved
his fidelity to the promise until his death. Thus was
prepared the renunciation and the calling of Moses.
(Taken from Lange's article in Herzog's Encyclo-
pedia.)

With the introduction of the Abrahamic religion
(see the foregoing section) correspond its mild na-
ture and form, and its rich development. As to
the first, it must be observed that Abram, notwith-
standing the decisive character of his separation
from heathenism, still opposes himself to the hea-
then without any fanaticism. Hence it is said in-
deed, " Get thee out ! " but the second word follows
immediately : " thou shalt be a blessing, and in thee
shall be blessed, or shall bless themselves, all the
families of the earth." Heuce the patriarchs stand
upon a friendly footing with the princes of Canaan.
In the point of marriage alone, warned by the his-
tory of the Sethitea, they dreaded theocratic mis-
alliances (Gen. xxiv. 3 ; xxvii. 46). In the fourth
generation the first historical characteristic type of
fanaticism appears in the deed of Simeon and Levi
(Gen. xxxiv.). The judicial and solemn disapproval
of this deed by Jacob (Gen. xlix. 5) marks the true
spirit of the Israelitish reUgion ; the bold commenda-
tion of this deed in the book Judith (ch. ix. 2) re-
veals the later pharisaic Judaism. Even the mixed
marriage is legal except in the case of the proscribed
Canaanites ; and to the questionable and unhappy
connections, e. g. of Esau, there are opposed the
blessed connections of Joseph and Moses. The
only matter of question is whether there is such a
certainty of faith that the believing party may raise
the unbelieving into the sphere of faith. This was
precisely that which modified the crime of Thamar ;
her fanatical attachment to the house of Jacob, or
the tribe of Judah. Mild as was this patriarchal
spirit of separation (because it was actually spirit) it

was just as strict in the other aspect. Hence then
are relative distinctions of the elect from those who
are less strictly the chosen, running down through
the fam ly of Abram, first in the opposition be-
tween Isaac and Ishmael, then in that between Jacob
and Esau, finally in the sharp distinctions in the
blessings of Jacob. (From the same article.)

As to the development of faith in the patriarchal
period, it proceeds from the acts of faith in the lift
of Abrarii, through the endurance (or paiieawe) of
faith in the life of Isaac, to the conflicts of faith in
the life of Jacob ; but in the life of Joseph the
opposition between the sufferings and the glory on
account of faith, comes into clear and distinct re-
lief. The promise also unfolds itself more and more
widely. The blessing of the descendants of Abram,
who should inherit Palestine, divides itself already
in the blessing of Isaac upon Jacob, into a blessing
of the heavens and the earth, and Jacob's authority
to rule announces more definitely the theoeratio
kingdom. But in the blessing of Jacob upon Judah,
the Shiloh is designated, as the prince of war and
peace, to whom the people should be gathered (a
further extract from the article in question, p. 199).
For the periods of the history of the covenant, see
Kurtz, p. 135. For the nature of the patriarchal
history, Delitzsch, p. 241-249 ; [also BiUMGiRiEN,
Commentary, p. 166-168 ; Kefl, p. 123-125. —
A. G.]

[Kurtz arranges the history of the covenant un-
der the following periods or stages : the period of
the family, including the triad of patriarchs with the
twelve sons of Jacob ; the period of the people,
having its starting point in the twelve sons of Jacob,
and running through the Judges; the period of the
kingdom; the period of the exile and restoration;
the period of expectantly ; and the period of the
fulfilmeitt, — A. G.]

[Delitzsch holds, as we may abridge and condense
his views, that the patriarchal history is introductory
to the history of Israel, and is completed in three
parts — the histories of the three patriarchs. The
personal history of the patriarchs revolves around
the promise as to Israel, and Canaan its inheritance.
The characteristic trait of ihe patriarchs is faith.
This faith shows itself in the whole mighty fulness
of its particular elements in Abram ; ceaselessly
struggling, resolutely patient and enduring, over-
coming the world. He is the type of the conflicts,
obedience, and victory of faith — war^p trdi'Tup rdv
TriaTtu6vTu;v. His loving endurance repeats itself in
Isaac, his hopeful wrestlings in Jacob. 'Ew eAirlS,
Trap' iAwiSa is their motto. The promise and faith
are the two correlated factors of the people of God
Renouncing the present, and in the midst of triala,
its life passes in hope. Hope is its true life, impulse,
and affection. Desire is Israel's element.

Viewing the patriarchal history from the central
point of that history, the incarnation of God in the
fulness of time, its position in the history of salva-
tion may be thus defined. There are seven stages
in this history : 1. The antediluvian time, Icoth para-
disaic and after paradise, during which God was per-
sonally and visibly present with men, closing with
the flood, when he retires into the heavens and frcm
thence exercises his judicial and sovereign provi-
dence. The goal of history is thenceforward the
restoration of this dwelling of God with men. The
history has ever tended towards this goal. 2. The
patriarchal time during which God manifested him-
self personally and even visibly upon the earth, but

OHAP. Xn. 1-20.

388

only at times and only to a few holy men, the patri-
archs, at important points in the history of salvation ;
and even these revelations cease from Jacob to Mo-
ses. The revelation of God in the name mni, i. e.
as the one coming down into history, and revealing
himself in it, belongs to this time of the completed
creation, of the opening redemption of Israel, His pecu-
liar people. 3. The IsraeUtish period prior to the ex-
He, during which God did not reveal himself personally
and visibly as in the patriarchal period to a few, and to
these only at times, but to a whole people and perma-
nently, but still only to a people and not to mankind.
There are two distinguishable epochs in this period.
In the first Israel is led by the Angel of Jehovah
in the pillar of cloud and fire — the glorious and gra-
cious presence of God, visible for tlie whole people.
The second is that of the presence of God in the
temple and in the word ; in the temple for Israel,
but only through the mediation of priests, in the
word, but only through the mediation of prophets.
But even this lower, less accessible temple-presence
ceases when Israel filled up the measure of its ini-
quities. The glory of Jehovah departed from the
temple. As God at first withdrew his manifested
presence from the race and destroyed it with the
flood, so now from the Jewish people, and abandons
Jerusalem to destruction. As the first stage of the
history closes with a judgment from the ascended
God, and the second in the long profound silence
from Jacob to Moses, so the third again ends like the
first. 4. The time succeeding the exile, at its com-
mencement not essentially different from the close
of the third period. God was present in the word,
but the ark of the covenant, the covering, the cher-
ubim, the Urim and Thummim, and, more than all,
the Shechinah, the visible symbol of the prescTice
of Jehovah, were wanting in the temple. But
prophecy itself grew speechless with Malachi and
Daniel. The people complain, We see not our signs,
there is no more any prophet (Ps. Ixxiv. 9). They
named Simon the brother of the Maocabeean Jona-
than the T)yo\iix£ifos KaX apx^^p^v^ els rhp aiuifa, but
it was ewy tov avairrrivai irpotpVTTjv irKTrdv, Thus
forsaken of God, and conscious of its forsaken state,
the true Israel passed through this fourth stage of
the history, a school of desire for believers waiting
and longing for the new unveiling of the divine
countenance. Then at last tlie dawn broke, Jeho-
vah visited his people, and in the mystery now un-
veiling itself dehs iipavepiSrn if trapm completes in
far-surpassing glory the antitype of Paradise. 5.
The time of the life of Christ iii the flesh. It is now
true in the most literal and real sense, iaKvvwafv iv
Vp.7y. But at first Israel alone saw him. The rays
of his glorious grace reach the heathen only as an
exception. But his own received him not. They
nailed the manifested in the flesh to the cross. But
he who ^f aa^fveias died, rose, ex Svi/dneais deov,
and ascended into heaven. He withdrew himself
from the people who had despised him. But as
Jehovah, after he had seated himself upon his
heavenly throne, sent down at the close of the first
stage the judgment of the flood, at the close of the
third works the destruction of Jerusalem, so now
the God-man ascended into heaven abandons Jeru-
salem to destruction and Judah to an exile which
still endures. For Israel he will come again, but in
the fire of judgment ; and for believers he will also
come again, but not visibly nor in the fire of judg-
ment, but in the fire of the Spirit. 6. The still-
wduring present, the time of the spiritual presence
25

of the incarnate God in his church. This presence
is both more than the visible presence of Christ in
the days of his flesh, and less than the visible pres-
ence of the exalted one in which it reaches its en-
largement and completion. We must not forget
that the Spirit sent upon us from the glorified Son
of Man is so far the irapaxKriTos as he comforts us
on account of his absence ; that all the desire of the
Christian is to be at home with Christ ; and that the
hope of the whole church is embraced in the hope
for the revelation of Christ. Without sharing in tk«
exaggerated estimate of the miraculous gifts by tho
Irviugites, it cannot be denied that our time resem-
bles the second part of the post-cxUe period, and
that the church now, as believers then, desires the
return of the wonderful intensity and gracious ful-
ness of the spiritual presence in the primitive
church. This desire will receive its fulfilment in the
glorious time of the church upon the earth. 1. But
the seventh stage of the history of salvation, which
endures through the ^ons of .^ons, will first give
full satisfaction to all the desires of all believers, and
bring that glorious, transcendent restoration of the
paradisaical communion with God in the incarnation,
to its final perfection. The new Jerusalem (Eev.
xxi. 8) is the antitype of Paradise. The communion
of God with the first man to be redeemed, has now
become his communion with the finally redeemed
humanity. His presence is no longer a transitory
alternating, now appearing then vanishing, but en-
during, ever the same, and endless; not limited to
individuals nor bound to localities, but to all, and
all-pervading ; not merely divine, but divine and
human ; not invisible, but visible ; not in the form
of a servant, but in unveiled glory. God ascends no
more, for sin is for ever judged and the earth has
become as heaven. He descends no more, for the
work of redemption is complete, the whole creation
keeps its solemn sabbath, God rests in it, and it
rests in God ; Jehovah has finished his work, and
Blohim is now all in all, irdvra h iracnc. See De-
LiTZSOH, p. 239-249.— A. G.]

5, The fundamental form of divine revelation, par-
ticularly of the revelation of the old covenant, and
still more particularly of the patriarchal period (see p.
48>Jntrod.). The historically-completed fundamen-
tal form of the divine revelation of salvation, is the
revelation of God in Christ, the God-man, i. e. in one
distinct, unique life, wherein the divine self-commu-
nication and revelation, and the human intuition of
God, are perfectly united in one, while yet as ele-
ments of life they are clearly distinguished from each
other. The progressive revelation must correspond
in its outline and characteristic features to this goal
to which it tends. In its objective aspect it must be
through theophanies, in its subjective the vision of
the revelation of God, in its plan, tendency, and de-
velopment, Christophanies ; the chief points in the
interchange between God manifesting himself per-
sonally and the receptive human spirits in the pre-
figurations of the future advent of Christ. The
individual phases in the development of this form
of revelation are these ; (1) The revelation of God
through the symbolism of heaven and earth ; visibly
for the paradisaic spiritual and natural clear-sighted
vision ; and coming out in particular words and
representations of God, addressed to the ear and
eye, promptly, according to the necessities of human
development, and according to the energy of the
Spirit of God, who translates the signs into words.
The form of the primitive religion. (2) The self-

386

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

revelation of God in the form of an angelic appenr-
ance, distinct from his being ; the pre-announcement
of the future Christ, or the Angel of Jehovah in re-
ciprocal relation and action with the unconscious see-
ing, as in vision, resting upon the unconscious ecsta-
sies of believers, manifesting himself first through the
miraculous report or voice, then through miraculous
vision, i, e, first through the word, then through the
figurative appearance. The form of the patriarchal
leligion. (3) The revelation of God, distinguishing
liis face, i. e. his gradual incarnation, from his being,
or nature, or the angel of his presence in reciprocal
relation and action, with the conscious visions, based
npon unconscious ecstasies. The Angel of his face,
or the face. The fundamental form of the Mosaic sys-
tem. (4) The appearance of Jehovah himself in his
glory, in the brightness of his glory, surrounded by
angelic forms, in reciprocal relation with the con-
Bcious visions, resting upon the conscious ecstasy of
the prophets, or Jehovah appearing in his divine
Archangel and with his angel-bands over against the
prophets overwhelmed and trembling, drawing grad-
ually nearer to the incarnate angel of the covenant
(Mai. iii. 1). The fundamental form of the prophetic
period. (5) The hidden preparation for the advent
of the angel of the covenant, in the period of na-
tional religiousness ; his work in the depths of hu-
man nature. (6) Christ the Angel of the Covenant,
the unity of the divine revelation and the human
intuition of God, and therefore also upon the divine
Bide the unity of God and his Angel, and upon the
human side the unity of the spiritual intuitions and
the natural vision of Christ. *

We have already, in what we have thus said, as
indeed elsewhere (Leben Jesu, p. 46 ; Dogmatik, p.
586 ; Herzog, " Encyclopedia," Tlie Patriarchs of
the Old Testament), stated our view of the Angel
of the Lord ; but we must here repeat that in our
conviction the exegetical prejudice, ever coming into
greater prominence, that the Angel of the Lord is a
creature-angel, as also the prejudice in reference to
the supposed angels (ch. vi.), burdens, obscures, and
confuses in a fatal way. Old Testament theology,
and leaves no room for a clear psychology of the
faith of revelation, an intuitive Christology, or an
organic unity of biblical theology.

In regard to this point, Kurtz has undertaken with
great zeal the defence of the erroneous interpreta-
tion, although he had earlier defended the true one,
" HistOT-y of the Old Covenant," p. 144, 2d ed. We
introduce here his reference to the state of the ques-
tion before we enter upon its discussion. " The
views of interpreters, as to the nature and being of
the Angel of the Lord (nin7 T^x^?'?, also called
n^n^xn ~!<i?o) who appears first in the patriarchal
history, have been divided into two classes. The one
sees in him a representation of the deity, entering
perceptibly the world of sense, in a human form, and
as such regards him as the pretiguration of the
Incarnation of God in Christ ; the other sees in him
an angel, like other angels, but who, because he ap-
pears in name and mission as a representative of Je-
hovah, is even introduced and spoken of as Jehovah ;
Indeed, himself speaks and acts as Jehovah. The
first view has already made a beaten path for itself
in the oldest theology of the synagogue, and in the
theological doctrine of the Metairon, of that, from
God emanating, godlike revealer of the divine na-
ture, has assumed a definite shape and form, although
embracing fo.eigi elements (comp. Hengstenberg :

' Christology,' iii. 2. pp. 31- 86). It was adhered t«
by most of the Fathers (Hengstenberg, as above),
and with these must be counted the old churchlj
Protestant theologians. In recent times it has been
defended most decidedly and fully by Hengstenbebh
(i. pp. 125-142, 2d ed.; and iii. 2. pp. 31-86), who,
with the Fathers and the old Protestant theologians,
recognizes in the angel of the Lord the manifested
God, the logos of the Christian doctrine of the Trin-
ity, and holds this view to be so widely developed in
the history of the Old Testament revelation, that it
lays the foundation for the doctrine of the logos in
the Gospel by John (compare his ' Commentary on
the book of Revelation,' i. p. 618). Sack {Comment.
theoL, Bonn, 1821), had already discussed the ques.
tion, and reached the conclusion, that tire angel of
the Lord is identical with Jehovah, but that the term
does not desiguiite a person distinct from him, but
merely a form of manifestation, on which account hn
prefers to render T^N^o ' the commission ' rather than
'the sent' (comp. his Apologetik, 2d ed. p. 172). In
the footsteps of these two lust-named persons, the
writer of this [Kurtz] sought to prove, in Tholuck's
Anzeiger, 18J6, No. 11-14, that the Maleach Jeho-
vah is God, as presented in the authors of the Old
Testament ; appearing, revealed, entering into the
limitations of space and time, as perceptible by the
senses, distinguished from the invisible God, in his
exalted and therefore imperceptible existence, above
the world of sense, and removed fiom all the limita-
tions of space and time ; still without bringing it to
a lull, distinct consciousness, whether this disiinction
was merely ideal or essential, whether it was to be
regarded as supposed for the moment, or grounded
in the very nature of God. The most important
parts of this essay were included in the first edition
of this work. Delitzsch : ' Biblical and Piophetical
Theology,' p. 289; Nitzsch: 'System;' T. Beck:
' Christian Science of Doctrine ; ' Keil : ' Book of
Joshua,' p. 87 ; Havernick: 'Old Testament The-
ology,' p. 73 ; EBEARn : ' Christian Dogmatics,'
vol. i. ; J. P. Lange ; ' Positive Dogmatics,' p. 586 ;
Stier: 'Isaiah, not Pseudo Isaiah,' p. 758, and
others, all agree in the same exhibition of this theo-
logical question.

" The other view has found a defender in Atjgus-
TiN : De Trinitate, 1 1. 8, and meets the approval of the
Catholic theologians under the influence of their view
of the adoration of angels ; and of the Socinians, Ar-
minians, and Rationalists, from their opposition to
the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity. In more
recent times, however, some eminent persons, who
are entirely free from these interested motives, have
adopted this view, viz., Steudel, in his Pfingslpro-
gramme for 1830, and in his ' Old Testament Theol-
ogy,' p. 252 if. ; HoFMANN : Weissagung und Erfiill-
ung, i. p. 127, and Schrifibeweis, pp. 154-159 and
321-340; Baumgarten : 'Com.' p. 195; Tholuce
' Gospel by John,' 6th ed. p. 62 ; Pelt . ' Theo-
logical Encyclopedia,' p. 241 ; and still more recent-
ly, Delitzsch, renouncing his earlier view, and
adopting that of Hofmann : ' Com. on Genesis,' p
249. Between Steudel and Hofmann there is, how-
ever, this difference, that the former sees in the
Maleach Jehovah an angel especially commissioned
by God for each particular case — it being left unde-
termined whether it is one and the same or not,
while, in Hofmann's view, it is one and the samo
angel-prince, who here, as the Maleach Jehovah,
later as the captain of the hosts of th-3 Loi'd (Josh

CHAP. Xn. 1-20.

387

r. 14), as the angel of his face (Is. Ixiii. 9), under
the personal name of Michael (Dan. x. 13, 21 ; xiL 1),
as the representative of Jehovah, controls the com-
monwealth and history of Israel ( Weissagung und
Mrfiilhmg, pp. 131, 132). In his later work, how-
ever, Hofmann has modified his view so far, that the
angel who performs this or that work is ever a defi-
nite angel, but the same one is not destined for all
time, while it is still true that Israel has his prince,
his special angel, who is named Mich.iel {Schriftbe-
tKis, p. 157).

" Barth has in a most peculiar way attempted to
nnite the views of Hengstenberg and Hofmann :
'The Angel of the Covenant. A Contribution to
Christology. A Letter to Schelhng.' Leipzig, 1845.
He holds, with Hengstenberg, the divine personality,
and with Hofmann, the angelic created nature of the
Ualeach Jehovah, and unites the two views through
the assertion of a past assumption of the angelic
nature of the logos, analogous to his later incarnation.
We leave this view unexamined, as utterly baseless."

Kurtz closes his reference (in the 2d ed.) with the
explanation, that he finds himself in the same posi-
tion as Delitzsch, constrained by his conviction to
adopt the view of Hofmann.

According to the view of the old ecclesiastical
theology, the {Pint) argument in favor of the self-
revelation of God, in the Angel of the Lord, is the
personal and real identity in which this Angel-name
always appears. If Maleach Jehovah, Maleach Elo-
him, may designate some one angel of the Lord, in a
peculiar appearance, still it must be kept in view
here, that from ch. xvi. onwards this name, with
slight and easily explained modifications, is a stand-
ing, permanent figure. Hofmann replies: Maleach
Hamelech is not the king himself, but the king's
messenger. So also Maleach Jehovah is not Jehovah
himself. Certainly ! so also the king's son is not
the king himself. According to Hofmann's view,
therefore, it must follow that the Son of God is not
God. The nature of God in his self-distinction is
exalted far above that of earthly kings.

Secondli). The Angel of Jehovah identifies him-
self with Jehovah. He ascribes to himself divine
honors, divine determinations (Gen. xvi. 10, 11 ;
xviii. 10, 13, 14, 20, 36; xxii. 12, 15, 16, etc., etc.).
Some one objects : The prophets also identify them-
selves in a similar way with Jehovah. This is sim-
ply an incorrect assertion. There is no authentic
passage in which the prophet, in the immediate an-
nouncement of the word of God, does not in some
way make a clear distinction between his person and
the person of Jehovah. The examples which De-
litzsch quotes, that ambassadors have identified
themselves with their kings, rest upon the political
rights and style of ambassadors, and are as little
applicable to the style of a creature-angel as to that
of apostles and prophets.

Thirdly. The writers of the history, and the
biblical persons, use promiscuously the names Angel
of Jehovah, and Jehovah, and render to this angel
divine honor, in worship and sacrifice (Gen. xvi. 13 ;
xviii. 1, 2; xxi. 17-19; xxii. 14; xlviii. 15, 16, etc.).
Our opponents answer : It is not high treason when
an officer, in the name and commission of the king,
ta the representative of the person of the king, re-
ceives the homage of the subjects. It is not his own
person, but the person of the king, whom in this case
he represents, which comes into strong relief. With
this halting, limping comparison, they seek to justify
Ibe conduct of the men of taith in the Old Testament,

who, in their view, rendered freely and without re-
proof di vine honor to a creature-angel, and did this con-
stantly, whenever this angel appears, notwithstandin"
the Old Testament abhors and condemns the deifying
of the creature, and that here the express diviiin
watchword is : "My glory will I not give to another
neither my praise to graven images " (Is. xlii. 8).

The following reasons are urged in favor of the
supposition of a creature-angel :

«. The name angel designates, throughout, a
certain class of spiritual beings. Kurtz formerly
replied to this that the name angel is not one of na-
ture but of office (Mai. ii. 7; Hag. L 13). Although
the name angel now indeed points in many cases to
a certain class of spiritual beings, still the fact that
there are symbolic angel-forms is a sufficient proof
that the Angel of the Lord need not necessarily be
regarded as a being of that certain class of spirits.

6. Hofmaim urges that since the advent of Clirist
the New Testament speaks of the &yjiXos xvplov
(Matt. i. 20 ; Luke ii. 9 ; Acts xii. 7). Kurtz has
answered that in the places quoted the expression
designates a different person from the Maleach Jeho-
vah of the Old Testament, or even of the speech of
Stephen (Acts vii, 30). He recalls this reply, how-
ever, with the remark that if Mattliew and Luke
had even had a suspicion that the &yye\os Kvpiov in
the Old Testament always designated the Son of God,
who has since become man in Christ, they would
never have used this expression even once in refer-
ence to a creature-angel. With this conception of
angehc appearances the transition to Hofmann's
view was surely possible and easy. To his objection
(p. 120) we reply, that the incarnate Christ at Beth-
lehem could just as well be made by God to asstmie
an angelic form, near at hand and remote, as the
Logos of God in the preparatory steps to his incar-
nation. To Kurtz this wonderful manifestation of
the " ubiquity " of Christ is only a '■ pure idea" or
fancy. But just as (Gen. xviii. 19) the two angels
who went to Sodom are distinguished from the An-
gel of Jehovah before whom Abraham stood with
his intercessory prayer, and as Paul (Gal. iii. 19)
suggests the distinction between the angel giving
the law at Sinai and the Angel of his face, who was
the Christ of the Old Testament (1 Cor. x. 4), so
we can distinguish in the New Testament between
the two men or the two angels at the grave of the
risen one (Luke xxiv. 4 ; John xx. 12), or the two
men upon the Mount of Olives (Acts i. 10) on the
one side, and the angel who announces the birth
of Christ on the other. Only Matthew, in his solemn
and festive expression, has embraced these two
angels in one symboUc form of the Angel of the
Lord, and this indeed upon good grounds, since in
the resurrection or the second birth of Christ the
Logos was active, as in his birth at Bethlehem.

c. Baumgarten urges : Why should the Angel of
the Lord first appear to the Egyptian bondwoman.
Gen. xvi.? Kurtz and Delitzsch have, in their earlier
works, given various replies to this question. We
answer with another question : Why should the risen
Christ first appear to Mary Magdalene, and not to
his mother or John ? We think, according to the
simple law, that the Lord reveals himself first to the
poorest, most distressed and receptive hearts. It is,
besides, a mere supposition that the Angel of the
Lord has first appeared here, where he is tirst named
with this name, as we shall see further below.

d. Kurtz urges again ; It lies against the idei
of a continuous development of the knowledge of

388

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

the historical salvation, in the Holy Scriptures, if
there is actually in the very beginning of the Old-
Testament history so clear u, consciousness of the
distinction between the unrevealed and revealed
God, and this consciousness is ever becoming more
obscure in the progress of the Old Testament, but
has vanished entirely and forever in the New Testa-
ment. But this is all as manifestly a pure supposi-
tion as when Hofmann thinks the Old Testament
cannot speak of the self-distinction of God because
in that case it would anticipate the doctrine of the
Trinity. That indeed is the organic development
of revelation from the Old to the New Testament,
that the revelation of the Trinity in the divine being
was introduced through the revelation of the duality.
But when the form of the Angel of the Lord in
Genesis, passes to the Angel of his face, or the per-
sonified face of Jehovah himself in Exodus, then to
the prince over the armies of God in Joshua, and
finally to the Archangel, the Angel of the Covenant
of the later prophets, the organic development of
the doctrine in question is manifest.

e. Kurtz remarks again the fact that in the New
Testament the law is said to be ordained by angels
or spoken by the angel (Acts vii. 63; Gal. iii. 19;
Heb. ii. 2), as in favor of the doctrine of the created
angel. Here he plainly refutes himself. For Paul
(GaL iii. 19) clearly refers to this feature of the law,
thai it was ordained by ilie arigel^ in order to show
that the law was subordinate to the promise given
to Abram. But if the mediation through angels
is a mark of the imperfection of the law, it follows
that Abram could not have received the promise
through such a mediation of a created angel. To
this end he presses especially the appeal to (Heb. ii.
2j " the great superiority of the promise to the law
is derived from this, that the law was announced
bi ayy4\uv but the gospel 5ia tov Kvpiov.'''' For the
answer see Kom. iv. where the promise to which the
law is subordinated appears as the yet undeveloped
gospel of the old covenant.

/. Heb. xiii. 2 refers to the three men who ap-
peared to Abram in the plains of Mamre (Gen.
xviii.). But why not to the two angels whom Lot
received (Gen. xix.) ? The words can refer only to
a peculiar kind of hospitality. Abram knew, how-
ever, that the men who were his guests were of a
higher order, while Lot appears not to have known
it at the beginning.

If. The angel-prince Michael (Dan. x. 13, 21 ;
xii. 1) has the same position which the Maleaeh Je-
hovah has in the historical books. But that Michael
cannot be the Logos is clear, since he is not the only
P"i; "tV. Gabriel appears as a second archangel
(Dan. viii. 16 ; ix. 21), (Tob. xii. 15), adds Raphael
and (4 Ezra iv. 1) still further Uriel. When I now,
from the identity of Gabriel or Michael with the
appearing figure in Rev. i., draw the conclusion, —
Gabriel or Michael are symbolical manifested images
of Christ (as the old Jewish theology saw in Michael
the manifested image of Jehovah), and thus the one
symbolical angel-form of the Angel of the Lord or
angel-prince has branched itself into the seven
archangel forms of the coming Christ, Kurtz finds
in these forms " pure ideas " or fancies. But I call
them the veiled angehc modes of the revelation and
energy of Christ, in the foundation, limits, and life
of humanity and history. But Michael had need of
help (Dan. xi. 1). Indeed ! that can in no case be
(aid of the Logos (Luke xxii. 43).

h. Zach. i 12 the Angel of the Lord was subor-

dinated to Jehovah. The Angel of Jehovah as th»
intercessor for Israel prays to Jehovah of hosts
(compare the high-priestly prayer John xvii.).

i. Mai. iii. 1, the Messiah was named the Angei
of the Covenant. " But," Kurtz argues, " if Mala^
chi had intended by the Angel of the Covenant tha
Angel of Jehovah, he would certainly so have named
•him." Then Moses could not have meant the Angel
of the Lord when he speaks of the Angel of hii
face. Certainly it is true that in the Angel of the
Covenant the union of the divine form of the Angel
of Jehovah and of the human Son of David, as the
divine-human founder of the New Testament, i»
prophetically consummated.

k. The Angel of his face (Exod. xxiiL 20), of
whom Jehovah says, My name is in hitn (Exod.
xxxii. 34 ; xxxiii. 15 ; Is. Ixiii. 9), is according to
Kurtz the same with the Angel of Jehovah in Gene-
sis. But now (Exod. xxxii. 34) Jehovah appears so
to distinguish this angel from himself that we can-
not think of him as one with Jehovah. We can-
tiot indeed freely use the ingenious answer to this
difficulty by Hengstenberg,* which Kurtz contests
(see p. 154). But the opposition here is not this,
that either a created angel goes with Israel, or the
Logos-angel, but this, that he would not longer him-
self be present in the camp of Israel (Exod. xxxiii.
5), but beyond it (ver. 7), that thus a stricter dis-
tinction and separation should be made between tha
impure people and his sanctuary.

I. In the history of the three angels who visit
Abram in the plains (the oaks) of Mamre (Gen.
xviii. 19), not only the one angel who remains with
Abram enters as Jehovah, but the two others,
80 soon as they were recognized by Lot in their
super-earthly being, were addressed by him with the
names of God, Adonai, etc. Kurtz overlooks here
the change of persons which appears in the narra-
tive (ck. xix. 17-19). The peculiar work of the two
angels continues until ver. 16. They lead Lot out
of the city and set him without (before) the city.
The angels now retire to the background, and Je-
hovah comes into view and says, "Escape for thy
life." That Jehovah had gone up from Abram into
heaven, and here again stands before Lot, can only
be a source of error to the literal conception, which
attributes to Jehovah a gross corporeal form, and in
the same measure the local changes in space. We
do not wonder now that Lot cUngs to the vanishing
angel-forms with the cry, Adonai. Now the one
unique appearance presents itself clearly before him
(ver. 21). Then (ver. 24) Jehovah rained upon
Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jeho-
vah out of heaven. Without a perception of the
change of different voices and visions, and the cor-
responding change of different revelations, any one
will have great difficulty in finding his way through
this statement of the struggles of Lot.

We now bring into view the gradual develop-
ment of the specific revelation of God, which begins
with the call of Abram. Hofmann asks: Ought we
not to expect that the manifestations of God, so
far as they form a preparation for the coming of
Christ, should from the very beginning of the history
of salvation, and not first from Abram, be de-
scribed as manifestations of the Maleaeh Jehovah I

* [Hengstenberg holds that after the sin with the goldeD
calf, Q-od threatened the people that the Maleaeh Jehovah,
the uncreated angel, should no longer go with them, but a
lower, subordinate, created angel ; but that in answer to
the prayer of Moses he again permits the uncreated aogd
to accompany them. — A, G.]

CHAP. Xa. 1-20.

38a

The whole distinction between the piimitire and
patriarchal religion is thus overlooked. The faith
of salvation first takes on the form of a definite
religion of the future and becomes a more definite
preparation for the incarnation of Christ, in the
faith of Abram. Hofmann himself, as he in other
places admits that the Maleach Jehovah is the one
only form of theophany in the history of the old cove-
nant, notwithstanding the numerous changes in the
designation of the revelation: e. g. "Jehovah ap-
peared," etc., deprives the implied objection in the
above question of any force. Indeed, the appearance
of the Maleach Jehovah is announced with the patri-
archal revelation. It is recorded {(ren. xii. 1), And
Jehovah said to Abram. Starke holds, agreeing
with the older theologians, that the Angel of the
Lord (see Gal. iii 16) is the Son of God himself.
But Stephen (Acts vii. 2) says the God of glory
(5(i{a) appeared to our father Abram when he was in
Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran. The ques-
tion meets us here therefore : In what relation does
the Maleach Jehovah stand to the S6^a or 1133
of Jehovah ? In Luke ii. 9 there is a very significant
parallelism — 6.yyeKos Kvpiov 4ir4(m} avrols^ KaX 5o|a
Kvpiou nepU\a^^ii/il' aiiTuvSj i. e. both ideas are bound
together in the closest manner and by an inward tie.
In Exod. xxiv. 16, ch. xl. 34, the 5<i|a of Jehovah
is in the same way intimately connected with Jeho-
vah. But in ch. xxxiii. the S6^a of Jehovah, ver.
18, is fuUy identified with the face of Jehovah, ver.
20. According to ver. 14 (compared with ver. 2
and Is. Ixiii. 9), the face of Jehovah is identical
with the Angel of his face. The Angel of Jehovah
is thus the manifested figure of Jehovah, in the same
wii y as his So^a. The glory fills the holy of holies,
md Jehovah appears in the holy of holies (Exod.
d 84 and other passages). According to Isaiah vi.
3 the revelation of the Sa^a of Jehovah shall fill the
whole earth (compare Ezek. i. 28; iii. 12, etc.). In
Titus 'i. 13 Christ who comes to judgment is de-
scribed as the Sii^a (glorious) appearing of the great
God, and in Heb. i. 3 he is styled anavyaaf^a t^s
5iif?)! Aeov. It is certain that the word 56^a has a
manifold signification, and that when used to desig-
nate the theophany it points rather to the manifested
splendor of the Spirit, tlian to the spirit of this
glorious appearance. (Hence it is closely connected
with the pillar of cloud and of fire.) But so much
is clearly proved, that the So|a of Jehovah can
properly be personally united with Jehovah himself,
with Christ, but not with any creature-angel. It is
now in accordance with the course of development,
as it is with the character of the patriarchal theo-
phany, that it should begin with the miraculous
report or voice, the word (Gen. xii, 1), and advance
to the miraculous vision or manifestation (ver. 7). For
the word of Jehovah is in the first place the primary
form of revelation in the time of the patriarchs, and
in regard to the vision, it is the more interior (sub-
jective) event, which appears already in a lower stage
or grade of the development in the line of visions.
After the separation of Abram from Lot (ch, xiii. 14)
he receives again the word of Jehovah, which bless-
es him for his generous course, and in a way corre-
iponding with it. So also after hia expedition (ch.
IV. 1). The blessings in both cases correspond to
bis well-doing : to his renunciation of the better
portions of the land, the promise of the whole land
is given, and to the pious man of war, God gives
Wmself as a shield and reward. In the important
•ct of the justification of Abram (ch. xv.), the mi-

raculous appearance enters with the word of Jeho
vah. The word of the Lord came to him in vision
If now the Angel of the Lord first appears under thi(
name in the history of Hagar (xvi. 9), we have thf
reason clearly given. Hagai had learned faith it
the house of Abram, and her p jwer to behold or per-
ceive the vision was developed in accordance with
her necessities. But the Angel of Jehovah, as the
Christ who was to come through Isaac, had a pecu
liar reason for assisting Hagar, since she for the sake
of the future Christ is involved in this sorrow. Be
sides, there is no increase of the divine revelation in
this appearance ; Abram saw Jehovah himself in tho
Angel of Jehovah, and Sarah also in the manifesta^
tion of Jehovah sees above all the Angel.

Between Abram's connection with Hagar and
the next manifestation of Jehovah there are full
thirteen years. But then his faith is strengthened
again, and Jehovah appears to him (xvii. 1). The
most prominent and important theophany in the life
of Abram is the appearance of the three men(ch.
xviii.). But this appearance wears its prevailing
angelic form, because it is a collective appearance
for Abram and Lot, and at the same time refers to
the judgment upon Sodom. Hence the two angels
are related to their central point as sun-images to
the sun itself, and this central point for Abram ia
Jehovah himself in his manifestation, but not a com-
missioned Angel of the Lord. Thus also this Angel
visits Sarah (ch. xxi. 1 ; compare xviii. 10). But the
Angel appears in the history of Hagar a second
time (xxi. 17), and this time as the Angel of God
(Maleach Elohim), not as the Maleach Jehovah, for
the question is not now about a return to Abram's
house, but about the indejjendent settlement with
Ishmael in the wilderness. The person who tempts
Abram (ch. xxii. 1) ia Elohim — God as he mani-
fests himself to the nations and their general ideas
or notions, and the revelation is effected purely
through the word. Now also, in the most critical
moment for Abram, the Angel of the Lord comes
forward, calling down to him from heaven since
there was need of a prompt message of relief. In
the rest of the narrative this Angel identifies him-
self throughout with Jehovah (vers. 12, 16). To
Isaac also Jehovah appears (ch. xxvi. 2), and the
sec07id time in the night (ver. 24). Jffe appears to
Jacob in the night in a dream (ch. xxviii. 12, 13).
Thus also he appears to him as the Angel of God in
a dream (ch. xxxi. 11), but throughout identified
with Jehovah (ver. 13). Jehovah commands him
to return home through the word (ch. xxxi. 3).
Laban receives the word of God in a dream (xxxi.
24). The greatest event of revelation in the fife
of Jacob is the grand theophany, in the night,
through the vision, but the man who wrestles with
him calls himself God and man (men) at the same
time. According to the theory of a created angel,
Jacob is not a wrestler with God (Israel), but merely
a wrestler with the Angel. It is a more purely ex.
ternal circumstance which God uses to warn Jacob
through the word to remove from Shechem (xxxv.
1). In the second peculiar manifestation of God to
Jacob after his return from Mesopotamia (xxxv. 9),
we have a clear and distinct reflection of the first
(xxxii. 24). In the night-visions of Joseph, whicl
already appear in the life of Isaac, and occur more
frequently with Jacob, the form of revelation durin^
the patriarchal period comes less distinctly into view.
But then it enters again, and with new energy, in the
life of Moses. The Angel of Jehovah (Ex. iii. 2) is

390

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

connected with the earlier revelation, and here also
is identified with Jehovah and Elohim (ver. 4). But
ne assumes a more definite form and title, as the
Angel of his face, since with the Mosaic system the
rejection of any deifying of the creature comes into
i;reater prominence, and since it is impossible that
the face of God should be esteemed a creature.

The reasons which are urged for the old ecclesi-
astical view of the Angel of the Lord, are recapitu-
lated by Kurtz in the following order : 1. The Maleach
Jehovah identifies himself with Jehovah. 2. Those
to whom he appears recognize, name, and worship
him as the true God. 3. He receives sacrifice and
worship without any protest. 4. The biblical writers
^distantly speak of him as Jehovah. We add the
following reasons: 1. The theory of our opponents
opens a wide door in the Old Testament for the dei-
fying of the creature, which the Old Testament every-
where condemns ; and the Romish worship of angels
finds in it a complete justification. 2. The Socinians
also gain an important argument for their rejection
of the Trinity, if, instead of the self-revelation of
God, and of the self-distinction included in it in i;he
Old Testament, there is merely a pure revelation
through angels. As the fully developed doctrine of
the Trinity cannot be found in the Old Testament, so
no one cein remove I'rom the Old Testament the be-
ginnings of that doctrine, the self-distinction of God,
without removing the very substructure on which the
New Testament doctrine of the Trinity rests, and
without obscuring the Old Testament theology in its
very centre and glory. 3. It would break the band
of the organic unity between the Old and New Tes-
taments, & it could be proved that the central point
in the Old Testament revelation is a creature-angel,
and that the New Testafcient revelation passes at one
bound from this form to that of the God-man. The
theory of the creature-angel in its continuation
through a colossal adoration of angels, points down-
wards to the Rabbinic and Mohammedan doctrine
of angels which has established itself in opposition to
the New Testament Christology, and is bound to-
gether with that exaggerated doctrine of angels in
more recent times, which ever corresponds with a
veiled and obscure Christology. On the other hand,
it removes from the New Testament Christology its
Old Testament foundation and preparation, which
consists in this, that the interchange between God
and men is in full operation, and must therefore pre-
figure itself in the images of the future God-rjan.

4. The doctrine of angels itself loses its very heart,
its justification and interpretation, if we take away
from it the symbolic angel-forjn which rules it, as its
royal centre, i. e. that angeUo form which, as a real
manifestation of God, as a typical manifestation of
Christ, as a manifestation of angels, has the nature
and force of a symbol. But with the obliteration of
the symbolic element, all the remaining synibohc and
angelic images, the cherubim and seraphim, will dis-
appear, and with the key of biblical psychology in
its representation of the development of the life of
the soul, to an organ of revelation, we shall lose the
key to the exposition of the Old Testament itself.

5. Augustin was consistent when, with his interpreta-
tion of the Angel of Jehovah as a creature-angel, he
decidedly rejects the interpretation which regards the
eons of God (ch. vi.) as angel-beings ; for the assump-
tion of angels who, as such, venture to identify them-
selves with Jehovah, and notwithstanding they are
in peril, abandon themselves to lustful pleasures
with the daughters of men until it issues in apostasy

and a magical transformation of their nature, com
bines two groundless and intolerable phantoms. We
hold, therefore, that Old Testament theology, in it!
very heart and centre, is in serious danger from
these two great prejudices, as the New Testament
from the two great prejudices of a mere mechanical
structure of the Gospels, and of the unapostolic and
yet more than apostohc brothers of the Lord. (See
the defence of the old ecclesiastical view in the
Commentary by Keil,* also with a reference to
Kahnis, de Angela Domini diatribe, 1868. The as-
sertion of the opposite view held by Delitzsch in his
Commentary, meets here its refutation).

6. The aspect of all theophanies as visions. It ia
a general supposition, that divine revelation ia partly
through visions, or through inward miraculous sight»
and sounds. We must, however, bring out distinctly
the fundamental position, that every theophany is at
the same time vision, and every vision a theophany;
but that in the one case the objective theophany,
and in the other the subjective vision, is the prevail-
ing feature. The subjective vision appears in the
most definite form in drciim-visions, of which Adam's
sleep, and Abram's night-horror (chs. ii. and xv.),
are the first striking portents. It develops itself
with great power in the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and
Joseph, and is of still greater importiince in the lives
of Samuel and Solomon, as also in the night-visions
of Zecliariah. We find them in the New Testament
in the life of Joseph of Nazareth and in the history
of Paul. It needs no proof to show that the mani-
festations of God or angels in dreams, are not out-
ward manifestations to the natural senses. In the
elements of the subjective dream-vision, veils itself,
however, the existing divine manifestation. But
what the dream introduces in the night-life, the see-
ing in images — that the ecstasy does in the day or
ordinary waking life (see Lange : " Apostolic Age ").
The ecstasy, as the removing of the mind into th6
condition of unconsciousness, or of a different con-
sciousness, ia the potential basis of the vision, the
vision is the activity or effect of the ecstasy. But
since the visions have historical permanence and re-
sults, it is evident that they are the intuitions of
actual objective manifestations of God. Mere hallu-
cinations of the mind lead into the house of error,
spiritual visions build the historical house of God.
But in this aspect we may distinguish pecuUar dream-
visions, night-visions of a higher form and power,
momentary day-visions, apocalyptic groups or circles
of visions, linked together in prophetic contempla-
tion, and that habitual clear-sightedness as to visions
which is the condition of inspiration. But that theo-
phanies, which are ever at the same time Angelopha-
nies and Christophanies, and indeed as theophanies
of the voice of God, or of the voice from heaven, of
the simple appearance of angels, of their more en-
larged and complete manifestations of the developed
heavenly scene — that these are always conditioned
through a disposition or fitness for visions, ia cleAr
from numerous passages in the Old and New Testa
menta. (2 Kings vi. 17 ; Dan. x. 7 ; John xii. 28,
29 ; XX. 10-12 ; Acts ix. 8 ; xii. 7-12; xxli. 9-14.

In theology the psychological aspect of revelation
has been hitherto very much neglected. All possiblt

* jThe statement and defence, by Keil, of the ordinary
view held by the Church, is admirable, and completely sat-
isfactory. As it is now "within the reach of the English
reader, it is not necessary to quote it here. Those who
would see this subject thoroughly and exhaustively treated,
may consult Hehostenberg's " Christology," 2a ed., pp.
124-143 of vol. i. and 31-86 of the 2d part of vol. ui.— A. U.

CHAP XII. 1-20.

391

forms of revelation have been placed side by side
without any connection. StaAe says, the Son of God
Las appeared to believers under six fonns or ways :
1. through a voice and words ; 2. in an assumed
form either of an angel, at least under that name, or
in the form of a man, prefiguring his future incar-
nation ; 3. in a vision ; 4. in dreams ; 6. in a pillar
of cloud and fire ; 6. especially to Paul, in a light
from heaven.

EXEQETICAi AND CEITICAl.

1. Tile call of Ahram and Ma migration to Oa-
ruMU until he reaches Sichem (ch. xii. 1— V). The
call of Abram demands from him a threefold re-
nunciation, increasing in intensity from one to the
other : 1. Out of thy country. — The fatherland.
The land of Mesopotamia as it embraced both Ur of
the Chaldees and Haran. — 2. And from thy kind-
red.— The Chaldaic descendants of Shem. — 3. From

thy father's house Terah and his family (ch.

xi. 31, 32). With the threefold demand it connects
a threefold promise : 1. Of the special providence of
God, leading him, indeed, to a new land (see Heb.
xi.); 2. of the natural blessing of a numerous seed
(ch. xiii. 16; xv. 5; xvii. 2, S, 16; xviii. 18; xxi.
13 ; xxii. 17); 3. of a spiritual blessing for himself,
and in its wide extension to all the families of the
earth, making his name glorious, and constituting
about his person in its spiritual import and relations
the great contrast between the subjects of the bless-
ing and the curse. — And will make thy name
great. — That is, as the divinely blessed ancestor and
father of a renowned people (Knobel). The name of
the father of believers should shed its light and
wield its influence through the world's history. —
Thou shalt be a blessing. — Lit : Be thou a bless-
ing. It is a superficial view of this word which in-
terprets it, thy name shall become a formula of
blessing (Kimchi, Knobel : so that those who desire
the greatest happiness shall wish themselves as happy
as Abram). It is through the union of men with
him (in that they pronounce and wish him blessed),
that the mercy and blessing of God passes over to
them, and through their enmity to him, which only
reveals itself in calumnies and blasphemies* they
draw upon themselves the curse of God. The ore-
lude to the ecclesiastical blessing and the ecclesi-
astical ban or curse. The curse : (Gen. iii. 14 and
17 ; iv. 11 ; V. 29 ; ix. 26 ; xxvii. 29). — In thea
shall all the families of the earth be hiessed.'l'
— The rendering it as reflexive is arbitrary, since we
have the special form of the hithpael to express this,
and the interpretation all families shall desire that
their prosperity may be as thine, is shallow and in-
correct (Jarchi, Glericus and others). The reflexive
rendering is not necessary, ind<>ed, in ch. xlviii. 20. —

* [3Sp the reproaches — blasphenQOUs curses of men — in
digtinctioa from "i"1K the judicial curse of God. Keil.—
A. G.]

t [We must not miss here the fundamental meaning of
the D in, while we include its instrumental sense, through.
Ahram w not only the channel but the source of blessing for
bU Keil. — A. G.] ^The families refers to the division of the
one human family into a number of families or races. (See
X. 5 ; XX. SI). The blessing of Abram will bind into unity the
now dissevered parts of the race, and transform that curse
Thich now rests upon all the earth on account of sin, into a
I'lessing for the whole human race. Keil.— A. G.] [The
Did Testament is as broad and catholic in its spirit as the
Newlestameut. Mdbfsy, pp. 262, 263.— A. G.l

V. 4. The obedience of Abram. . He left what he
was required to leave, and took with him what it was
in his power to take, Lot, although Lot was a burden
to him rather than a source of strength (see artici*
Lot, in the " Bible Dictionaries "). The emigration
was the more heroic, since he was 75 years old, and
his father was still living* (ch. 11). He proliablj
went by Damascus (see xv. 2). — V. 5. The souls
that they had gotten. — Strictly, made, descriptive
of the gain in slaves, male and female. t — Siohem.
— The first resting-place of Abram, who came to the
place Siohem, :j: and, indeed, to the oaks of Moreh
(Deut. xi. 30), the oak-grove of Moreh. — Moreh. —
Probably the name of the owner. Knobel : the oaka
of instruction, which appear to be the same
with the oaks of divination (Judges ix. 37). Il
is not probable that Abram would have fixed
his abode precisely (as Knobel thinks) in a grove,
which according to heathen notions had a sacred
character as the resideuce of divining priests.
The religious significance of the place may have
arisen from the fact that Jacob buried the images
brought with him in his family, under the oak of
Shechem (xxxv. 4). The idols, indeed, must not be
thrown into sacred but profane places (Isa. ii. 20).
But, perhaps, .Jacob had regard to the feelings of hia
family, and prepared for the images, which, indeed,
were not images belonging to any system of idolatry,
an honorable burial. At the time of Joshua the place
had a sacred character, and Joshua, therefore, erected
here the monumental stone, cotnmeraoi'ating the sol-
emn renewal of the law. Thus they became the oaks
of the pillar at which the Shechemites made Abimelech
king (Judges ix. 6). — Then also the Canaanite
■was in the land. — This explains why in his migra-
tions he must pass through the land to Sichem, to
find a place suitable for bis residence.§ It does not
follow from this statement, either that the narrative
originated at a time when the Canaanite was no
longer in the land, or that the term here designates
only a single tribe of this name, which in the time of
Moses dwelt upon the sea-coast, and in the valley
of the Jordan (as Knobel thinks), comp. ch. xiii. 7 ;
xxxiv. 30. It is a tradition of the Jews, that Noah
had assigned Africa as the home of the children
of Ham, but that the Canaanites had remained in
Canaan against his command, and that therefore
Abram, the true heir, was called thither. Ver. 7. The
first appearance of Jehovah in vision. Abram's life
of faith had developed itself thus far since he had
entered Canaan, and now the promise is given to
him of the land of Canaan, as the possession of the
promised seed. The second progressive promise |
comp. ch. xiii. 16, 17; xv. 18; xvii. 8; xxvi. 3;
xxviii. 4, 13 ; xxxv. 12. Abram's grateful acknowl-

* [But according to Acts viL 4, his father was dead,
Terah died when he was 205 years old, and as Abram left
Haran when he was 75 years old, he must have been bom
when Terah was 130 years old, and thus have been the
younger son of Terah, — A. G.]

t [Not only gotten as secular property but had made
obedient to the law of the true God. "Wordsworth — A, G.l

i [See Jacobus : " Notes on Genesis," vol. i. pp. 227, 228L
—A. G.i

§ [The author of Genesis evinces in this clause a knowl-
edge of the Canaanites, and presupposes their character tc
bo known in such a way as a late writer could not do.
.jACOBtJs, p. 228.— A. G.]

U [Abram is the first person to whom the Lord is said to
have appeared, and this is l he first place at which the Lord
is said to have appeared to Abram, and at this plaM
Chi-ist, the Lord of glory, first revealed himself as the Mes*
eiah (.John iv. 26j to the Samaritan woman (the type of thf
Gentile Church). Woedswoeth, p. 66 — A. G.]

392

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

edgment : the erection of an altar, and the founding
of an outward service of Jehovah, which as to its
first feature consisted in the calling upon his nijme
(cultus), and as to its second, in the profession and
acknowledgment of his name.* Thus also Jacob
acted (ch. xxxiii. 20 ; Josh. xxiv. 1, 26). Bethel,
Jerusalem, Hebron, Beersheba are places of the
same character (j. e., places which were consecrated
by the patriarchs, and not as Knobel thinks, whose
consecration took phice in later times, and then was
dated back to the period of the patriarchs). Abram's
altars stood in the oaks of Moreh, and Mamre, in
Bethel, and upon Moriah. Abram, and the patri-
archs generally, served also the important purpose
of preaching through their lives repentance to the
Canaanites, as Noah was such a preacher for his
time. For God leaves no race to perish unwarned.
Sodom had even a constant warning in the life of Lot.

2. Abram's migration through Canaan from
Sichem to Bethel and still further southwards (vers.
8 and 9). The want of pasture for his herds, the
presentiments of piety, the yielding of the patriarch
to the divine guidance, led him further southwards
to a new residence east of Bethel. He pitched his
tent between Bethel and Ai. " In the time of the
Judges there was a sanctuary of Jehovah at Bethel
(1. Sam. X. S^, and at one time also it was the abode
of the ark of the covenant (Judges xx. 18, 26). In
later times it was the chief seat of the illegal worship
(cultus) established by Jeroboam (1 Kings xii. 29 ;
Amos vii. U^), and hence its name Bethel in the
place of the o* 1 name Luz (ch. xxviii. 19 ; Josh, xviii.
13; Judges i. 23). In Genesis it bears this name
already in the time of the patriarchs, who here re-
ceived manifestations of God and offered sacrifices to
him (ch. xiii. 4 ; xxviii. 22 ; xxxv. 'ly Thus Kno-
bel explains the name as if there was an internal
necessity for denying the fact of the consecration of
Bethel through the dream and vision of Jacob. But
that Bethel shovdd be geographically known as Luz
by the Canaanites, long after the patriarchs had
made it theocratically Bethel, involves no real diffi-
culty.!— Abram journeyed (broke up his en-
campment and went). — The whole statement
brings to view and illustratPS the nomadic life,
as also the allusion to his dwelling in tents. J; —

Going on still to^^ard the South The southern

part of Canaan toward the wilderness, a rich pasture-
land. A particular definite residence in Hebron is
spoken of in ch. xiii. 18.

3. Abratn's journey to Egypt (vers. 10-20). —
There was a famine in the land.— The frequent
famines are a peculiar characteristic of early times
and of uncivilized lands. Egypt as a rich and fruitful
land was even then a refuge from famine, as it was
in the history of Jacob (Joseph., Antiq. xv. 9, 2). —
Say, I pray thee (or now, still), thou art my
Bister. — The women at that time went unveiled, and

* [He tliiis also took possession of the land in the name
of hie covenant God. See Bush, 364 ; Jacobus, 229.— A. G.]

t ["Jacob gave this name to the place twice(Gen. xxviii.
19; xxKV. 15). As the name was not first given in the second
Instance, so it may not have been in the first. Accordingly
we meet with It as an existing name in Abram's time,
without heiag constrained to account for it by supposing the
present narrative to have been compnsed in its present
form after the time of Jacob's visit. On the other hand, we
may regard it as an interesting ti-ace of early piety having
been present in the land even before the arrival of Abram."
M urphy.— A. Q.]

X [" lie hod left his hcmsc at Haran, and now dwelt in
tints as in a s'-angc country " (Heb. xi. 9). Wordsworth.
-A. G.l

this receives confirmation from the Egyptian mom-
ments. The custom was changed after the conquest
of the land by the Persians. Sarah was ten yeari
younger than Abram (ch. xvii. 17), and, therefore,
about 65 years of age. In the patriarchal mannei
of life, her age would not make so deep a mark ; and
there is no real ground for questioning the continu-
ance of her youthful bloom and beauty. It is more
remarkable that Abram should adopt the same
course again (ch. 20), and that Isaac should onco
have imitated his example (ch. xxvL 7). Modem
criticism in this case, as often in other cases, choosea
rathi'r to admit, that there is a remarkable confusion
iu the narrative, than that there should have been a
remarkable repetition of the same act. " It is held
with good reason," says Knobel, " that one and the
same uvent lies at the foundation of these three nar-
ratives." But the result of the first act of Abram
did not necessarily restrain him from the second,
and Isaac, especially in moments of anxiety, may
have easily yielded himself to a slavish imitation
of his father's conduct. The name Abimelech lays
no real ground for the identity of the second and
third narrative, since this was a standing title of the
kmgs of Philistia, as Pharaoh* was of the kings of
Egypt. According to (ch. xx. 18) Abram liad al-
ready in his migration from Haran arranged with
Sarah the expression referred to for his protection
while among strangers, and this explains the repeti-
tion of the act, the prominent point in the moral
problem (see below). " The Hebrew consciousness,"
says Knobel, "pleased itself with the thought that
on different occasions the ' mothers ' were objects of
admiration for their beauty, while they were kept
from insult, and their liusbands protected in their
rights by God." Since the "Israelitish consciousness"
has not concealed by silence that Leah, the mother
of the larger part of the Jews, was not beautiful, we
may trust its account of the beauty of Sarah, Re-
bekah and Rachel, and the more so since the beauty
of that type appears still in Jewish women. It must
be observed also that by the side of the Hamitic wo-
men in Egypt and Canaan, Semitic women, even
when advanced in years, would be admired as beau-
ties. Abram desired that Sai ah should say that she
was his sister, lest he should be killed. If she was
regarded as his wife, an Egyptian could only obtain
her, when he had murdered her husband and pos-
sessor ; but if slie was his sister, then there was a
hope that she might be won from her brother by
kindly means. The declaration was not false (ch.
XX. 12), but it was not the whole truth. Knobel. —
Ver. 15. And commended her before Pharaoh.
— " Modern travellers speak in a similar way of ori-
ental kings, who incorporate into their harem the
beautiful women of their land in a perfectly arbiti ary
way." Knobel. " The recognition of Sarah's beauty
is more easily explained, if we take into view that
the Egyptian women, although not of so dark a com-
plexion as the Nubians or Ethiopians, were yet of a
darker shade than the Asiatics. The women of high
rank were usually represented upon the monuments
in lighter shades for the purpose of flattery."
Hengstenberg. "According to older records the

* [" n3'"iB from the Coptic Ouro with the masculiiia
article pi oi p, Pouro, king. The dynasty and residence of
the king cannot he certaii.ly dctecmined. But it is worthy
of notice that there is no trace here of the later Egyptian
conti-mpt for the nomadic life and occupation ; a fact which
epe.-iks decidedly for the antiquity and histoiieal characte*
of the narrative." Kurtz. — A. G.] '

CHAP. Xn. 1-20.

392

itian court consisted of the sons of the most
:llustriouB priests. — Into Pharaoh's house, i. e.,

liarem." Schroder. — Ver. 16. The possessions of the
Qomadic chief. , "According to Burl^hardt and
Robinson all the Arabic Bedouin hordes do not own
horses. Strabo already relates this as true of the
Nabataeans (p. 16)." Knobel. The horse does not
appear with the patriarchs, and as a costly, proud
animal, both as a war-horse and in ordinary use, was
generally in the theocratic riew regarded as a symbol
of worldly splendor. — Ver. 17. The Lord plagued
Pharaoh with great plagues [blows]. — They
were such plagues of sickness as to guard Sarai
from injury (ch. xx. 4, 6). — Ver. 18. This Pharaoh is
not hardened like the later king of that name. He
concludes that he is punished for the sake of Sarai.
Whence he draws this conclusion we are not told.*
— V. 20. Now follows the dismissal of Abram, but
still a dismissal full of honorable accompaniments.
"Pharaoh's conduct moreover shows how under all
that idolatry which then held the Egyptians in its
embrace, there was still existing a certain faith in
the supreme God, and a kind of reverential fear
bef*ire him."

DOCTErSAL AND ETHICAL.

1. Keii : " The history of the life of Abram from
his calling to his death unfolds itself in four stages,
whose beginnings are marked by divine revelations
of special significance. The first stage (chs. xii.-xiv.)
Iiegins with his calUng and emigration to Canaan ;
the second (chs. xv. xvi.) with the promise of an heir
and the formation of tlie covenant ; the third (chs.
xvii.-xxi.) with the estabhshment of the covenant
through the change of name and the introduction
of the covenant-sign of circumcision ; the fourth (chs.
xxii.-xxv. 11) with the trial or temptation of Abram
for the preservation and perfecting of his faith. All
the divine revelations to him proceed from Jehovah,
and the name Jehovah prevails through the whole
life of the father of the faithful, the name Elohim
appealing only where Jehovah, according to its sig-
niticance, would have been entirely out of place, or
less appropriate." Viewing his life with respect to
his faith, the first Section (chs. xii.-xiv.) marks pecu-
liarly the calhng of Abraham ; the second states his
justification, confirmed through his reception into
the covenant of Jehovah — obscured, but not weak-
ened, through the erroneous workings of his faith
in his connection with Hagar (chs. xv. xvi.) ; the
third states his conseeration to be the father of the
faithful, and therewith the legal separation of his
house, and the establishment of his mild and yet
strictly marked relations to the heathen (ch. xvii.-
xiL) ; the fourth treats of the sealing or confirmation
of his faith. (From these we must distinguish as a
fifth Section the time of the solemn festive rest of Ids
faith, or the evening of life (chs. xxiii.-xxv. 10).
For the nature of the patriarchal history, compare
Delitsch, above.

2. The translation of Stier (xii. 1), ffit Lord had
laid, is based upon an 'ncorrecl interpretation of the

* [V. 19. So I might have taken, Heb. And I took.
The eonstmction of the Hebrew does not require the sup-
position that she actually became his wife. Our version,
though not literal, gives no doubt the correct sense. If
the present narrative admitteJ of any doubt, the doubt
ia removed by a reference to the parallel case, ch. xx. 6.
- A. O.]

passage, in accordance with a misimderstanding of
the words of Stephen (Acts vii. 3). As the first call
of Abram in Ur is by no means excluded here b)
the second call in Haran, so in Acts, the second call-
ing in Haran is not excluded by the first in Ur. Thf
first calling was plainly to Abram and his father's
house. In the call before us he was told to go ou.
from his father's house, while his fether with the
rest should remain m Haran. Starke also fails tc
distinguish these two callings correctly.*

3. The particularism entering with the calling
of Abram must be viewed as the divine method ol
securing universal results. "In the particular we
see the general, in the individual the whole, in the
small the great ; Abram's calling is the seed out of
which springs the great tree under whose shade
many nations rest ; all indeed shall one day rest."
Lisco. — There is no mere external preference for
Israel in the Old Testament. God has, in his word,
threatenings and judgments, dealt as strictly with
Israel as with any people ; with peculiar strictness,
indeed, according to the peculiar gifts and graces
which Israel had received. But the proper restric-
tion is the truest universality. " In the example of
the Jewish people God declares, that which was con-
cealed, the method and law of his wisdom, and
authorizes us to apply it for direction in our own
lives, and to other subjects, people, and events." A
quotation in Lisco. — The elements of Abram's char-
acter: heroic faith, humility, and self-sacrifice, en-
ergy, benevolence, and gentleness. His call in the
East : Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans trace
their origin back to him. The purer elements of
Islamism come from him.

4. The calhng of Abram: 1. In its requisitions;
2. in its promises (see the Exegesis) ; 3. in its mo-
tives, a. The grace of God. The election of Abram
The choice of God reflects itself in the dispositions
of men, the gifts of believers. As every people has
its pecuUar disposition, so the race of Abram, and
especially the lather of it, had the rehgious disposi-
tion in the highest measure, b. The great necessity
of the world. It appeared about to sink into hea-
thenism; the faith must be saved in Abram. c. The
destination of Abram. Faith should proceed from
one behever to all, just as salvation should proceed
from one Saviour to all. The whole Messianic proph-
ecy was now embraced in Abram.f

* [" There is no discrepancy between Moses and St. Ste-
phen . St. Stephen's design was, when he pleaded before the
Jewish Sanhedrim, to show that God's revelations were not
limited to Jerusalem and Judea, but that he had first spoken
to the father of Abram in an idolatrous land, Ur of the
Chaldees."

*' But Moses dwells specially on Abram's call from Ha-
ran, because Abram's obedience to that call was the proof of
his faith." Wordsworth.

There is no improbability in the supposition that thecal!
was repeated. And this supposition would not only recon-
cile the words of Stephen and of Moses, but may explain the
fifth verse: "And they went forth to go into the land oi
Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came." Abram
had left his home in obedience to the original call of God,
but had not reached the land in which he was to dwell.
Now, upon the second call, he not only sets forth, but con-
tinues in his migrations until he reaches Canaan, to which
he was directed. — A. G.]

t [" "With the closing word of the promse, 'in thee shall
all the families of the earth be blessed,* the final goal of all
history is proclaimed, for there is nothing beyond the bless-
ing of all the families of the earth. Thus the whole fulnese
of the divine purpose in reference to the salvation, ia stated
in the call of Abram, and connected with him in the closesl
manner. For the 7\^ docs not designate any relation what-
ever of Abram to the general blessing, but designates him

S94

flENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

6. The calling of Abram to the pilgrimage of
faith (Heb. xi. 8). His migration : 1. into Canaan ;
2. through Canaan ; 3. to Egypt ; 4. his return.
His calling and migrating an example of the calling
and pilgrimage of his race. — A type of the calling
ind pilgrimage of all believers.

ti. The cliar:icter of the life of faith : a. The ex-
perience of faith. Personal revelation of God, the
personal providence of Cod. b. The work or conces
Biou of faith. Personal trust and personal obedience.

I. The word of God to Abrahim, sealed through
the manifestation of God in Canaan, as the word of
the gospel is sealed to the believer through the sacra-
ment. Kkil : " The promise was raised from its
temporal form to its real nature through Christ,
through him the whole earth becomes a Canaan."

8. Abram and the companions of his faith. Sarai,
Lot. The blessings and perils of the companionship
of the faithful. " The father of believers and his suc-
cessors appear constantly in ihu Bible as one whole:
hence it is said so often, ' To thee will I give this land
(ch. XV. 17, etc.)'" Gerlach.

9. The solitude of the nomadic life of the patri-
archs, a source of the life of pi'ayer and illumination —
a prerequisite for the higher revelation. The solitude
of Moses, the prophets (" by the rivers of Babylon,"
" in the desert,") of Jobn the Baptist, of Chrlht the
Lord, of the Christians in deserts, of the mystics in
the cloisters of the middle ages, of Luther (Jacob
Bohme, Fox, etc.). In tranquil retirement. "Abram
was a rich, independent herdsman, just as the Be-
douin chiefs are still in the deserts and the broad
pasture-grounds of Syria, Arabia, and Palestine."
Gerlach. There were already a variety of pursuits ;
hu^itsmen, husbandmen, and shepherds. Their sepa-
rations and variances (ch. xliii. 32 ; xlvi. 34). For
the tents, deserts, pasturages (uncultivated regions),
see Bible Dictionaries.

10. The coQsecration of Canaan, through the
manifestations of God, and the altars of Abram (as
well as of the other patriarchs). The heavenly signs
of the Church of Christ ; the setting apart of the old
earth, to a new. The chosen land a type of the
Christian earth and of Paradise. " Abram takes his
church with him." Calwer Handbucb.

II. Abram's altars, or his calling upon the name
of Jehovah, is at the same time a testimony to his
name. Tbe true worship is a source of the true mis-
sionary— the cultus itself a mission.

12. Abram's maxim or rule, to report thai Sarah
was his sister.* It was determined upon in the
early period of his migrations (ch. xx. 13), but was
here first brought into use, and from its successful
issue was repeated once by himself, and once imi-
tated by Isaac. It was with respect to his faith a
fearful hazard. Faith is at the beginning uncertain
as to the moral questions and complications of life.
Every broad view of the general is at first an uncer-
tain view as to the particular. Thus it is in the
broad synthetic view in science ; it is at first want-
ing in reference to the critical and analytical knowl-
edge as to the particular. Still the scientific Syn-

fts the organic means or mstniment through whioh hlessing
iho^ild come." Baumgarten. — A. G.]

["The Apostle Paul expounds the promise (G-al. iii. 16),
Bhowing : 1. that by its express terms, it was made to ex-
tend to the Gentiles : and, 2. that by the term ' seed ' is
meant Christ Jesus. The promise looks to the world-wide
benefits of redemption which should come through Christ,
the seed of Abram." .Tacobus, p 225. — A. G.]

* [See Hengstekbeeg's Beitrdge^ iii. p. 526 fit —A. G.]

thesis is the source of all true science. And tliuf
faith, the great synthesis of heaven, is at first uncer-
tain as to the moral problems of the earthly life. Thi
history of all the great beginnings of faith furnishes the
proof. But still, the great life of faith is the source
of all pure and high morality in the world. Abram's
venture was not from laxity as to the sanctity of
marriage, or as to his duty to protect his wife ; il
was f 1 om a presumptuous confidence in the wonder-
ful assistance of God. It was excused through th«
great necessity of the time, his defenceless state
among strangers, the customary lawlessness of those
in power, and as to the relation of the sexes. There-
fore Jehovah preserved him from disgrace, although
he did not spare him personal anxiety, and the moral
rebuke from a heathen. It is only in Christ, that with
the broad view of faith, the knowledge of its moral
human measures and limitations is from the beginning
perfect. In the yet imperfect, but growing faith, the
word is true, " The children of this world are wiser
in their generation than the children of light." As
a mere matter of prudence, Abram appeared to act
prudently. He told no untruth, although he did not
tell the whole truth. His word was, at all events,
of doubtful import, and therefore, through his anx-
ious forecast, was morally hazardous. But the ne-
cessity of the time, the difficulty of his position, and
his confidence that God would make his relations
clear at the proper time, serve to excuse it. It was
not intended to effect a final deception; his God
would unloose the knot. In his faith Abram was a
blameless type of believers, but not in his apphca-
tion of his faith to the moral problems of life. Still,
even in this regard, he unfolds more and more his
heroic greatness. We must distinguish clearly be-
tween a momentary, fanatical, exaggerated confi-
dence in God, and the tempting of God with a selfish
purpose (see the history of Thamar, Kahab). Baum-
garten is not correct when he says : " Abram aban-
dons his wife, but not so Jehovah." The modern
stand-point is too prominent even in Delitzsch : " He
thus thinks that he will give the marriage-honor of
his wife a sacrifice for his self-preservat on ; at all
events, he is prepared to do this." Abram knew
from the first, that the promise of blessing from Je-
hovah was connected with his person. Hence the
instinct of self-preservation is lost in the higher im-
pulse for the preservation of the blessing. And if,
in relation to this impulse, he placed his mari-iage in
a subordinate position, this occurred certainly from
his confidence in the wonderful protection of Jeho-
vah, and the heroic conduct of Sarai. His syllogism
was doubtless morally incorrect, but it rested upon
an exaggeration of his faith, and not upon moral
cowardice.* Upon any opposing interpretation, the
same conduct of the patriarchs could not possibly
have been repeated a second and third time. Jeho-
vah himself could not have recognized any tempting
of God, nor any moral baseness, in his conduct ; but

* ["We are not to be harsh or censorious in our indgmeuta
upon the acta of these eminent saints. But neither are we
called upon to defend their acts ; and ii the view of Lang*
does not sa.tisfy evcrv one, it is well to bear in mind that
the Scripture records these acts without expressing distmctly
any moral judgment upon them. It impliedly condemns.
The Scripture, however, contains clearly the great princi-
ples of moral truth and dul^, and then oftentimes leaves the
reader to draw the inference as to the moral quality of the
acts which it records. And its faithfulness in not concealing
what may be of questionable morality, "in tlie lives of the
greatest saints shows the honesty and accuracy of the histo*
rian." Wordsworth says well : " the weaknesses of tbj
patriarchs su-eugthen our faith in the Pentateuch."— A. O.

CHAP. Xn. 1-20.

398

Indeed ooncema himself In the leading of Abram's
faith (as in the life of Stilling), while he prepares for
the presumptuous and erroneous syllogism of his faith
its deserved rebuke. In a similar way Calvin recog-
nizes the good end of Abram, but at the same time
remarlis that he failed in the choice of his means.

13. That the Bible speaks in this frank and sim-
ple way of the female beauty, as it does generally of
beauty in life, and the world, shows how free it is
from the gloomy, morose, monkish asceticism, while,
however, it does not conceal tlie perils of beauty.

14. The Pharaoh of this early period, and more
simple life, had already his courtiers, flatterers, and
harem. How soon the misuse of princely power has
been developed with the power itself! In this case,
too, as it often oecui'S, the prince is better than his
court. Pharaoh treats the patriarch with honor,
humanity, and a magnanimity which must have put
him to shame.

16. As we find recorded in Genesis the begin-
ning of polygamy, of despotism, of the harem, and
even of unnatural sexual crimes, so also we have here
the first corporeal pvmishment of these sexual sins
in the house of Pharaoh. We iire not told, indeed,
what was the particular Ifind of punishment, but it is
represented as sent for these sins of Pharaoh.

16. Delitzsch holds, that the silence of Abram
under the reproof of Pharaoh, is a confession of his
guilt. "Ashamed and penitent, he condemns him-
self" h would be very difficult, on this interpreta-
tion, to explain the twofold repetition of this act in
the life of Abram and of Isaac. We may not trans-
fer our judgment of the case to the stage of the
moral development of Abram.

17 The history of Sarai, in whose person God
guards the future mother of Israel from profanation,
is at the same time a sign of the fact, that God pre-
Berves the sacred marriage in the midst of the cor-
ruption of the world.

18. Among the rich possessions which fell to
Abram in Egypt, more through the protection and
blessing of God, than his own prudence, was most
probably the Egyptian maid, Hagar, who afterwards
exerted so important an influence upon his course of
hfe. EUezer, of Damascus, and Hagar, from Egypt,
are undesigned testimonies to the genuine historical
character of the account of his migration from Meso-
potamia to Canaan, and from Canaan to Egypt.

19. Abram's return from Egypt at this time, was
already in some sense a return home, and a type of
the Exodus of his descendants from Egypt.*

20. The significance of the wonderful land of
Egypt for the history of the kingdom of God. Its
connection with Canaan, and its opposition. How
often it moves down to Egypt (Egypt lay lower than
Canaan), and from thence moves back again ! There
'hi Hamitic spirit blooms, here the Semitic (Ziegler) ;
there are enigmas, here mysteries ; there miracles of
death, here of life ; there the Pharaohs, here spiritual
princes.

HOMILETIOAL AND PUACTICAl.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs.— JeAo-
»oA. 1. The profound significance of the name ;

* [''The same necessity conducts both him and hie de-
wendants to Egypt. They both encounter similar dangers
in ttiat land — the same mighty arm delivers both, and leads
Uiem back enriched with the treasures of that wealthy
toimtiy." Kurtz. —A. e.]

2. its eternal value and importance. — CalUng of
Abram. — Three first proofs of his faith : 1. Hi
must go out from his country and his father's housci
into a strange land ; 2. he finds in Palestine " n4
continuing city," and soon suffers from famine j

3. he must go further to Egypt, in danger of his Ufe,
marriage, and hope.* — Abram at his altiirs a preach
er of repentance for the Canaanites. — His pilgrimage-
— The companions of his faith. — The providence of
God over the lives of behevers. — The infallible faith
of Abram, and his errors in the apphcations of hia
faith, or of his life : 1. That infallibihty does not
prevent these errois ; 2. but it prevents their dan-
gerous consequences, and at last removes them.—
The consecration of Canaan. — The blessing of faith.

Starke : Wurtemherg Bible : Ver. 1, The call
from the condition of sin, or true conversion, springs
not from one's own strength, etc., but only from the
grace of God. — Cramer : Whoever will be a follower
of God, must separate himself from the world and its
wickedness, must leave all consolation and help in
the creature, and place his confidence only and alone
in the Lord. — If we follow the call uf God, we are
always in the right way. — The promises of God are
yea and amen. — Ver. 3. Whoever wishes and does
good to the saints, wiU receive good again, but who-
ever wishes and does them injury, must meet with
calamity. — Vers. 4, 5. The strength of faith can do
away with time, and present future things as if pres-
ent, f — Upon ver. 13. Since Abram was continually
dependent upon the grace of God, he must feel hia
weakness, which betrays him into manifold acts of
insincerity and sins. For, 1. he acted from fear,
when he should still have looked to God ; 2. he gave
out that Sarai was his sister, when she was his wife ;
3. he had great guilt in the sin of Pharaoh ; 4. he
thought to secure his own safety, while he placed
Sarai and her chastity in the greatest peril. — Even
in the greatest saints, there are many and vari-
ous defects and transgressions. — God leads his own
out of temptation, even when they have fallen. —
OsiANDER : God avenges the injustice and disgrace,
which are inflicted upon his elect.— Lisco: Abram
obeyed because he trusted God ; the two together
constituie his faith.J — Wherever Abram comes, in
his nomadic life and wanderings, he works for the
honor of God.^Ver. 13. The failures of this chosen
man of God appear, upon a closer survey, as sins of
weakness, which, on the one hand, do not destroy
his gracious standing with God, but on the other
render necessary in him a purifying, providential
training. The providence of God watches over hia
elect. — Gerlach : In the simple, vivid narrative of
the life of Abram, every step is iiill of importance. —
Ver. 3 is the expression of the more perfect covenant-
relationship and communion. His friends are the
friends of God, his enemies the enemies of God.
God will himself reward every kindness shown to

* [There does not seem to be sufficient ground for the
conjecture of Murpby, that Abram was now pursuing hia
own course, and venturing beyond the limits of the land of
promise, without waiting patiently for the divine counsel ;
and that he went with a vague Buepicion that he was doing
wrong. There is reason to believe, that all the movementa
of the patriarch were not only under divine control, but wera
a part of God's plan for the testing and developing of his
faith. It was' a sore trial to leave the land promised to him,
so soon after he had entered it. See also paragraph 20;
above. — A. G.]

t [Ver. 7. " Wherever he had a tent, God had an altan,
and an altar sanctified by prayer." Henry. — A. G.J

t [Faith receives the promise, and leads to obediecoe.—
AG.]

•^m

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

him, and avenge every injury (in word and deed),
Fs. cv. 18-15. — Ver. 13. In the deception which
Abram usee, as in the later instances of Jacob and
Moses, we see a weakness and impurity of faith
whicli did not yet rely perfectly upon the help of
God in his own way and time, but selfishly and
eageily grasped after it. It is not without re-
proofs

Oalaer Sand.: To the command of God follows
the promise (ch. xii. 3). This advances upwards
through six steps, until, at the most advanced, the
Messiah appears, who should sprinc; from the de-
scendants of Abram. I will make thee a great na-
tion, natural and spiritual — and still his wife was
unfruitful — n ill bless thee — and still he did not pos-
sess a footbreadth of land — will make thy name
great — and yet he must be a stranger in a strange
land. — In thee shall be blessed,* etc. This proniise
WHS repeated to him seven times : the third promise
of the Messiah. — The word of God never excuses the
imperfections of believers. — Bunsen: Abram is the
eternal model of all exiles, and the true father of the
pilgrim-fathers of the seventeenth century (of the
pilgrims of faith of all times, Heb. xi.). — And make
thy name great. The Arabians, after Isa. xli. 8,
call Abram the friend of God. — Schroder : For a
long time, as is evident from examples in the family
of Abram, God had permitted the truth and its mar-
red image to stand side by side. There must come
at the last a moment of perfect separation, a moment
of declared distinction between truth and falsehood.
This moment also actually came. — Luther : It is
cheering, therefore, and full of consolation, when we
thus consider how the church began and has in-
creased.— With him it is so arranged that he cannot
remove his foot from his native ground, without
planting it upon an entirely distinct region — the re-

* [The promise receives its first fulfilment in Abram,
then m the Jews, more perfectly when the Son of God be-
came incarnate, the seed of Abram, then further i n the church
and the preaching of the gospel, but finally and fully when
Christ sh;ill complete his church, and come to take her to
himself.— A. G.j

gion of faith. — Krdmmacher: The East still re
sounds with the name of Abram. — Ver. 3. Abraic
becomes to many a savor of death unto deatb
(2 Cor. ii. 16), although he himself should not curse
That is the prerogative of God, he should only be f
blessing. — Blessing and making blessed is the desti
nation of all the elect. — Baumgaeten: Ver. 10
Famine in the land of promise is a, severe test foi
Abrnm. For the land is promised to him as a good
which should compensate all his self-denial. — Ver
13. In fact, there are found in the oldest historiea
frequently, here and there, the seeds of the later
more developed boasted cunning and prudence. —
Passavant : (Abram and his children). Abram was
great before God. How so ? Through faith. Faith
does it. Oo out of thif land. The father-land is
dear to us. But now it avails, etc. — He went out
with his God. — Schwenke : " Hours with the Bible."
Does not the call come to thee also : Go out? — And
go in faith? A life in faith is a continual prov-
ing— a permanent test. — Hefser : (The Leadings
of Abram.) Abram in his pilgrimage : 1. The goal
for which he strove ; 2. the promises which secured
its attainment ; 3. the dangers under which he stood ;
4. the divine service which he rendered. — Tacee:
The calling of Abram, a type of our calhng to the
kingdom of God: 1. As to its demands ; 2. as to its
gracious promises.* — W. Hofmann : It is through
Abram that we receive all the sacred knowledge
until we reach back to paradise ; all that afterwards
was preserved for us by Moses came through his
mind and heart. — -It was the believing look to the
past, which fitted Abram to look on into the future.
Delitzsch : The facts (Abram in Egypt) ai'e related
to us, not so much for the dishonor of Abram, as for
the houor of Jehovah. -1-

* [Abram also is an illustriouB example to all who hear
the call of Grod. His obedience is prompt and submissive.
He neither delays nor questions, but went out not knowing
whither he went, Heb. xi. 8. — A. G.]

t [HengBtenberg says : The object of the writer is not
Abram's glorification, but the glorificatioii of Jehovah. —
A. G.]

SECOND SECTION.

Abram <u a idtness for (fod in Canaan, and his self-denying separation from Lot.
Promise of Qod. His altar in Hain {oaks') Mamre.

The Ntu

Chapter XIII. 1-18.

1 And Abram went up out of Egypt, he and bis wife, and all that he had, and Lot

2 with him, into the south [of Canaan]. And Abram was very rich, in cattle [possessions], in

3 silver, and in gold. And he went on his journeys [nomadio departures, stations] from the
south, even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between

1 Bethel and Hai ; Unto the place of the altar which he had made there at the first : and
5 there A bram called upon the name of the Lord. And Lot also, which went with Abram
S had flocks [small cattle], and herds [large cattle], and tents. And the land was not able to

bear [support] them, that they might dwell together : for their substance was great, so that
1 they could not dwell together. And there was a strife between the berdmen of Abram's

cattle, and the herdmen of Lot's cattle : and the Canaanite and tne Perizzite dwelled

CHAP. Xm. 1-18.

tWT

8 then [as owners, settlers, SB"'] in the land. And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be nc
strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen ;

9 for we be brethren [men, brethren]. la not tlie whole land before thee [open to thy choice] 1
Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt take the left hand [land], then )
will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.

10 And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain [literally, circle] of Jordan [the down
flowing, descending- uhein], that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed
Sodom [burning] and Gomorrah [submersion], even as the garden of the Lord [paradise, is

Eden with ite stream], like the land of Egypt, as [until] thou COmest to Zoar [smallneFS, th

11 little one]. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan ; and Lot journeyed east [oi^sis
fiom the east, Septnagint and Vulgate incorrect] : and they separated themselves the one from the

12 other. Abram dwelled in the land [province] of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the citie?

13 of .the plain [the circle], and pitched his tent toward Sodom [until it stood at Sodom]. But
the men [people] of Sodom were wicked, and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.

14 And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up
now thine eyes and look [out] from the place where thou art northward [to Lebanon], and

15 southward [the desert], and eastward [toPerea], and westwards [the sea]. For all the land

16 which thou [thus] seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever [to eternity]. And
I will make [have determined] thy Seed as the dust of the earth ; so that if a man can num-

17 ber the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through

18 the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it ; for I will give it unto thee. Then
Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre [fatness, strength :
name of the owner], which is in Hebron [connection, confederacy], and built there an altar unto
the Lord.

EXEGETICAIi AND CEITICAL.

1. The Return of Abram from Egypt, and the
introduction of the Separation from Lot (vers. 1-9).
Into the south. — Abram returned with Lot, whose
migration with him to Egypt is thus presupposed, to
Canaan, not as in Luther's version, to the south, but
northwards to the southern part of Palestine, to the
region of Hebron and Bethlehem, from which he had
gone to Ep;ypt. The 333 is a term which had obvi-
ously attained geographically a fixed usage among
the IsraeUtes, and points out the southern region of
Palestine. But the pasture-ground in this region
seems to have been insufficient for Lot and himself
at the same time. Besides his treasures in gold and
aher he had grown rich in the possession of herds,
especially through the large presents of Pharaoh.*
Hence he removes further, by slow and easy stages,
to the earlier pasture-grounds between Bethel and
Hai. Here, where he had earlier built an altar, he
again sets up the worship of Jehovah with his fam-
ily. This worship is itself also a preaching of Jeho-
vah for the heathen. But even here the pasture-land
was not broad enough, since Lot also was rich in
herds, and the Canaanite and Perizzite then held the
gi'eater part of that region in their possession. These
Perizzites are referred to, because they were those
with whom Abram and Lot came most frequently
into contact, and were their rivals. " The Perizzites,
who do not appear in the genealogical lists of the
Canaauitish tribes, but only in the geographical enum-
eration of the inhabitants of the land (ch. xv. 20 ;
Ex. iii. 8; Deut. vii. 1; Josh. xi. 3), and whom we
find in different parts of Canaan, are inhabitants of
the lowlands, who devote themselves to agriculture
ind grazing (Ezek. xxxviii. 11 ; Zech. ii. 4; Deut.

• [Ver. 5. To Lot also there wen flocks. The blessing
upon Abram overran and flowed over upon Lot. Jacobds,
p. 237.-A. G.l

iii. 5 ; 1 Sam. vi. 18). The Perizzites, as the author
intimates, were in possession of the best pastures ;
those only remained to Lot and Abram, which thej
had despised." Hengsteribera;. Schroder conjectares
that the Canaanites here designate the inhabitants
of the cities in contrast with the Perizzites wlio dwelt
in the open country. But the name designates, be
yond question, not only a mode of life, but a pecu
iiar people, and they are brought into notice here^
because they were thickly ciowded in the region of
Bethel, wit"h Abram. Gerlach : " Perizzites, prob-
ably dwellers in perazoth, open courts, or villages,
inhabitants of the country, in distinction from those
who dwelt in cities." But then the greater portion
of the Canaanites would have been Perizzites, from
whom still Gerlach distinguishes the Canaanites,
They appear to have been nomads. In Gen. xxxiv.
30, they appear in Sichem ; in Josh. xi. 3, between
the Jebusites and Hittites, upon the mountains.
Against the interpretation, inhabitants of the open
country, see Keil, p. 137, who distinguishes the form
■'inen and "'tlBrn (Deut. iii. 5), inhabitants of the
low 'or flatlands!* — Let there be no strife be-
tween me and thee. — The strife between the
herdsmen, wonld soon issue in a strife between their
masters, if these should quietly or willingly permit
the disorder. It is possible that Lot's restless, un-
easy temper, had already betrayed itself in the open
strife of his servimts. The position of the words uf
Abram, betvxen me and thee, standing before the al-
lusion to the herdsmen, would seem to intimate
something of this kind.— We are brethren (brother
men). The law controversies, which, althougt
sometimes allowable between strangers, are yet in ali
ways to be avoided, ought not to have place between

* [Keil adds, as of still greater force, the use of th«
name, now with the Canaanites, and now with the cthei
tribes of Canaan, who obviously derive their names froa
their ancestors, or the head of their tribe.— A. G.l

898

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

brethren. Here kindred, piety, and affection, should
malie the utmost concessions easy. In his humihty
A.bram places himself on an equahly with Lot, calls
him brot.ier, although he was his nephew, and owed
to hira the duty of a son. Indeed, he so far talies
the subordinate place", that he yields to him the
choice of the best portions of th^ land. — If thou
wilt take the left hand. — The word of Abram has
passed into a proverbial watchword of the peace-
.Ofing and yielding temper, in all such cases when a
distinction and separation in the circumstances be-
comes necessary,

2. Lot''s Choice^ and the Separation {vera. 10-13).
The bold, unblushing, eelf-seeliing features in Lot s
character come clearly into view here. He raises
his eyes, and with unrestrained greediness chooses
what seems to him the best. The circuit of the Jor-
dan, i. e. the region of the Jordan (named simply
^33n), includes the deep valley of the Jordan (the
Ghor), from the Sea of Tiberias to the Dead Sea.
The whole valley, until we reach the Red Sea, is the
Arabah, which takes its name from the region here
mentioned. It is the vale of Siddim (ch. xiv. 3), the
present region of the Dead Sea, which is here in-
tendi'd. That the lower valley of the Jordan was
peculiarly well-watered, and a rich pasture-region, is
expressed by a twofold comparison ; it was as Para-
dise, and as the land of Egypt. The lower plain of
the Jordan was glorious as the vanished glory of
Paradise, or as the rich plains of the Nile in Egypt,
which were sull fresh in the memory of Lot. For
the Jordan and its valley, compare the Bible Dic-
tionories, geographical works, and books of travels.*
— As thou comest to Zoar. — At the southeast of
the Dead Sea (Ghor el Szaphia). — And they sepa-
rated themselves, the one (a brother) from the
other. — The separation was brotherly in a good and
evil sense ; good in the mind and thought of Abram,
and as to its peaceful form, but evil in so far as the
nephew acts as a privileged brother, and chooses the
best of tlie land. — And Abram dwelled in the
land of Canaan. — The opposition here is not, as
Knqbel thinks, between Canaan and the lower val-
ley of the Jordan, but between the land of Canaan
in which Abram remained, and the plain rich in
cities — (I'lX must be emphasized in opposition to
■"TS ). This also forms a distinct feature in Lot's
character. Abram remained in the retirement of his
oaks, from which Lot removed further and further
toward the cities of tlie valley, and indeed to those
most renowned ; he soon has bis pastures in the
neighborhood of Sodom, and his dwelling in Sodom
itself. In Sodom, even, we find him in the most
frequented place — at the gate. While there is no
doubt that he left Mesopotamia in the characteristic
faith of Abram, yet the prominence of the worldly
thought and inclination is revealed in him, through
these fiicts, although he on the whole preserves in
the very heart of his disposition and thought, the
essential feiitures of faith and reverence for God.
" Sodom must have lain at the southwesterly end of
the Dead Sea. The allusion to the pillar of salt
points to this location (ch. xix. 26), and its name is
still preserved there in the present Usdum, The
near vicinity of Zoar (ch. xix. 20), which must be
Bought in the Ghor el Szaphia (see ch. xix. 22) and
the general nature of the southern part of the Dead

* [Stanley : " Sinai and Palestine ; " Jacobus :
•■Notes."— A. G.l

Sea, are in favor of this location." Enobel. It II
true, that the kindred of the Israelitish tribes lefl
Palestine (ch. xxi. 14; xxv. 6, 18; xxxvi. 6), but it
by no means follows, as Knobel holds, that the writci
brings this inio prominence from special and inter-
ested motives, for the same writer records also th«
jonmeyings of the Israelites into Egypt.- -But tha
men of Sodom. — We shall learn more fully the
wickedness of the Sodomites in the xixth eh. It is
referred to here, in order to show that Lot had
chosen foolishly when he thought that he waB
choosing the best portion, and in order to make wa_
for the history of the punishment which came upoE
Sodom, in which Lot also must suffer for his folly.*
3. Th£ Renewal and Erdargeme^U of ike Prrmiiu
of the Land of Canaan^ with which Abram? s new
act of self-denial was rewarded, and his settlement in
the ff roves (oaks) of Mamre, in Ifebron {vers. 14-18).
— Lift up now thine eyes and look. — After the
departure of Lot, Jehovah commanded Abram now
also to lift up his eyes, in pious faith, as Lot had
raised his eyes in impious and shameless self seeking.
Since Bethel was about central in tlic land, and lay
high upon a mountain (ch. xii. 8 ; xxxv. 1, elc), this
direction is evidently historical ; f probably Abram
could look far and wide over the land in all direc-
tions from this place. — Northwards (towards the
midnight), etc. — The designation of the four quarters
of the heavens (com. ch. xxviii. 14) — And I will
make thy seed.:|: As the land should be great for
the people, thy posterity, so thy people shall be
numerous, or innumerable for the land. The seed
of Abram are compared with the dust of the earth,
with reference to its being innumerable. At a later
point, the one hyperbole falls into two : " as the
stars of heaven, and as the sand upon the sea-shore"
(ch. XV. 5 ; xxii. I'?). — Arise, etc. " The free pas-
sage through the land, should serve to animate hia
faith, and be a sign for his descendants of the sym-
bolic seizure and possession of the land. The com-
mand is not to be understood as a literal direction;
Abram could view the land promised to him, at hia
pleasure." — Then Abram removed his tent. §
" The oak-grove of Mamre lay in Hebron, and is
often mentioned as the residence of the patriarchs
(ch. xiv. 13, 18; xxxv. 27). It had its name from
the Amorite Mamre, a confederate with Abram (ch.
xiv. 13, 24), as the valley northerly from Hebron
holds its name, Eschol, fiom a brother of Mamre"
(Num. xiii. 23^. Knobel. According to Knobel, the
later custom of sacrificing to Jehovah at Heijroa

* [This is one of the numerous passages wMch prove the
unity of Genesis. — A. G.]

t [Stanley describes the hill as the highest of a succes-
sion of eminences, from which Abram and Tjot could take
the wide survey of the land on the right hand and on the
left, such &s can be enjoyed from no other point in tha
neighborhood. — A. G.]

t [" The promise of the land for a possess'on is CP'iS' IS .
The divine promise is unchangeable. As the seed of Abrara
should have an eternal existence before God, so also Canaan
is the eternal possession of this seed. But this does not avail
for the natural descendants of Abram as such, or his seed
according to the flesh, but for the true spiritual seed who
receive the promise by faith, and hold it in believing hearts.
This promise, therefore, neither prevents the exclusion of
the unbelieving seed from the land of Canaan, nor secures
to the Jews a return to the earthly Palestine, alter their
conversion. Through Christ the promise is raised fi-om its
temporal form to its real nat ure ; through hira ti e whole
earth becomes a Canaan." Keil. — " Ciuum tciT.i ?'« swcu^utn
promiltitur, non simpliciter notatur perpetuitjis ; s, (I qu«
finem accepit Christi adveutu." Calvin.— A G.l

§ [" Dwelt, settled down, made itthe central voint -I liis
Bubsequent abode in Canaan." ■w-ordgworth.— A 0.^

CHAP. Xm. 1-18.

395

(2 Sam. XV. 7), is dated back to the times in Gene-
sis. Still, he can neither deny the migrations, nor
the piety of Abram. As to the circumstance that,
according to Josh. xv. 13, Hebron at an earlier date
was called Kirjath-arba,* see the Introduction. For
the founding Oi Hebron, see Numb. xiii. 23. Bun-
sen : " Tills remarkable narrative bears upon its
face every evidence of historical truth, and is most
fiUy assigned to a time soon after 2900 years before
Christ."

DOCTMNAI, Airo ETHICAL.

1. In the history of Abram we must distinguish
Ihronghout the providence of God, and the conduct
of tne patriarch. In the previous chapter the provi-
dence of God preserves in safety the promise to
Abram, since it preserves Sarah inviolate. In this
a new coiifinnation of the promise appears in the
separation from Lot. The conduct of Abram is in
both cases marked by a renunciation of self, grounded
in faith. As the previous chapter portrays the self-
renunciation of Abram in reference to his country,
and his father's house, in regard to a fixed settlement
in Canaan, and to his connubial blessedness, so here
we meet a like renunciation as to the relative posi-
tion of Lot, and as to the best parts of Palestine
itself. For this new act of self-denial is twofold.
With the separation of Lot, leaving out of view now
the society and assistance which Abram might have
had in him, and which was renounced, his former
patriarchal dependence upon Abram ceases, and
with the residence of Lot and his family in the best
of the land, there might arise a serious prejudice to
•,be claims of the descendants of Abram to the land.
But in regard to this also he trusts God, and in this
case, without any exaggerated or over-hasty confi-
dence, such as appeared in the exposure of Sarah. f

2. Abram returns to the place of his altar in
Bethel. In like manner Christian settlements, towns,
and villages, cluster around their churches.

3. The wealth of Abram is referred to by the
early writers as an example that even rich people
may be pious, and also that the pious may be rich.
And indeed, without any contradiction to the word
»f Christ (Matt. xix. 24), for Christ himself explains
.hat word more fully in the 26th verse, by the
thought, that through the grace of God, one could
be freed from the influence of his wealth, and ena-
bled in humility to use it as a moral good for the
glory of God. The writing of Clemens Alex., T15 6
iru^ifievo^ wKoiatoi, is in place here. Moreover, the
danger of riches appears prominently here, in the
veiy first case in which riches, as such, are men-
tioned; His riches were, in some measure, a tax to

_ • [" Its earliest name was Hebron, hut it was later called
Kirjath-arba by the sons of Anak. "When the Israelites
same into the possession of the land, they restored the orig-
inal patriarchal name." Batjmgaetbk, p. 178. Also, Heng-
flTEKBEEo's Beitrdge, ii, p. 187 ft ; and Ktietz : " History of
the Old Covenant," p. 169.— A. G.]

t ["Abram went up out of Egypt. In the history of
Abram, the father of Isaac, the type and pattern of the true
Israelites, we see prophetic glimpses of the hLstory of his
posterity. Abram went ont of Egypt very rich in cattle,
tUveTf and gold. Abram had his Exodui from Egypt Into
'Janaan, aTid it was a prefignration of theirs, Ex. xii. 35, 38,
which in time prefigures the pilgrimage of the church
through the world to the heavenly Canaan. Is not the life
of Abram, as presented in the Pentateuch, so wonderfully

f readjusted to the circumstances and necessities of all the
Brael of God, a Rilent' proof of its genuineness and inspira-
lion''" ■Wordsworth.— A. G.j

Abram, since he could not find room foi his herds
and his possessions threatened to involve him in hos-
tility with his nephew. It is here also, as always,
tainted with a want ; the want in this case of suffi
cient pasturage, and the necessity for the separation
of Abram and Lot. But for Lot, indeed, his wealth
becomes a temptation, which he does not resist in
any creditable way.

4. The germinal divisions of masters ofttimes re
veal themselves clearly in the strifes of their serv-
ants and dependents. Even the wives are often in
open hostility while their husbands are still at peace.
Abram teaches us how to observe these symptoms in
the right way. His proposal to separate arises from
his love of peace, not from any selfish regard to h<
own interests.*

6. A law-suit is always doubtful or hazardous,
although often necessary. Law-suits between breth-
ren are to be avoided with double care and earnest-
ness. How beautiful it is for brethren to dwell
together in unity (Ps. cxxxiii. 1); but a peaceful
separation is also beautiful, if it prevents a dwelling
together in strife and hatred. This holds true also
in spiritual things. Abram must avoid with special
watchfulness giving anoifenee to the Canaanites.f

6. " Wilt thou to the left hand," etc. An eter-
nal shining example, and a watchword of the peace-
loving, magnanimous, self-denying character which
is the fruit of faith.J

7. The character of Lot Its light side must no',
be overlooked. He had left Mesopotamia and his
father's house, cleaving to Abram and his faith, and
up to this time had remained true to him in all his
march through the land, to Egypt and back. Still,
the return from the rich land of Egypt may have
awakened in him thoughts similar to those which
wrought with many of the Israelites, who murmured
against Moses. At all events, the lower valley of ibe
Jordan appears to him specially desirable, because 11
bears such a resemblance to Egypt. And in the way
and manner, violating both modesty and piety, in
which he chose this province, and regardless of re-
ligious prudence, yielded himself to the attractions
of Sodom ; the sliaded and darker features of his
character, the want of sincerity, delicacy, and that
freedom from the world which became a pilgrim, :;re
clearly seen. He is still, however, a man who can
perceive the angels, and protect them as his guests.
In comparison with the Sodomites he is righteous.

8. Lot makes the worst choice, while he thinks
that he has chosen well. For his worldly-minded-
ness, the sin in his choice, § he was first punished

* [The heavenly principle of forbearance evidently holds
the supremacy in Abram's breast He walks in the moral
atmosphere 0^ the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. vi. 28^2).
Mui-phy. — A. G.]

["The practical nature of Abram's religicgi was most
striKingly developed here. His conduct was marked by
humility, condescension, and generosity." Bush, the natu-
ral fruits of his faith. — A. G.]

t [The presence of those powerful tribes is mcitioned to
show why Abram and Lot were so straitened as to pastur-
age, to signalize the impropriety and danger of their quar-
relling among themselves, and to show that Abram felt that
the eyes of these idolaters were upon him, and that any
misstep on his part, as the representative of Jehovah, wouid
be an occasion of stumbling to them.— A. G.]

X [** Abram could have claimed the exclusive possession
on the higher ground of the Divine promise and plan. Bui
this exclusiveness is not the spirit of our holy religion.*-
Jacobcs, p. 239.— A. G.]

§ [Murphy suggests tliat he was a single man when hf
parted from Abram, and therefore that he married a womat
of Sodom, and thus involved himself in the sin of the .4nte
diluvians. Gen. vi. 1-7.— A. G.]

too

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

through the plundering of his houae, and his captivity
in the war of the Itings, which followed soon after
his choice, and then through hid fearlul flight from
Sodom, and the losses, misfortunes and crimes which
were connected with it. Thus, the want of regard
to true piety, the selfishness, the carelessness as to
the snares of the world, must ever be punished. And
indeed, it is just when one thinks, that in his own
wilful and sinful ways, he has attained hia highest
wishes, he finds himself ensnared in the retributions
of divine righteousness, which rules over him and
works with solemn irony.

9. We must distinguish clearly the times of the
revelation and manifestation of Jehovah in the life
of Abram, from the times in which he conceals
himself from view, which may be regarded as the
times of the elevation and sinking of the faith of
Abrain. He enjoys the first manifestation of God
after the first proof of his faith, his migration to Ca-
naan. On the contrary, there is no intimation of any
revelation of God on his return from Egypt. But
after Abram's noble act of faith towards Lot, he
again receives a new promise in a new word of the
Lord. Then again, after his march for the rescue
of Lot (ch. XV. 1). From his connection with Hagar,
thirteen years elapse without any mention of a divine
revelation, and the revelation which then follows
(ch. xvii. 1 ff.) wears the form of a renewal of the
covenant (oh. xv.). But now, after Abram had
obeyed the command as to circumcision, he enjoys
the fullest manifestation of God, with the most ex-
press and definite promise (ch. xviii. 1 ff.). Thus
after his intercessory prayer for Sodom, he is re-
warded by tlie appearance of the angels for Lot, and
Lot's salvation (ch. xix. 29). After the events at
Gerar, and his deportment there (ch. xx.), the quiet
and ordinary course of life is only broken by the
birth of Isaac, and then follows the great trial of his
faith, which he heroically endured, and receives the
seal of his faith. From this introductory completion
of his life, it unfolds itself in the calm coming and
going of the evening of hia days. But the promises
of God always correspond to the acts and conduct
of faith which Abram had shown.

10. Lift up thine eyes and look (v. 14). A glo-
rious antithesis to the word : And Lot lifted up his
eyes. The selfish choice brings disgrace and de-
struction, the choice according to the counsel and
wisdom of God secures blessing and salvation.*

11. " This is the third theocratic promise, in-
cluding both the first (ch. xii. 1-3) and the second
(ch. xii. 7)." Knobel. But it has also, like the pre-
ceding, its own specific character. The first promise
relates to the person of Abram ; in him and in his
name are embraced all promised blessings. In the
second a seed was more definitely promised to Abram,
and also the land of Canaan for the seed. But here,
in oppositios to the narrow limits in which he is with
hia herds, and to the pre-occupation of the best parts
of the land by Lot, there is promised to him the
whole land in its extension towards the four quarters
of heaven, and to the boundless territory, an innu-
merable seed. It should be observed that the whole
fulness of the divine promise, is flrat unresfrvedly
declared to Abram, after the separation fron Lot.f

♦ [*' Thus he who sought this world lost it ; and he who
was -ndlling to give up anything for the honor of God and
religion, found it." Fuller ; see Bush, p. 219. — A. G.j

T [*' Abram has now obtained % permanent resting-place
in the land, but not a foot-breadth belongs to him. His
bousehold ip smaller in number than at drst. He Isold

Lot has taken beforehand his part of the good things.
His choice appears aa a mild or partial example oi
the choice of Esau (the choice of the lentile-pottage).

12. The Holy land: an allegory of Paradise, a
symbol of heaven, a type (germ) of the sanctified and
glorified earth.

13. For the primitive, consecrated Hebron, and
the oak-grove Mamre, see the dictionaries, geograph-
ical hand-books, and books of travels, and also the
Bible-work, Book of .Toahua.

14. Staeke (the Freiberg Bible): "Thia is th«
first time that silver and gold are mentioned since
the flood, and we may infer, therefore, that mining
for these metals must have been practised." (Re-
flections upon Tubal-Cain).

1.5. The declaration that the Canaanites and
Perizzites were then in the land, like the allusion to
the Canaanites, ch. xii. 6, furnishes no ground for
the inference, according to Spinoza, that the passages
were first written when there were no longer any
Canaanites and Perizzites in the land. For the first
passage says plainly, that it was on account of the
Canaanites that Abram felt it necessary to go through
the land to Sichem ; and here again, that owing to
their presence, he and Lot found themselves strait-
ened for pasture-ground, and were compelled to
separate.

HOMILETICAIi AND PRACTICAL.

See Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. The hap-
py exodus of Abram from Egypt, a prophecy or type
of the glorious Exodus of the children of Israel. —
Abram's return to the altar in Bethel. — The house
of God the consecration of the home. — Abram and
Lot. — The love of peace characteristic of the be-
liever.— The scandal of kindred and family strifes. —
The eager watchfulness of servants. — The true sepa-
ration for the sake of peace. — The watchword of
Abram in its typical significance. — The blessing of n
spirit of concession. — The character of Lot in its
lighter and darljer aspects. — Lot's choice: 1. In its
fair promise ; 2. in its evil results. — The third prom-
ise of God to Abram. — The peril of the worldly life,
and the blessing of retirement : Lot in the gate of
Sodom, Abram in the oak-grove of Mamre. — How
quickly the paradise of Lot's choice lay in the terri-
ble depths of the Dead Sea. — How firm the promise
of the eternal possession of the Holy land to Ahram'a
seed. 1. The conditional character of the promise
with reference to his natural descendants (the Ara-
bians in Palestine are still hia natural sons) ; 2. its
unconditional character for his believing children
(Matt. V. 6).

Starke: Abram and Lot feared God; they were
related, and fellow-travellers. Poverty, hunger, and
toilsome journeys to and fro, could not bring about
any strifes, but the abundance of temporal posses-
sions had nearly accomplished it, when Abram saw
and marked the cunning of the devil. If this could
happen to holy men like these, we may easily se?
how far Satan may carry those whose hearts cling
to this world's goods.— Lanoe, ver. 2 : It is one
thing to be rich, and quite another to desire riches,
and bend aU one's energies and efforts to that end.
It is not the former, but the latter, which is in oppo

and childless, and yet his seed shall he as the dust of the
earth. All around him is his, and he id only one among th«
tntUBands — but ejr' iKiriSt, nap fAiri'Sa." DelitZBjh —A. G.)

CHAP. XIV. 1-24.

401

sition to true faith, and the divine blessing (Sir,
xxxi. 1). — Ver. 7. The devil is wont to sow tares,
misunderstandings, and divisions, even between pious
men and believers (Ps. cxxxiii. 1). — Vers. 8, 9. What
a beautiful example of humility and the love of peace !
The elder yields to the younger. — Whoever will be
a son of Abram, must strive to win his neighbor by
'ove, but never seek to prevail by violence. — Ver.
13. It is commonly (often) true, that the people are
more depraved in those parts of the land which are
more rich and fruitful (Ps. cvi. 24-29). — A good
land seldom bears pious people, and we cannot en-
dure prosperous days with safety (Ezek. xvi. 49), —
OsiANDER, upon ver. 18: Religious worship at the
first and last, — Ltsco : In this history, the principal
thing is the grace of God towards the chosen race,
the divine providence, through which circumstances
are so arranged as to separate from this race one
who was not a constituent portion of it. Under this
providence Lot freely concedes all his claims to the
land of promise, to which the plain of Jordan no
longer belonged (certainly not the plain of Sodom,
after its submersion). This interpretation is mani-
festly correct from the account vers, 14 and 15, that
the new promise of the land of Canaan was given to
Abram after the departure of Lot. — Ver. 16. In-
cludes not barely the natural but also the spiritual
descendants — the children of Abram by faith (Jer.
xxxiii. 22).* — Ver. 1"?. This journey should be a

* [See also in confirmation the Epistle to the Hebrews,
ch. xi. 10, 16, where the apostle poiats to the true and high-
est sense of the land promised. The spiritual seed require a
heavenly inheritance, and the heavenly inheritance implies
a spiritual seed.— A, G. ]

type of the possession which took place much lateJ
under Joshua. — Gerlach upon ver. 2. The outward
earthly blessing was, to this man of faith, a pledge
of the spiritual and invisible. — Passavani : 1 John
ii. 15 ; Matt. v. 5, 9 ; vi. 33, — Indeed, if we only
assert our just right and possessions, harshly and
firmly, there is no praise uor reward from God, no
promise— no pleasant bow of peace ; we have out
reward, blessing and peace therein, — Schbodeb :
From all these notices in reference to Canaan, it is
clear that everything in this chapter bears upon the
land of promise. — Calvin : If no Canaanites sur.
rovmd us, we still live in the mid.st of enemies, whil«
we live in this world. — Luther : To the service of
God, and the preaching of religion, and faith to-
wards God (ver. 4), there is added now a most beau-
tiful and glorious example of love to our neighbor,
and of patience. — Abram's generous and magnani-
mous spirit comes out all the more clearly, through
the directly opposite conduct of Lot (ver. 10). — Be-
cause Lot had in eye only the beauty of the land, he
had no eye for the far higher, mward beauty of
Abram's character. — Schwknke ; In his faith, Abram
had placed a low estimate upon the world and its
good things, and found a much richer blessing. —
Heusee : Abram in his disturbed relation with Lot :
1, The disturbance ; 2, the way in which Abram re-
moved it ; 3. the thought which gave him strength
for his work.*

* [The whole chapter remarkable, as it presents to us the
workings of faith in the domestic and ordinary life, in the
common transactions between man and man, and affords us
an opportunity of observing how far his daily life was in
unison "with that higher character with which the inspiref*
writers have invested him. Bush, 210. — A. G.]

THIRD SECTION".

Abram and his War with the Seathen robber-bands for the rescue of Lot. The victorious Champion

of Faith and his greeting to Melchizedec, the prince of peace. His conduct towards

the King of Sodom, and his associates in the War.

Chaptee XTV. 1-24.

1 And it came to pass in the days ' of Amraph el [Gesenius : it seems to-be Sanscrit AmiapHa, keepei
of the gods; Maurer: perhaps, robbers ; Fiirst : = Arphaxad] king of Shinar [region of Babylon], Arioch'
[Gesenius, after Bohlen, Sanscrit Arjaka, venerated ; Furst : the Arian, embracing Persian, Median, and Assyrian]
king of Ellasar,^ [Symmachus and Vulgate: Pontus; Gesenius: probably the region between^ Babylon and
Elymais], Chedorlaomer * [Maurer: band of the sheaf; FOrst: probably frojn the ancient Persian] king of
Elam [Elymais], and Tidal [Gesenius: fear, veneration] king of nations [Ciericus : Galilean heathen] ;

2 That these made war with Bera [Gesenius = 5n-ia] king of Sodom, and with Birsha

Gesenius = 5(231— |a] king of Gomorrah, Shinab [Gesenius: father's tooth] king of Admah

rsrst: fruit region, city in the district of Sodom, farm-city], and Shemeber [Gesenius: soaring aloft;

glory of the eagle 7] king of Zeboiim [Gesenius : place of hyenas] and the king of Bela [devoured,

3 destroyed], which is Zoar [the small]. All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim

Aquila? valley of fields ; Gesenius: depressed land, Wady ; Fiirst : plain], which is [now] the salt Sea

i "seaof asphalt. Dead sea]. Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer [as vassals], and in the
5 thirteenth year they rebelled. And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the
kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims [giants ; Ewaid : long-drawn, tail] in Ashte-
26

t^J2

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

roth Karnaim Phomed Aetarte; from Astarte-worship, city in Batansea, Deut. i, 4; Josli. xiii. 13], and th«
Zuzims [Susaerj Gesenius : from the fertility of the comitry ; Septuagint and others: ISri) iirx«paj in Hair
[treaBures; prohably an Ammonite region], and the Emiins [terrors; EmSer, originally in the land of Moab]
in Shaveh [plain] Kiriathaim [twin cities in the tribe of Eenhen, Num. xxxii. 37 ; later in Moah, Jer,

6 xJriii. l]. And the Horites [dwellers in caves] in their Mount Seir [ragged; Geseiiius: wooded;
Ffirst : hairy], unto El- [oak, terebinth] Paran [probably, cave-region], which is by the wilderness,

7 And they returned, and came to En-mishpat [weliof Judgment], which is Kadesh [sanctuary],

and smote all the country [fields] of-the Amalekites [betweenPaleBtine,Idnmea, and Egypt],

aD'l also the Amorites [mountaineers?] that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar [palm-pruning, a city in th«

S wildemessofJudea; later, Engedi, fountain of the kid]. And there Went out the king of Sodom,

and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and thr

king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle witb them in the Tale of Sid

9 dim ; With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and

Aniraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar ; [which] four kings with live.

10 And the vale of Siddim was full of slime-pits [pita upon pits] ; and the kings of Sodom
and Gomorrah fled, and fell there [the warriors] ; and they that remained fled to the

11 mountain. And they [the victors] took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all

12 their victuals, and went their way. And they took Lot, Abram's brother's sor.^ who
[for he] dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

13 And there came one that had escaped [fugitives], and told Abram the Hebrew

[immigrant] ; for he [who] dwelt in the plain [oak-grove] of Mamre [richness, strength] tllO

Amorite, brother of Eschol [vine-branch], and brother of Aner [i. e. nS3 , i>/ii(>?] : and these

14 were confederate with Abram. And when Abram heard that Lis brother was taken
captive, he armed [led out to war] his trained servants [initiated, tried], born in his own

15 house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided him-
self against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them
unto Hobah [hiding-place], which is on the left hand [northerly] of Damascus [restless activity],

16 And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again liis brother Lot. and his
goods, and the women also, and the people.

] 7 And the king of Sodom went out to meet him (after his return from the slaughter

of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him [confederates]), at the valley of

18 Shaveh [the plain northward of Jerusalem, 2 Sam. xviii. 18], which is the king's dale. And [But]

Melchizedec [king of righteousness] king of Salem [schaiem = Dibia] brought forth bread and

19 wine: and he was the priest of the most high God [of Ei-Eijon]. And he blessed him,
and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth

20 And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand.

21 And he [septuagint: 'APpa/i ; compare Heb. vii. 4] gave him tithes of all. And the king of
Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons [souls], and take [retain] the goods to

22 thyself And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up my hand unto the
2o Lord, the most high God, the possessorof heaven and earth. That I [the form of an oath: ifl]

will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet [the least], and that I will not take
'Ji anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich: Save only
that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me,
Aner, Eschol, and Mamre: let them take their portion.

1 [Ver. 1. — Lange render*? *hi8 first clause as independent. "And it came to pass after days, or, in the lapse of
Jays."— A. G.)

3 [Ver. 1.— Wordsworth and Murphy, lionine, or lion-like. — A. G.]

* [Ver. 1. — " Some identify it with Telassar ; others more probably regard it as Larsa, now Simkarah, about fifteen
Biiles southeast of Warka. ItawIin-«on. "WoanswoETH, p. 69. — A. G.]

* [Ver. 1 — " Rawlinson compareh it with Kudur-Mapula^ or Malulc, whose name is found on the bricks of Ohaldea.
■nd whose title is Apda MartUf ^avager of the West,"— Murphy, p. 278. — A. G.]

GENERAL REMARKS.

1. The Modern CHiieism. — Knobel (p. 143) as-
signs the Section (with oh. xv.) to the Jehoviatic
enlargement, since the Elohistie author narrates the
founding of the theocratic covenant elsewhere (ch.
xvil). We must carefully distinguish, in a theologi-
cal point of Tiew, bo'ween the permanent covenant

of faith (oh. xr.), and the special and temporary cov
enant of circumcision * (ch. xvii.), which rests upon
it (see Rom. iv.). The idea that the character of
Abram and the narrative of Melchizedec are drawr

• [Temporary, however, only as to its external form, and
the sign or seal of the covenant. The covenant itself if mi
and permanent. — A. G.J

CHAP. XIV. 1-24.

403

'.Taditionally from interested motiTes of the Hebrews,
i8 without foundation.*

2. For special literature upon ch. xiv. see Knobel,
p. 134.

8. The War-making Powers. — According to
Knobel, wKj here agrees with Joskph., Antiq. i. 9,
the Assyrian must be viewed as the ruling power,
which leads all the individual attacking kings, as
subject princes or monarchs ; for there is no trace
^f evidence in history, that the elsewhere um'mport-
ant Elymais (Susiane) has ever exercised a sort of
world-dominion. Josephus calls the Assyrian the
leading power, SynceUus the Syrian, which in this
case is just equivalent ; but according to Ktesias and
others, the Assyrians were the first to establish a
world-dominion (see p. 142, ff.). Keil, on the other
hand, holds that the kingdom of Amraphel of Shi-
nar which Nimrnd founded, had now sunken to a
mere dominion over Shinar, and that Elam now ex-
ercised tfie hegemony in inner Asia. The beginning
of the Assyrian power falls in a later period, and
Berosus speaks of an earlier Median dominion in
Babylon, which reached down to the times of the
patriarchs. (He refers to Niebdbe's "History of
Assyria," p. 271). There is clearly a middle view.
At the date, ver. 1 , Amraphel, king of Shinar, stands
at the head of the alliance of Eastern princes ; but
the war was waged especially in the interest of
Chedorlaomer of Elam. Amraphel appears as the
nominal leader ; Chedorlaomer the victorious cham-
pion of an Eastern kingdom, involved to some extent
Ji decay. The Palestinian kings, or kings of Sid-
dim, opposed to them, are described as previously
rassals of Chedorlaomer, because the narrative here
ireats of the history of Siddim, pre-eminently of the
history of Sodom and Lot ; but this does not exclude
the supposition, that the princes or tribes named in
pera. 6 and 6, were also at least partly dependents
of Chedorlaomer. For in order to subject the lower
Jordan valley, he must have somewhere forced a
passage for himself into the land. Keil : " It seems
significant that at that time the Asiatic world-power
had advanced to Canaan, and brought the valley of
the Jordan into subjection, with the purpose, doubt-
less, to hold, with the valley of the Jordan, the way to
Egypt. We have, in this history, an example of the
later pressure of the world-power against the king-
dom of God established in Canaan ; and the signifi-
cance of these events with reference to the historical
salvation, lies in the fact, that the kings of the Jor-
dan valley and surrounding region are subject to the
world-power. Abram, on the contrary, with his
home-bom servants, slays the victor and takes away
his spoil — a prophetic sign, that in its contests with
the world-power, the seed of Abram shall not only
oot be brought into subjection, but be able to res-
sic those seeking its help.

4. Ancient Damascus, also, first appears here in
the dun distance.

EXEGETICAL AND OEITICAL.

1. The Rings at ITar.— (Vers. 1-3). " The
kings named here never appear again." Keil.f —

* [The connection of this chapter with what precedes and
follows is close and natural It shows that Lot's choice,
ivhne apparently wise, was attended with bitter fruitB ; it
lays the ground, in Abram's conduct, for the promise and
transactions of the xvth chapter. There would be a serious
•Teak in the history were this wanting. — A. G.]

t IChtdorlaomer. Fpon the bricks recently found in

Shinar and Elam (see ch. 10). EUafar, probabl)
Artemita, which is called also Chalasar, lying it
Southern Assyria. (Goiim*) Nations is here of
special significance (see translation of the text, als^
upon ver. 2; compare Josh. x. 8, 5, 23).— AH
these j namely, the last-named five kings. — In the
vale of Siddim f (see the text). " The five named
cities described (Wis. x. 6) as a ttei/totoXis, ap-
pear to have formed a confederacy. The fouv
first (connected together; also ch. i. 19) perished
afterwards (Deut. xxix. 22 ; comp. Hos. xi. 8).
On the contrary, Bela, i. e., Zoar, was net over-
taken in the ruin. The most important are Sodom
and Gomorrah, which are elsewhere exclusively
named, even here, vers. 10 and 11." Knobel. Ttere
is no ground for his conjecture that they were
not Canaauites, drawn from a misunderstanding of
ch. xii. 12, that thin region did not belong to the
land of Canaan. Keil ; " That there were five
kings of the five cities, is in accordance with the
custom of the Canaanites, among whom, still later,
every city had its king.";):

2. TTie War (vers. 4-12). a. Its cause (ver. 4).
b. Tfte course of the Eastern Kings in their March. —
" They came, doubtless, in the usual way, through the
region of the Euphrates to Syria (Strabo, xvi.) ; from
here, as they afterwards directed their return march
to this region, advancing southwards, they attacked
those who had revolted; at first, namely, the Re-
phaim in Bashan, i. c. the northerly part of the
country, east of the Jordan (Numb, xxxii. 39), then
the Zuzimg, dwelling farther to the south, and after-
wards the still more southern Emims." Knobel. —
The Rephaim.— " A tribe of giants of great stat-
ure, spread throughout Perasa ; also found westward
from Jerusalem, upon Mount Ephraim, and in Phi-
listia. They were gradually exterminated through
the Amorites, Ammonites, Moabites, and Israelites."
Keil holds that they were of Semitic origin (p. 140).
Ashteroth Kamaim, or simply Aahteroth, a chief
city of Bashan, the residence of Og, the king (Deut.
i. 4). The details may be found in Keil and Knobel. §
— ^Zuzims (an Ammonitish province), probably the
same with Zamsummims (Deut. ii. 20.') — Ham.
Identified (Deut. iii. 11) with Kabbah of the Ammon-
ites (ruins of Ammon). — Elmims, terrors. The
older inhabitants of the country of Moab, like the
Zuzims, included with the Rephaim. — Kiijathaim.
Incorrectly located by Eusebius and Jerome ; the
ruins el Teym, or el Tueme. — The Horites. The
original inhabitants of the country of the Edomites.
They drove the Horites to Elath, upon the east side
of the wilderness of Paran. The mount Seir be-

Chaldea there occurs the name of a Tsing—Kudurmapula"
which Eawlinson thinks may be the same, especially since
he is further distinguished as the FJi.vager of the West,
Jacobos, p. 247.— A. &.]

* [Delitzsch suggests perhaps an earlier name foi
"Galilee of the Gentiles." Comp. Josh. xii. 23; Judg.
iv. 2 ; and Isa. viii. 23.— A. G.]

t ["Which is the Salt sea, i. e., into which this valley waj
changed in the overthrow of the cities (xix. 24). Keil, p.
139.- A. G.]

X [The five kings belonged probably to the fejnily oi
Ham, which had pushedits way northward, but had been
here checked and held under the sway of the Sbemitic king
for twelve years, but had now revolted. "Wordswoeth, p.
69.— A. G.]

5 [Eitter finds it in the Tell Ashareh. J. G. Wetstelc
Identifies it with Bosra, for which he urges the central posi-
tion of this city in Perfea, and the similarity of the namei
Bostra and MiriBSS . "Porter suggests 'Aflneh, eight
miles from Bosra, as the Samaritan version ^la* 'Aphm^
for 'Ashtaroth." A. G i

404

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

tween the Red and Dead seas.* — Ver. 8. They now
turned from the south to the north (see Keil, p. 141).
The victory of the Amalekites was gained in what
was later the southern territory of the Hebrews.
Keil and Hengstenberg hold that it is not the Ama-
lekites themselves, but the inhabitants of the land
which later belonged to the Amalekites. It says,
indeed, the country of the Amalekites, f and (Gen.
xxxvi. 12, Ifi) Amalek descended from Esau. But
then we should expect some account of that original
people. And the Amalekitish dc>3cendants of Esau
may have mingled with the eailier constituent por-
tions of the people, as the Ishmaelites with the ear-
lier inhabitants of Arabia. Lastly, even the Amor-
ites, upon the west side of the Dead Sea, were
involved in the slaughter. Kiiobel denies that
Hazezon-tamar can be identified with Engedi, for
which, however, 2 Chron. xx. 2, bears its testimony.
A rapid march made it possible that these tribes
should be attacked and overcome one by one. It is
not said that they had all been tributary. Mean-
while, however, the five kings in the vale of Siddim
had time to arm themselves. , c. The Battle m the
vale of Siddim. The five feeble kings of the penta-
polis could not resist the four mightier kings. — And
they fell there. The valley, we are told, was full
of pits of bitumen, or asphalt. This account is con-
firmed by the mass of asphalt in the Dead Sea. For
these masses of asphalt, see the condensed notices in
Knobel, p. 136. :j; This remark, however, does not
explain why the five kings were defeated, but why
they found the flight through that region so destruc-
tive. They fell here, partly hindered by the pits,
partly plunging into them ; only a few escaped into
the mountains of Moab. The obvious sense appears
to be, that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were
themselves slain. Knobel thinks the troops or forces
are intended, and holds it as certain that the king
of Sodom escaped (ver. lY). But it may be his suc-
cessor in the government who is here mentioned.
Whatever of spoil, in goods or men, was found by
the conquerors in the city, was taken away ; and,
what is the main thing in the narrative, Lot with
them. It is most significant : for he divelt in
Sodom, §

3. Abramh March and Victory (vers. 13-16). —
One that had escaped. The article marks the
race or lineage. A fugitive who sought Abram in
Hebron, must doubtless have stood in close relations
with Lot. — Abram the Hebrew, the immigrant. ||
Abram, as Lot also, was viewed by the escaped, who
was bora in the land, as an immigi'ant, and because
Lot the Hebrew was a captive, he sought Abram the
Hebrew. The Amorite Mamre, and his two brothers,
were named as confederates with Abram, because

* [El Param, terebinth, or rather wood of Parnn, is with-
out doubt the later Elath, at the head of the Ailanitic gulf ;
fclie present Akaba. Keil, p. 141. — A. G.]

^ rKadesh, probably at Ain-el Waibeh; though Keil
tnd Wordsworth favor the location at Ain Kades, in the
east of the highest part of Jebel Halal, about five hours
E.S.E. from MormKU.— A. G.l

X [Also Robinson's " Besearches," vol. ii. pp. 228-230, —
A.G.I

§ [The passage is so constructed in the Hebrew as to
bring out this significance. And they took Lot, and his
poods, Ahram's brother's Bon, and departed ; and (for) hd
was dwelling in Sodom. — A. G.]

II [The one from the other side, who has come across the
nver. But Murphy urges in favor of taking Hebrew as a
patronymic; "that every other tribe in the country had
originally migrated across the Euphrates, and that the word
bore distraguishes Abram as the Hebrew, just as his confed-
«rate, Mamre, is distinguished as the Amorite." — A. G.]

they assisted him now in the war (ver. 24). Their
confederation shows his overwhelming influence.—
Abram heard that hie brother was a captive. Th«
expression is significant. Instantly he arms hi.
trained,* i. e., his proved servants, and practised in
the use of arms ; especially those bom in his own
house. "That the patriarchs carried weapons iv
clear from chs. xxxiv. 25 ; xlix. 5." Knobel. — Unto
Dan. Keil shows that the Dan alluded to cannot b4
the (Laish) Dan (Judg. xvhi. 29) situated in the
midst of the sources of the Jordan, since it does not
he upon either of the ways leading from the valley
of the Jordan to Damascus ; but Dan in Gilead (Deut.
xxxiv. 1 ; 2 Sam. xxiv. 6). In Dan, Abram divides
his little army into bands, and falls upon the enemy
from different quarters by night, and pursues him
unto Hobah, "probably preserved in the village
Hoba, which Troilo found a quarter of a mile
northerly i'rom Damascus." Keil. The Hebrews de-
fined the quarters of the heavens with their faces
to the East ; hence the left hand is northward.
Victorious, he brought back the whole spoil of the
enemy, both in men and goods. — And also Lot his
brother.

4. AbrarrCs Triumphant Return (vers. 17-24).
The kings who welcome him, — At the valley of
Shaveh, i. e. the (later) king's dale. The valley
probably takes its name from this event. Absalom
erected his pillar here, 2 Sam. xviii. 18 (afterwards
remodelled in the Greek style). According to Jo-
SEPHDS, Antiq. vii. 10, 3, it lay about two stadia
from Jerusalem. Melchizedec went northwards to
meet him, thus in the upper valley of the Kidron
(see Dictionaries). Melchizedec appears to have
anticipated the king of Sodom ; at all events he has
the precedence. Under his royal city, Salem, we
must understand Jerusalem (Ps, Ixxvi. 3), and not
the di^tant Salim in whose vicinity John baptized
(John iii. 2.S). Comp. Keil, p. 143. In favor of
Jerusalem (1^7 = ^^1^7, founding, or lIJlTi, posses-
sion ; the name nbai"1^ is either the founding or
the possession of peace ; the first is preferable,) are
JosEPHUS : Antiq. i. 10, 2 ; the Targums, Aben
Ezra, Kimchi, etc., Knobel, Delitzsch, and Keil ;
Krahmer, Ewald : " History of Israel, ii. p. 410," are
in favor of the Salim of Jerome. That at the time
of Jerome, the palace of Melchizedec was usually
pointed out in the ruins of Salumias, lying about
eight Roman miles from Scythopolis, of which Rob-
inson and Smith found no trace, proves nothing
Salumias lay too far to the north, for the statemeni
in the narrative. Melchizedec (king of righteous-
ness—the language of the Canaanites was Hebraic)
is described as a priest of El Eljon. According to
Sanohuniaton (Eusebijs : Prcep. i. 10), the Phoeni-
cians called God 'EXioiii', and Hanno the Carthaginian,
in Plautus Poenulus.^ names the gods and goddesses
Monim or Elonoth ; but the term here used is differ-
ent, audits signification is monotheistic, "not God
as the highest among many, but in a monotheistic
sense, the one most high God." (Delitzsch). He
brings from his city bread and wine to refresh Abram
and his followers. " The papists explain it with ref-
erence to the sacrifice of the mass, but the reference
is fatal to their own case, since Melchizedec gave

* [These tried, proved, thus trained servants, were horn
in his house, Prov. xxii. 6, *' Abram had trained them in
spiritual things in the service of God, as well as in fidelity
to himself; see chai xviii. 19, and xxiv. 1' -19." 'WORPS
WORTH, p. 71. — A. G. ;

CHAP. XIV. 1-24.

40£

the wine also. He brought forth, not he brought
before God." Schroder. Melchizedec's prayer for
prosperity and blessing is translated by Delitzsch
rhythmically as a double blessing.* The term n}p
ienotes the ruler, but may also be used to denote
the creator and possessor. — And he gave him
tithes. As Melchizedec was a priest of the true
God, the gift of the tithe of the spoil was a sanctifi-
cation of the war and victory, as in the later history
of Israel the tithe belonged to the priest (Lev. xxvii.
30), and the payment of the gift of consecration, out
of the spoils of war, to the priestly tribe, was se-
cured by law (Numb. xxxi. 28 ff. ; 2 Sam. viii. 11 ;
1 Chron. xxvi. 21). Compare Heb. vii. 4. — The king
of Sodom does not speak in a formal, solemn way,
but with obvious prudence, encouraged by the gene-
rosity of Abram, to whom, by the laws of war, the
captives belonged as slaves. — Give me the per-
sons (souls). Then follows the noble declaration of
Abram, which is both a recognition of the God of
Melchizedec, or of the community of faith, between
Abram and Melchizedec, since it joins together the
names Jehovah and El Eljon, and at the same time
a noble expression of his unselfishness. He would
not retain anything from a thread to a shoe-latchet,
i. c, not the least thing, so that the king of Sodom
could never say, I have made Abram rich. As he
declares his intimate communion with Melchizedec,
and introduces it into the very forms of expression
of his religion, so he utterly refuses any community
of goods with the king of Sodom. He reserves only
what his servants had already consumed in the neces-
sities of war, and that part of the spoil which fell to
his three confederates, Aner, Eschol, and Mamre
(Numb. xxxi. 26 ; 1 Sam. xxx. 26).

DOCTUINAL ADD ETHICAL.

1. The first well-defined appearance of war in
Its difierent aspects. A war of the world against
the world — the kings — the alliances — the conquerors
— the rulers and their revolted vassals — the promi-
nent leader (Chedorlaomer)— the attack — the victory
and defeat---the plunder, and service of captives —
of the hard destiny of those who dwelt quietly in
the land (Lot) — of the wide-spread terror, and the
rebuke of that terror, before the true heroism with
which the true hero of faith opposes a defensive
and necessary war, to the attacks of the confident
and haughty prince. The children of God find
themselves unexpeciedly involved in the wars of the
world, as the history of Abram, Lot, and Melchizedec
proves. The destructive nature of war, so far as it is
the fruit of human passions, and the providential
overruling of it unto salvation.

2. The fearful overthrow of the Sodomite pentap-
olis in the vale of Siddim, and the wonderful rescue
by Abram the man of faith, wrought no repentance
In the people of that valley, altliough they were al-
ready weakened and enervated by their luxury, nor
even any gratitude towards Lot, for wiiose snke they
irere rescued (ch. xix. 9). Hence the lost battle, and

• "Gebenedelt sei Abram Gott, dem Allerhabenen,
Deiu Erschaffer Himmels imd der Erde
TTnd gebenedeit sei Gott, der AUerhabeno
iJer geliefert delne Dranger in deine Hand."

liCeil also refers to the poetical forms H^IS and ^a^D .
V G.]

the terrors of war in the vale of Siddim, became i
portent and sign of their later overthrow.

3. In the misfortunes which came upon him. Lot
must suffer the retribution for his misdeeds towards
Abram. But Abram rewards his ingratitude witk
self-sacrificing magnanimity.

4. The terrors of war in its desolating and para-
lyzing power. How it may be interrupted, and is
usually checked and brought to an end, through the
heroic faith and courage of some single hero, or it
may be, band of heroes.

6. Abram, the man of peace of the previous
chapter, the yielding child of peace, is instantly
changed into a lion when the report comes to him,
that Lot, his brother, is a captive. One citizen of
the kingdom of God is of so great importance in his
esteem, that he will attack a whole victorious army
with his Utile band, and venture his own life, and
the lives of his servants upon the issue. Thus enter
in opposition to the gloomy heroism of the earth in
Chedorlaomer and his followers, the light and cheer-
ful heroism of heaven, to the war for oppression and
bondage in its dark form, the light form and aspect
of the war of salvation and liberty, to the power of
godlessness, inhumanity, and desperation, in union
with demoniac powers, the power of faith, and love,
and hope, in covenant with Jehovah.

6. It did not enter the thought of Abram, that
the princes against whom he went out to war were
for the most part descendants of Shem, and indeed
the people of hi.s former home, and that those whom
he rescued, and with whom he connects himself, are
the descendants of Ham. The motive for the war
was to save Lot,* and the alliance for the right,
against the alliance for wrong, was decisive for him.
The love to his brother, the Hebrew, has special
power. Brotherly love. Every Hebrew, in the, best
and highest sense, must help others as his brethren.
But in " the Hebrew " here the important thing is,
that he " comes from across the river," not as De-
litzsch holds, that he is descended from Heber.

7. Abram has not only, in his faith, a lieroism
and self-sacrifice which overcomes the world, he has
also the heroic strength and spirit. His servants
are men trained to arms. He knew that, in an evil
world, one needs defence and weapons, and must be
armed. In his war with the world, he does not de-
spise an honorable alliance with those who, in a reli-
gious point of view, may have different ways of
thinking from himself. Indeed, he acts throughout
in the true hero-spirit. The rapid, instantaneous
onset, the well-ordered and irresistible charge, the
outmarching and flanking of the enemy, the falling
upon him by night, the fierce pursuit to the very
utmost, to the completed result, these are the orig-
inal, fundamental laws of all intelligent warfare.
And it does nM admit of question^ thai CromweU

* ["But his march and victory have another and &
higher reference in the object of the history. Even here
it IS not to glorify Abram, but rather the wonderful prov-
idence of God over his chosen, through which all here
enters in immediate connection ^-ith the divine plan
Abram is the designated possessor of the land ; it is hia
concern, therefore, to guard the Jand from all assaults, and
to avenge its ifliuries ; it is the part of God, who has desig-
nated him to this end, to give him the victory," Kurtz :
"History of the Old Covenant," p. 171.— A. G.J

[His title to the hind involves him in the war. He must
defend that which has been given to him. " He is no soonei
confirmed in his title, than the land is invaded by aconfed.
eracy of hostile kings. Thus the kingdom of God is na
sooner set up anywhere, tl an there is a rallying of th/
world kingdoms against it." Jacobus, p. 247. — A. G t

406

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

harned t/iese fundamental principles of warfare
from Ahram and other Old Testainent heroes, and
^ h probable that Napoleon, in these, as in many
other points, was an imitator of Cromwell ; aa it ia
tertain that Gneisenau and Bliicher have learned
from the method of Napoleon. In the spirit of
prajer Cromwell, the invincible, was greatly in ad-
vdnce of him (Napoleon) ; the heroes of the times
when freedom triumphs place victoriously the joyful
longing for deliverance of the people over against
the demoniac lust of conquest of the murderers of
the people.

8. Abram is assured of the good-will and help
of Jehovah through the Spirit of God inspiring him
with believing and sacrificing courage ; and therefore
joins his might, in the feeling of his individual weak-
ness, with omnipotenct, and makes himself and his
forces, to whom he communicates his own spirit,
invincible against the hosts of the enemy, whose
power, as demoniac and magical, cannot stand before
the terrors of God, but passes at once from haughty
confidence to trembling and despair. The germ-like
oriental world-power surges and breaks itself upon
the heroic heart of the father of the faithful, as all
the succeeding forms of the world-power, must break
into pieces upon the believing power of the kingdom
of God ; and for this reason, because, in the very
centre of the world's history, all the powers of the
world and of hell broke and went to pieces against
the divine stability of the heart of Christ.

9. In warfare, as in all the forms of civilization
and life, in political government, in poetry, the
Hebrew principle is dynamic, living, while the prin-
ciple of the world, especially of the Greek and
Romish civilization, is lifeless, formal, or technical.
Here the Uving fountain of original, direct divine in-
spiration is prominent, while the ordinary cosmical
foi'ming principles are throughout kept in the back
ground. But the dynamic principle is also the prin-
ciple of regeneration for the technical and artistic
system — even for science itself Thus, in our his-
tory also, the technical is sufficiently apparent.* " It
is remarkable, moreover, that corresponding to this
original mode of warfare, the almost exclusive order
of battle in later times, is the division of the army
into three parts, that the enemy may be attacked in the
centre and upon both flanks at the same time (Judg.
vii. 16 ; 1 Sam. xi. 11 ; 1 Mace. v. 33)" Schroder.

10. Melchizedec aa priest and king in one per-
son, without genealogy in his priesthood, which he
executed for his people by virtue of a sovereign in-
dividual call, is a type of the Messiah, and is repre-
sented as such, Ps. ex. 4, but especially in the Epistle
to the Hebrews (ch. v. 6 ; ch. vii. 17). From the
circumstance that Melchizedec was not a worshipper
of the Canaanitish Baal, but was a monotheist, or as
Knobel thinks, a worshipper of the Semitic principal
deity, El, Knobel concludes that he belonged to the
Semitic tribe, Lud, to which also the tribes at war
belonged. The supposition of a Semitic chief deity
is in an erroneous manner transferred from the re-
lations of a later time, to the times of the primitive
religion. It is the characteristic of the primitive re-
ligion, that in it throughout Heathenism and Mono-

• f"The things of chief importance here are Ahram's
fcith and the help of God ; but we should not overlook, that
his force may have reachefl a thousand men, including his
confederates, and further, the effect of the security of the
hostile forces, the sudden terror, the darkuesa of the night,
their confuj3inn among themselves, and the strategic skill
»f Abram." Koaxz, p. 170.— A. G.]

theism cleave together and go asimder. Melcliize
dec might, therefore, well belong to the Hamiti«
race.* He is not a Christ of the heavenly world, aa
perhaps the Gnostics would make him, nor Shem, nor
Enoch, as the Rabbins and the Church fathers have
thought; he is a type of Christ, because he is king
and priest at the same time, because his priesthood
rests upon his individual personality {a-^aTup, etc.,
Heb. vii. 3), and because Abram, the aneeBtor of thi
Levitical priesthood, gave tithes to him. He is not
" perhaps the last witness and confessor of the prim-
itive revelation out of the night of heathenism," for
that is the splendor of an evening sky which reachea
through all time ; but he is the last representative
of the period of the primitive religion, and therefore
he blesses Abram in a similar sense to that in which
the Baptist must baptize Christ the Lord, in Jordan.
He, in his way, stands as the last of the first world-
period ; Abram is one who belongs to the future,f
and therefore he blesses Abram, and Abram doeu
him homage. That he is Melchizedec, is in the first
place significant (" it may be concluded from Josh,
X. 1, 3, where a later king of Jerusalem, Adoni-
Zedek, i. c, lord of righteousness, is mentioned, that
this was a standing name of the old kings of Sa-
lem." Keil) ; then, the name of his residence, Salem ;
further, that he is priest and king at the same
time ("in the old Phoenician custom." Dehtzsch);
finally, that he represenls no legal and genealogical
priesthood, but shines singly and alone as a clear,
bright star, in the night of Canaan : all these consti-
tute him a mysterious, renowned type of Christ (sea
Delitzsch, p. 363 ; Keil, p. IH ; Aubeelen upon
" Melchizedec," in the Studien -und Kriliken, 1857,
p. 163). X As he is the priest of El Eljon, that can
only mean, that he intercedes for his people before
the most high God with prayer and sacrifice, that
he sought either to lead back the Jebusites at Sa-
lem to a living monotheism, or to preserve them in it.

* [The name, however, is Seinitic. It is probable that
he was a Semitic chieftain, having his royal seat at Jerusa-
lem. The locality, as everything else in connection with
this person, so briefly referred to here, and then dismissed,
is important. This is clear from the use which is made of
this history in the Epistle to the Hebrews. He was a _per.
sonal type of Christ : 1. As he was both priest and king ;

2. as kmg of righteousness and peace ; 3. as he was con-
structively, HO fer a£ the history goes, without father and
without mother ; 4. as he held his priesthood probably by a
special divine warrant. He acts as a priest : 1. In bnnging
the bread and wine, here probably connected with a sacrifice
and sacramental, refreshing this wear! ed warrior of the £iith,
and welcoming him to the communion of saints ; 2. in bless-
ing Abram— which is here the solemn, priestly benediction ;

3. in receiving tithes from Abram — through which Abram
recognises his typical superiority— and in which the whole
Levitical priesthood, yet in the loins of Abram, recognizes
the superiority of that Priesthood of which he was the tjT*.
It thus becomes evident, as the Apostle shows, that the Le-
vitical priesthood, and the whole Mosaic institution, were
intermediate and temporary, and pointed to the higher
Priest to come — who is both Priest and King, and who
holds his priesthood not by descent, but by the express ap-
pointment and oath of God. — A. G-.l

t German, Ein Werdeiider.

X I See also Kuetz : " History of the Old Covenant," pp.
173-176, whose remarks here are very suggestive, and Ja-
cobus : " Notes," pp. 256-260.— A. G.I

[" Melchiaedec brought forth bread and wine as the priest
of the most high God. There seems to bo an intima-ti-'n
that this was a priestly act, and accordingly the crowning
part of a sacred feast. It was probably connected with the
offering of a sacrifice. This view of his acts is confirmed by
the blessing which he pronounces aa the priest of the mosl
high God." MonpHT, p. 288, 289.— A. G.)

(Melchizedec stands as the personal type of Christ, and
at the snme time in his acts and relations here, seems tf
typify what Christ, as our Priest, is ever doing for his pew
pie.— A. G.l

CHAP. XIV. 1-24.

40-/

11. It is in the highest degree significant that
Abram honors Melehizedec with the tithes,* and
that he introduces EI Eljon, in the oath, or the reli-
gious expression of it, while he will not take from
the king of Sodom anything from a thread to a shoe-
latchet. (Knobkl: "Abraham is perhaps sensitive,"
etc.) This is the position of the religion of faith to
the world both in its godly and ungodly aspects, the
whole connection and concern ot faith in the forms
of its higher culture, the entire strength of its repel-
ling attitude and tendency towards its ungodly nature.

12. " If it is certain that the repetition by Mel-
ehizedec of the familiar title of God which he uses
was intended, then the name Jehovah, which Abram
adds to this title, and which, indeed, he places iu the
greatest prominence, is not without a purpose. It
must serve the purpose to announce that Abram, in
the common foundation on which they stand, has still
more than Melehizedec. Melehizedec, in the most
high God, recognizes the Lord of heaven and earth,
but not Jehovah." Hengstenberg. This agrees
with the idea that Jehovah is the God of the cove-
nant. In the measure of this faith, a new period
of religion begins with Abram. God, as the Most
High,] does not designate the Highest in distinction
from lower gods, but in his exaltution above all the
symbols of his being, which the heathen began to
reverence as gods; thus it stands in opposition to
polytheism, and also to pantheism and dualism, the
true expression of the primitive religion. Hofmann
finds here again an intimation of the ascension of
God from the earth before the flood. We have al-
luded to this in the previous part of this work.

13. The oath of Abram is the first example of an
oath with the uplifted hand, in solemn appeal to God.
But Abram swears in his own method, and at the
same time in the devout, aistumary mode of Mel-
ehizedec. For other examples, see chaps, xxi. 2a ;
xxvi. 28, etc.

14. In the elevated character of Abram, it is
worthy of particular notice and praise, that with his
entire renunciation of any advantage to himself, he
preserves the rights of his confederates, Mamre, etc.,
according to both usage and equity,

15. It is remarkable, that this one chapter shows
us how the father of believers enters into these va-

* " The bringing of the tithes was an actual recognition
of the priestly dignity of Melehizedec. For, in general
usage, the tenth is the sacred portion, which belongs to God,
and to his representatives." Bat7Moabt£n, p. 182 ; Babs :
SymholOc i. p. 179.— A. G.

(•| Abram, the blessed of Jehovah, and the mediator uf
blessings for all the people, allows himself to be blessed by
this royal priest, who stands beyond the line and circle of
the promise, Abram, the ancestor of Israel, of Aaron, and
Levi, of the people and the priesthood of the law, allows
himself to be blessed by this royal priest, who shows no title
through descent or the law. And not only so ; Abram, in
whom was the priestly race which should receive the tithes,
gave to this royal pnest the tithes of all the spoil. There
18, therefore, an extra^legal, royal priesthood, and priestly
kingdom, which this history typically prophesies, to whom
even Abram and his seed should bow, to whom even the
Levitical priesthood should render homage ; for, just where
Abram stands in incomparably the most striking typical
character, there Melehizedec enters and towers above him.
Melehizedec is tlie setting sun of the primitive revelation,
which sheds its last rays upon the patriarchs, from whom
the tiue light of the world is to arise. The sun sets, that
when the preparatory time of the patriarchs, the prepara-
tory time of Israel, have passed away, it may rise again in
Jesus Christ, the antitype," Delitzsch.— A. Q.)

t [" There is here no indistinct allusion to the creation
of * heaven and earth' mentioned in the opening of the
book of God. This is a manifest identification of the God
»f Melehizedec with the one creator and upholder of all
things." MoEPHT, p. 289.— A. G.]

ried forms of life, of war, of union with those who
differed from himself in their modes of thought, o<
tithes, and of the oath, as his intercourse with the
world demanded. He uses the oath with the king
of Sodom, a man of the world, who appears to have
doubted his unselfishness and magnanimity.

16. We have here, also, the first stratagem, th«
first celebration of victory, and the first priest.

17. The first conflict of the hosts of faith with
the first appearance of the world-power. The his-
torical example of the Maccabees, Waldenses, etc.

HOMUJETICAX AJSTD PRACTICAL.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical portions. — Texts
for sermons on war, victory, deliverances, public
calls, and demands to duty, and upon the oath, etc.
War in a threefold form : 1. War of violence ; 2. war
of a faint-hearted defence ; 3. the rescuing war of
divine inspiration. — Alliances in a threefold form
1. Alliance for robbery; 2. the faint-hearted alii
ance for defence; 3. alliance for life and death.—
Abram as a warlike prince. — Love of our brother as
a motive in war. — Abram's war and victory. — Cele-
bration of Abram's victory. — Melehizedec as a type
of Christ. — Chiist also does not enter into worldly
wars, but he refreshes pious heroes with bread and
wine. — Bread and wine the refreshment of the king
of peace, for those who contend for God, — To every
one his own, pai'ticularly to faithful confederates.

Starke : This the tir-st war which the Scripture
commemorate.'', and its cause was the lust of domin-
ion. (Let it be granted that Ohedorlaomer had sub-
jugated the cities mentioned in ver. 2, in an unright-
eous way, still they were in the wrong, since they
began to rebel, and in this way would regain their
freedom,* etc. — How can Abram help these rebels ?)
— God used the four kings as rods to punish others.
Wurtemb. Bible ; War and rebellion are evils above
all other evils ; indeed, a condensed epitome, as it
were, of all calamities and sorrows. — Osiandee: If
the saints dwell with the godless, they must often be
brought down and punished with them. — (Query:
Whether Abram, with a good conscience, could
enter into a covenant with the Canaanites ? He
might make different excuses ; e. g., it is not proven
that they were heathen ; finally, he could say cor-
rectly, one must discern and distinguish the times. —
Citation of Jewish fables : " In Abram's contest, all
the dust (every staff?) became swords, and every
straw an arrow.") Ter. 15. An instance of strata-
gem, Josh. viii. 2 ; Judg. xx. 29 ; 1 Sam. xv. 6. —
Cramer : God remembers even the poor captive.
— Covenants, even with persons not of our reli-
gion and faith, if made in a correct way, and with
a right purpose, are not wrong ; still, we must not
rely upon them (Deut. xx. 1). — Legitimate war. —
Against rash undertakings. — Osiander : No external
power, but faith in God, gives the victory. — Ver. 1 8-
Here, for the first time, a priest is spoken of. —
Cramer: Honor is the reward of virtue. — The tithes
of Abram. — Osiander : A Christian must even make
his possessions of service to the officers of the Church.
— Kings and princes, if God grants them victory
over their enemies, must not only give him publig

* [It is not said in the narrative that they were wrong ;
and it is by no means clear that they were. Rebellion may
be right. It is so, if the government is unjust and oppros*
sive, and there is good reason to believe that success will at
tend their efforts to shake off the yoke of bondage. —A. G.i

tus>

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

thanks, but present to bim of the spoil they hare
taken. — Teachers and princes must proffer assistance
to each other, and exchange temporal- goods for
spiritual (1 Cor. ix. 11. — Finally, upon the legitimate
oath ; renunciation of bis own rights, the compe-
tency, the equitable wages or rewards of war.

Lisco: Abram's maguiinimity overlooks all the
unbecoming deportment of Lot towards him ; he
rentures his life for him. — The central point in this
BarratiTe is the grace of God towards his chosen,
through which be plaii'.s him in a condition to wage
victorious war witii kuigs, and after the assured vic-
tory, the same grace brings kings to meet him, the
one in a thoughtful recognition, the other fawns in
subjection and begs. — Abram's freedom from sel-
fishness.— Calwer, Handbuch : The humble man of
faith, a victorious warrior and hero. — The strength
of the Lord is mighty in the weak. — Schroder : No
greeting of blessing, no word of God falls from the
lips of this king of Sodom ; he is only thinking of
the earthly. — (Calvin): It is worthy of pr»se, that
he is thankful to men if he is not ungrateful to God.
It is possible, of course, that this poor man, stript
of his goods, through a servile, hypocritical pretence
of modesty, might obtain from Abram, at least, the
captives and tlie free city for himself. (Calvin saw,
correctly, that Abram, as possessor of the people of
Sodom, and the conqueror of the rulers of Sodom,
won for himself essentially a legitimate dominion
over Sodom, over which the king of Sodom would
pass as lightly as possible). — Abram bows himself
before Melchizedec, but before the king of Sodom
he lifts his hand. — Thus Abram recognizes and ac-

knowledges Melchizedec, while he penetrates to iti
depth the nature of the king of Sodom. As he ii
clearly conscious of his own high position, he con-
descends to the lower standpoint of the Sodomites
(out of which condescension the oath which he
swears proceeds), in order thereby to recognize and
own the higher religious standpoint of Melchizedec.
The oath an act of worship. He testifies, thereby,
that he had not undertaken the war from any lust of
gain, and cuts off the roots of all the sohcitation to
covetousness (even all suspicion of the same) through
the name of God. — Passavant ; Ps, xci. ; Rom. viii.
31. — Covenants for mutual defence against such ex-
peditions for plunder and life were necessary, and
God permitted his servants among the Canaanites, to
use such means of help and defence. — There is some-
thing greater than mine and thine, mightier than
victory and the power of the victor, stronger than
death, and it overcomes, indeed^ it inherits the world.
Wliat is it ? Every child of Abram can tell. — Taube:
We see in Abram's victory and blessing, the victory
and blessing of everyone who is a soldier for God. —
The sacred history transplants us at once into the
mid.'it of the turmoil of worldly affairs ; from the
quiet, peacefiU tents of Abram, we are transferred to
the tumults of war of heathen nations. — Heuser :
The meeting of Melchizedec, the royal priest, with
Abram: a. The historical event itself ; 6. the typical
elements in it ; n. their reahzation; d. the importance
of tliese truths.

[This history must be placed in its New Testa-
ment light (Heb. vii.) if we would see its meaning
and importance. — A. G.]

FOURTH SECTION.

dbram the approved Warrior of Faith, and God his Shield and his Reheard. His longing for an

Heir, and his thought of Adoption anticipating any exigency in the case. The great Promise

of God. A.bram^s Fdiih under the Starry Heavens. The Symbol of the Starry Heavenn

The righteousness of Faith. The Covenant of Faith, and the repeated Promise.

Chapter XV. 1-21.

1 After these things [events of the war] the word of the Lord came [renewed itself] uuto
Abram in vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield [in war even], and thy ei-

2 Deeding great reward [reward of the champion]. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou
give me, seeing I go [continually] childless, and tlie steward [the future possessor] of my house

3 is this Eliezer [the help of God, God is my help] of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold to
me thou hast given no seed [hodUy heir] : and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir

i [on the way to become my heir]. And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying,
This shall not be thine heir ; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels

6 [thine own nature] shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad [open air], and
said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. And

6 he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord ; and he counted

7 it to him for righteousness. And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee

8 out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said. Lord God,

9 whereby [by what sign] shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, Take
me [bring = sacrifice to me] a heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a

to ram of three years old, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him
fsaoriflccd] all these, and divided them [the animal sacrifice] in the midst, and laid each piece

CHAP. XV. 1-21.

408

1 1 one against another : but the birds divided he not. And when the fowls sr-me dowr

12 upon the carcasses [not carrion], Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going
down, a deep sleep [na^-in , chap, ii 21 ; job iv. is] fell upon Abram ; and, lo, a horror ot

13 great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed
shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs [thy descendants], and shall serve them ; and

14 they shall afflict them four hundred years ; And also that nation, whom they shall serve,

15 will I judge; and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou ghalt

16 go to thy fathers in peace ; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth
generation they shall come hither again ; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet

17 full [to the measure of judgment]. And it came to pass, that, when the sun went d; wn, and
it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp [flame of fire] that passed

18 between those pieces [of the sacrifice]. In that sfme day the Lord made a covenant with
Abram, saying, Uiito thy seed have I given [now in covenant] this land, from the river

19 of Egypt [Wady el Ariseh] unto the great river, the river Euphrates : The [laud of] Kenitea

[workers in iron, Judg. iv. 11, 1?], and the Kenizzites [huntsmen

20 And the Hittites [fear, terror, in Hebron], and the Perizzites

21 And the Amorites [mountaineers, upianders], and the Canaanites, [lowLmders], and the G'li-

gashites [dwellers upon the clayey soil], and the Jebusites [oils';, a place trodden as a threshing-floor],

, and the Kadmonites [of the East],
rustics], and the Rephaim [giants],

GENERAL PRELIMINABT EBMAEKS.

1. The connection of this Section with the pre-
oeding events must be carefully observed. The two
chapters form essentially one history. Abram had
in faith waged war against a fearful and superior
power ; hence the announcement to him : / (Jehovah)
im thy shield. He had renounced all claims upon
ihe spoil of war ; therefore he has the promise : I am
thy exceeding great reward, i. e., reward to the war-
rior. He had, through the fresh, living, healthy in-
terchange between his faith and the world, which was
wanting in the hermit-like Melchizedee, kept himself
as a man of faith, to whom it belongs, to beget a
race of believers, who should stand in the midst of
the world, against the world and for the world.

2. The form of the present revelation of God
to Abram gives trouble to interpreters. Knobel
thinks that the communication, vers. 12-16, belongs
to a night-vision ; on the other hand, the next suc-
ceeding utterances to the waking momenta. Accord-
ing to Keil, the word of Jehovah comes to him in
visible forms, neither through internal, immediate
converse, nor through dreams, but in an ecstacy
through an inward, spiritual beholding, and indeed,
in the day, and not in a night-vision, as ch. xlvi. 2.
"The ntnaa, ver. 1, rules the whole chapter."
Agamat the first, it may be said, that the narrative
speaks of a vision from the very beginning ; against
the last, that Abram is led out to number the stars ;
against both, that they do not involve and bring out
any recognition of the psychological form of the past
revelation. To us, it appears entirely in accordance
with the course of development of preceding revela-
tions, that Abram should first have received the
word of Jehovah, and then should have seen a mani-
festation of Jehovah, and that it is now said, the
word of Jehovah comes to him in vision. Abram,
truly, at this time, could not have received the reve-
lation from God without a disposition for visions ;
but in the case before us, which treats of a revela-
tion of Jehovah by night, the visionary fitness of
Abram comes into special prominence. This dispo-
sition for the vision, and the prominence in which it
appears, does not exclude the reality of the following
iCts, which, also, Keil regards as only inward occur-
rcncfs But ait to the phrase : " He spake to him in

visions ; " he accompanies the word in question with
the corresponding image : Abram saw the divine
sliield and the divine treasures (Keil, p. 145).

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.

1. The promise of Jehovah, the starry heavens
and the righteousness of faith (vers. 1-6).*— Pear
not. The coward fears before the danger, heroic
spirits after. Abram had now an experience of the
world in its wicked violence, as he had victoriously
resisted its defiant challenge, and the beaten kings
might easily visit him with vengeance Therefore
he receives the consoling promise, that Jehovah him-
self would be his shield, his defence in all conflicts
(Ps. iii. 3 ; xviii. 2). — Thy exceeding great re-
ward.f Not, perhaps, for thy general piety, but
the reward for thy heroic conflict. — -Abram received
the promise of God with the same feeling of weari-
ness of his natural life, with which Moses at eighty
years received the divine call to go to Egypt and free
the people. He wished to establish his family. Is
Jehovah his exceeding great reward,, then there
naturally follows some one application of the prom-
ise to his personal relations; but he sees no other
application, than that God himself would be his ex-
clusive reward, that thus, as to this world, this Elie-
zer of Damascus,! his steward (cii. xxiv. 2), must be
his heir. The thought is painful to him, but he
acquiesces in the purpose of God, and desires only
light as to the meaning of the promise, whether it is
to be understood only of an heir by adoption, in

* [ Hie word of ihe Lord came or was, " This is the first
place in the Bible where this phrase occurs, and it intro-
duces a prophetic vision and promise of Abram's posterity
in Christ — the incarnate word." Wordsworth, — A, G.]

[The ■'D3S is emphatic— A. G.]

t [The rendering "thy reward is exceeding great," al-
though consistent with the original, and yielding a good
sense, fails to bring out clearly the prominent thought In
the promise. It is not the great things which Jehovah
would give, but Jehovah himselii to which the mind of
Abram is turned as his reward.— A. G.]

X [There is an obvious paranomasia here — 6en-mesfte7f—
Dammeselc. Wordsworth, after Lightfoot and others, calle
attention to the f ict, that the name Eliezer is tlie same ai
Lazarus in our Lord's parable (Luke xvi. 20), and to th*
analnj^ between that parable and this history. Thesi
"silent analogies between the Old and New Testaments'*
are striking and important. — A. G.]

410

GENESIS, OR THE HRST BOOK OF MOSES.

which case this Eliezer appears to him the most
worthy. He desires most of all a decisive sentence,
therefore his proposition of the thing by anticipation.
Upon this allusion depends the marvellous tradition
that Abram had been king of Damascus (Joseph.,
Antiq. i. 7, 2 ; Justin., xxxvi. 2).^To me thou
hast given no seed. The pious complaint of hu-
man weakness before God must be distinguished
from the impious murmurs af/ainst God (Exod. v.
22; xxxiii. 12-15; Numb. xi. 11, 21; Josh. Vii.
7 ; Job ; the prophets). — One bom in my house
(son of my house).* It is not synonymous with house-
born. It has a deeper meaning; it designates the
most esteemed servant of his house. — Eliezer, he
says, is already upon the way to become my heir.
It is a complaining thought, which forms itself into
a resigned proposition, but a proposition which veils
a question. Upon this follows the divine decision
(ver. 4). Jehovah leads him out of his tent, under
the heavens as seen by night. His disposition, pre-
paredness for the vision, does not exclude the reality
of these events. f He had promised him at first one
natural heir. But now the countless stars which he
sees, should both represent the innumerable seed
which should spring from this one heir, and at the
same time be the warrant for his faith. Jehovah
shows him the image of his descendants, in the stars
of heaven. We recognize here the orientalist from
Ur of the Chaldees, for whom the lights of heaven
have a religious significance, but at the same time
the free monotheist, who no longer seeks in the stars
his gods, but the image of his children. That God
who speaks to him, can give to him a seed, count-
less as the stars in heaven, is truly presupposed ;
the representation of the countlessness of his de-
scendants is the main thought, to which cleave the
thoughts of their shining glory and their heavenly
character (see chap. xxii. IV; xxvi. 4; Exod. xxxii.
13). — And he believed in the Lord. This can-
not be either an element of a dream, or merely of a
mind prepared peculiarly for visions, for it is an act
of faith on the part of Abram, which was counted to
him for righteousness by Jehovah. Knobel re-
marks : " Abram did not laugh, incredulously, as in
the Elohistic section, xvii. 17," as if a beUever, in
the long delay of the promise, could never fall into
doubt, (although there is no mention of any incredu-
lity in the passage referred to). Keil asks : " How
did Moses know that Abram believed ? and that Je-
liovah counted it to him for righteousness?" He
inswers : " He proves his faith, because, according
to the following directions, he brought the sacrifices,
and because what Jehovah did with the animals waa
a real declaration on his part, that he counted to
Abram his faith for righteousness." We must dis-
tinguish, however, the inward events from these
sacramental signs, in which they are visibly mani-
fested and sealed. The faith of Abram in the prom-
ise of a bodily heir was the central point in the de-
velopment of his faith ; with this faith he enjoyed
the onsciousness that Jehovah counted it to him for
righteousness. Justification by faith, as an experi-
«uce of the inner life, manifests itself in the peace

* f Baumgarten Buggests that Eliezer was bom at Damas-
eufi : tlien the '^n''3 "jQ is not Eliezer, but his son, p. 185.
—A.G.I

[Heb. Srni of my house is inlieriUng me ; so also in the
Ith verse, there shall not inherit thee this one.— A.. G.]

t [There is no impassable cleft or abyss between the
Bpherea of vision and of sense, or between the supersenei-
blo and the sensible.— A G.]

of God ; and Abram could have given testimony ai
to this to his children, if nothing had occurred as tc
the sacrificial animals and their consumption by fire
The explanation of Knobel, " a right disposition ol
heart is of just as much avail to him as integrity m
acts," is both tame and shallow.

[This is confessedly an important passage. Ws
have here, and in the promise (ver. 1), the geim of
the great doctrine of the Lord our righteousness,
We may not attach to the words here used the ideat
in all their definiteness, which have been derived
from the use which the Apostle makes of them
in his discussion of the question, how a sinner can
be justified (Eom. iv. 4, 5, 10, 18-25) ; but neither
may we overlook hia inspired exposition, and strive
to interpret the words, as if they stood entirely by
themselves. Leaving this out of view, however, it
is clear " that Abram had no righteousness of hia
own, that righteousness was imputed to him, that it
wai faith in Jehovah in him which was counted for
righteousness ; " and further, that this faith is viewed
here, not merely as the root of all true obedience to
the will of God, and thus the sum of righteousness
or personal holiness, but as embracing and stead-
fastly resting upon (as the word rendered believed,
here means) God, as the God of grace and salvation.
It is the act by which he goes out from himself, and
relies upon God, for righteousness and grace. Thi\
history clearly shows that there was this cntiio re-
moval from the natural ground upon wliich he had
stood, and this entire, hearty, steadfast resting upon
Jehovah, " who is just and iiaviirg solvation. Tiie
promise which Abram's faith I'mbraced was the
promise of salvation through the covenant seed, and
he so regarded it. His faith, therefore, was essen-
tially the same with that specific faith in Christ
which is said to justify (see Rom. iv. 13). The Notes
of Kurtz, Baumgarten, Murphy, are suggestive and
valuable ; and the exposition of Calvin is admirable, —
Slun , to think, desire, purpose ; then to esteem, reck-
on, impute, set to one's account, 2 Sam. xix. 19; Ps.
xxxii. 2 ; Lev. vii. 18 ; xvii. 2 ; Num. xviii. 27. — A. G.]

2. 77ie Covenant Sacrifice and the Covenant in
reference to Canaan (vers. 7-17). Jehovah gave to
Abram the starry heavens as a sign of the promise
of an heir. Now he promises to Abram the land of
Canaan for his possession (ver. 7). Abram asks a
sign for this.* Jehovah appoints the covenant which
he would conclude with him over his sacrifices, for a
sign. He determines, also, at first, the sacrifice
which Abram should bring. The animals named
here, are the sacrificial animals of the Levitical
cultus. The future possession of Canaan was repre-
sented beforehand in the sacrifices of Canaan. f The
sacrificial animals were all divided (hence IT'ia PIS ,
to hew, cut a covenant), except the birds, and the
dissevered parts laid over against each other.

" The ceremonial of the covenant of old consisted
in the contracting parties passing between the dead
animals, with the imprecation, that in case of a
breach in the covenant, it might be done to them as
to these animals." Against which Keil (who, how-

* [Not, however, as expressing any doubt, bnt as the
natural working and fruit of his faith.— A. G.]

[Ver. 7.— I am the Lord that brought thee, etc. See th«
" Preface to the Ten Commandments," Jacobus, p. 268.—
A. G.]

t [Baumgarten says that as this sacrifice was a covenatl
sacrifice, and lay at the foundation of all the sacrifices of th€
covenant, all the animals used in those sacrifices were hen
retiuired, — A. G.l

CHAP. XV. 1-21.

411

ever, withoat sufficient ground, denies that this act
had the peculiar nature of a sacrifice), remarks:
" This interpretation of ancient upage is not support-
ed by Jer. xxxiv. 18." " The interpretation which
the prophet here gives to the symbolic usage, can
only be a fuller explanation, which does not exclude
another original idea of the symbol. The division
of the sacrificial animals probably only typified the
twofold character of the covenant ; and the passage
of the two contracting parties between the parts of
the one sacrifice, typified their reconciliation to a
onity." This would be in accordance with the anal-
ogy of the symbol of the ancient-i, the tessera hospi-
ta,is, which was also divided into two parts in order
to represent the alliance or union of the two posses-
sors of the divided little table. Jehovah himself
does not, indeed, appear as sharing in the ofiering
of the sacrifice, but as a sharer in the sacrificial feast,
which was signalized in the later thank-oflering, in
the show-bread, and essentially in all sacrifices. If
the man «fho presents the sacrifice gives himself
away to God, so Jehovah gives himself into commu-
nion with that man ; forms a covenant with him.
The individual specimens of the collective sacrificial
animals, designate, in Calvin's view, aU Israel in all
its parts, as one sacrifice. In the three years age,
Theodoret finds an intimation of the three genera-
tions of bondage in Egypt; which Keil approves,
with a reference to Judg. vi. 25 (seven years' bond-
age, a seven year old bullock). The further intima-
tions of numbers in the passage, to wit, a number
seven, five, and eight, Keil rejects. — And 'when the
fowls came down. The pieces lay for some time,
unconsumed by the fire, and attracted the birds of
prey, which would have polluted and preyed upon
them, had not Abram driven them away. These
are the heathen, the enemies of Israel, who would
corrupt and destroy it, impure powers like the birds
of prey, which were held as unclean by the Jews.
The hawk was sacred to the Egyptians, but the later
Jews represented the opposition between Jews and
heathen, through the dove and sparrow-hawk (see
Knobel). But Abram, in his faith, remained the
guardian-spirit of Israel, who secured its sacred des-
tination (Ps. cv. 42). — Ver. 12. And when the
sun was going down.* From this reference to
the time, we may judge what was the marvellous
attention and watchfulness of Abram. The great
scene of the revelation began on the previous night ;
he had stood under the starry heavens as holding a
solemnity ; the victims were slain, and the pieces
distributed, and then the watch over them was held
until the setting of the sun. His physical strength
sinks with it, a deep sleep (naTin) overcomes him.
But the disposition for visions preserves itself in the
sleep, and so much the more, since it is even the
deep, prophetic sleep. Abram sees himself over-
taken by a great horror of darkness, which the word
of Jehovah explains to Mm. It was the anticipation
of the terror of darkness, which, with the Egyptian
bondage, should rest upon the people. This bond-
age itself is pointed out to him, under three or four
circumstances : 1. They would be oppressed and tor-
mented in this service ; 2. it would endure four hun-
dred years ; 3. the oppressing people should be
judged ; 4. they should come out of the bondage
with great substance. It is to be distinctly observed,
that the name of this people, and the land of this
•ervitude, is concealed. Moreover, there are further

* [Heb., was about to go down. — ^A, G.l

disclosures which concern the relation of the patri
arch to this sorrow of his descendants. He himself
should go to his fatliers in peace in a good, that is
great age. But his people should reach Canaan m
the fourth generation after its oppression, from which
we may infer that a hundred years are reckoned as 8
generation.* — For the iniquity of the Amoritea
IS not yet fuU. The Amorites, as the mott power-
ful tribe of the Canaanites, stand here for tLt whole
people (Josh. xxiv. l.'i). Israel's inheritance of Ca-
naan is limited by the judgment upon the Canaanites ;
but this judgment itself is limited and conditioned
by righteousness, according to which the measure
of iniquity must first be full. — Ver. 17. Behold a
smoking furnace. This new manifestation must
not be regarded as belonging to the dream vision,
but as the intuition of the waking consciousness,
under the form of a vision. For the divine accept-
ance of the sacrifice cannot be fulfilled in a dream,
any more than the faith of Abram, than his sacrifice,
or the making of the covenant itself. — The smoking
furnace is analogous to the burning bush, and pillar
of fire of Moses. That it here designates the anger
of God (Keil) is not supported by Ps. xviii. 9.f The
fire-symbols are not always symbols of the consuming
anger of God (as perhaps the seraphim), but also
signs of purifying and saving judgments, as the pillar
of fire, and pre-eminently the fire upon the altar of
burnt-offering. And beyond doubt, in the sense of
this passage, Jehovah goes with the sacrificial fire
between the pieces of the animals. That the pieces
were not laid upon the altar, arises from the mode
of forming a covenant, according to which the con-
tracting parties must pass between them. Abram
had gone between them long before the evening.
Now Jehovah goes through in the sacrificial flame.
The image of the sacrifice signifies that the sacrificial
fire should never be extinguished in Israel ; this is
visibly represented, moreover, under the flame of the
altar. We must recognize clearly, that it is incredi-
ble that the flame should pass between the pieces of
the sacrifice without consuming them. But the flairte
cannot designate the judgments of God upon the
oppressors of Israel (Keil), since the pieces indeed
designate Israel. But neither the judgments upon
Israel, since the pieces which signify Israel were
already divided, i. e., offered and dedicated to God.
The sacrificial fire, as an efficient element of change,
changes the flesh into a sweet savor for Jehovah, and
the judgment of an earthly dissolution into an act of
deliverance, into a new, heavenly existence.

3. The founding of the Covenant and its signifi-
cance (vers. lY-21).— Unto thy seed have I given
this land. The covenant which Jehovah makes
with Abram relates especially to the grant of the
land of Canaan to his descendants. Hence, also, it
is sealed with the offering of the sacrificial animals
usual m the land. — From the river of Egypt.
Keil holds that it is the Nile, because it is inJ , not
bns (Numb, xxxiv. 5). Knobel, on the other hand,
remarks correctly: "The Nile cannot be intended,
since the Euphrates would not have been described
as the great river in opposition to it." It is thus

* [Ver. 13. Kuow of a surety. Knmv, knmjo thou. Know
certainly. This responds to Abram'e question, "WTieret J
abaU I know? ver. 8. Mokpht, p. 218.-A. G.]

t fKurtz regards tbis as the first appearance of th«
Sohecninah, and Bays : " It is the symbol of tbe gracioui
presence of God : tbe splendor of bis glory, tbe consuming
fire of bis holiness, whicb no mere buman eye can bear, be-
fore wbicb no sinful cbild of n m can stand, is veiled benea*!
hia grace," p. 180.— A. G.J

*)2

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

tlie Wady el Arisch, brook of Egypt, otherwise called
Rbinocolura, lying at the southern limits of Israel
(Numb, xxxiv. 5 ; Josh. xt. 4 ; Is. xxvii. 12) ; not
the Nile, because au oratorical hyperbole would not
agree with the exact bounding of the land.

[Hengstenberg, Beitriige, vol. iii. p. 265, urges
in favor of the Nile not only the term which is used,
■in:, and which is not interchangeable with the term
for a small stream or brook, bnj, but also that the
passage is rhetorical, as is clear from the fact that
the tribes which the Israelites were to disposse.=B
were purely Canaanitish, and no more extended to
the Euphrates than to the Nile. Kurtz adds, that
these two streams are here used as representative
of the two great world-powers between which Israel
should dwell. It is thus a prediction that the de-
scendants of Abram should have an independent ex-
istence by the side of these two great empires, and
that no nation should have any permanent sway be-
tween them and these two empires. So that their
dominion may be said to reach from the Euphrates
to the Nile. — These two rivers are, moreover, con-
stantly referred to in the later Scriptures, as the ex-
treme boundaries of Israel. See Is. xxvii. 12; Jer.
ii. 1 8. In its best days too, the Israelitish dominion
reached, to all intents, to Egypt, since all, or neatly
all the intervening powers were subject to David and
Solomon. Wilkinson holds that the word ^X"" ,
river, a form of which is here used, is the Hebrew
form of the Egyptian word Jaro, river, applied to
the Nile; see Bcsn, Notes, p. 255. — A. G.]

The Israelitish dominion should reach to the Eu-
phrates, and did actually " in its best days " reach to
it, but there is no record of its extension to the Nile.
We are not dealing here with a prophetic and spiritual
word, but witli the definite bounds of the land, for
the race of Abram, as is clear also from the follow-
ing enumeration. " Ten tribes are enumerated going
from the southern border to the north, in order to fix
and di'epen the impression of universality and com-
pleteness, of which the number ten is the symbol —
no tribes are excepted or spared (Delitzsch). In
other passages, sometimes seveu (Deut. vii. 1 ; Josh,
iii. 10), six (Ex. iii. 8, 17 ; xxiii. 23 ; Deut xx. 17),
five (Ex. xiii. 6), or even two (Gen. xiii. 7), are
named ; or finally, all are embraced under the com-
mon name, Canaanites." Keil. The number ten is
not, however, the number of completeness (that is
twelve), but the number of a completed develop-
ment ; here of the completed development of the
Canaanites for judgment. The Hivites (ch. x. 17)
are here omitted. The Hivites at Hermon, in the
region of Lebanon, were afterwards driven out, but
the Hivites at Gibeon were graciously spared (Judg.
iii. 3; Josh. xi. 19). "The Kenites were an Ama-
lekitish — originally Arabian tribe, southerly from
Canaan (Numb. xxiv. 21 ; 1 Sam. xv. 6; xxvii. 10;
XXX. 29), of whom a part afterwards removed to Car
naan (Judg. i. 16; iv. 11, 17)." Kuobel.— The
Kenizzites. There is a reference to Kenaz, an
Edomite (chap, xxxvi. 15, 42), with which Knobel
joins the passage before us, but Keil objects, be-
cause he correctly assumes that Kenaz must have
descended from Edom, without bringing into account
the mingling of the Edomites with the original in-
habitants of the land. The Kadmonites, also, are
never anywhere more clearly determined.*

* [They Beem to have been the more eastern, and to
nave held the other extreme houiidaryo 'the promised land,
towards the Euphrates. Mdrphy. p. 3W).— A. G.]

DOCTBINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. For the vision, see the Exegetical remarks
The vision of a shield and of a vast treasure, bringj
to remembrance the numerous revelations of God
through images in the prophets, especially in Jere-
miah and Zechariah. We must distinguish here tht
threefold form of the one revelation made througlt
visions : 1 . Revelation through images ; 2. through
the word ; 3. through the vision in deep sleep, upon
which there follows still a revelation to the waking
consciousness through the word. The prophetic
frame of mind on the part of Abram is very extra-
ordinary, since it continued through a whole night
and day, and iiito the following night.

2. The stages of the promise which Abram re-
ceived, viewed, as to its genealogical sequence, may
be regarded in this order: 1. Thou shalt be a man
of blessing, and shalt become a great people (eh. xii.
1) ; 2. to thy seed will I give this land (ch. xii. 7);

3. to thy seed the land, to thy land thy seed (ch. xiii.
14). Here (ch. xv. 18), the promise of the seed and
the land was sealed in the form of a covenant.

4. The promise of a seed advances in the form of a
covenant to the assurance that God would be the
God of his seed (ch. xvii. 7). 5. The promise is
more definite, that not Ishmael but the son of Sarah
should be his heir(ch. xvii. 15 fi'.). 6. The heir was
promised in the next year (ch. xviii. 10). 7. The
whole promise in its richest fulness was sealed by the
oath of Jehovah (ch. xxii.).

3. The grand thought : God is our shield, or de-
fence against all evil ; God himself is our greatest
reward or highest good; is the introductory com-
pletion of all religious desires and hopes. But man
can remain upon this high standpoint only with the
greatest difficulty. This is manifest from the appli-
cation to practical uses and gains which Abram
makes: Lord, what wilt thou give me? Although
this application to his own advantage, carried out in
a childlike spirit, is perfectly consistent with his faith.

4. Abram under the starry heavens, and his
righteousuess of faith. The peculiar determination
of the character of the patriarchal rehgion. Here
first, the full importance of faith comes into view.
Here also, first, the reckoning of righteousness cor-
responding therewith. From this point onward, both
fundamental thoughts run through the holy scrip-
ture (see Rom. iv ; James ii.).* The future of the
Evangelical church was prepared on that night. It
was the one peculiar blooming hour of all salvation
by faith. But we must not, therefore, so weaken
and lower the idea of righteousness, that we should
explain it as equivalent with integrity, or in similar
ways. Righteousness is the guiltless position or
standing in the forum of right, of justice.f The

* [Righteousness must be had, or there is no salvation.
Men have lost righteousness, and the power to gain it.
How can it be seciu-ed T It is by Mth. It is couiiteS to
believers ; see for illustration Lev. vii. 18 ; xvii. 4 ; 2 Sam.
six. 19, and Roni. 4. — A. G.]

[JflCOBUs, N'otes, p. 267. 1. Abram had no righteousness
for justification. 2. Faith is not imputed to him as a work,
as a laeritorious ground of justification, but only as instru-
meutal, laying hold on a perfect righteousness. 3. The
law could not chiim any other than a perfect righteousness—
his own or another's imputed to him — set to his account.
And this is the {yospel plan of salvation — to reckon the per-
fect righteousness received by faith, as our lighteousnBSd
for iustification. — A. G.]

t [Kurtz : He is righteous who, through the freedom
of his will, conforms to the divine idea and end of his beine.
"WoanswoETH is better : Righteousness is that state ir wbioi

CHAP. XV. 1-21.

41 :i

foruoi in which Abram stands here, is the forum of
the inward life before God. In this he was, on the
grouqd of his faith, declared righteous, through the
woid and the Spirit of God. Hence we read here,
also, first of his peace, ver. 16.

B. The difference between the four hundred years,
ver. 13, and Acts vii. 6, and the four hundred and
thirty years, Ex. xii. 40, is explained, not only by
the use of round, prophetic numbers here, but also
from the fact, that we must distinguish between the
time when the Israelites generally dwelt in Egypt,
and the period when they became enslaved and
oppressed. Paul counts (Gal. iii. 17) the time be-
tween the promise and the law, as four hundred and
thirty years, in the thought that tlie closing date of
the time of the promise was the death of Jacob (Gen.
xlix.). See the Introduction ; and for the difference
in question, Delitzsch, p. 3*71.

[Note upon the foitr HnNDRED tears Afflic-
tion AND Servitude op Israel. — It is confessedly
a matter of dispute how these four hundred years
are to be computed. Some fix the birth of Isaac as
the starting-point, others the entrance of Jacob into
Egypt. The difficulty does not lie in reconciling the
different statements of the Scripture, but in bringing
any condusiou formed upon these statements, into
hanuony with a general system of Chronology.
Baumgarten says : The principal thing in the threat-
ening, the first word in the description of the sor-
row, is an announcement of their condition as
strangers, T|S, "11 n";n'^ ii. The description, there-
fore, in his view, covers the period of their sojourn
in Canaan, during which they were strangers. He
urges, in favor of this, the words of the Apostle (Gal.
iii. 17), and the fact that the Israeiites were to come
out in the fourth generation ; a generation obviously
falling far short of a hundred years. They were to be
there,butthree generations. The genealogical table,
Exod. vi. 16 ff. favors a much shorter residence than
four hundred years ; since the combined ages of the
persons there mentioned, Levi, Kohath, Amram, in-
cluding the years of Moses at the time of the exo-
dus, amount to only four hundred and eighty-four
years, from which we must talse, of course, the age
of Levi, at the entrance of Jacob into Egypt, and
the ages of the different fathers at the birth of their
sons. It is better, therefore, with Wordsworth,
Murphy, Jacobus, and many of the earlier commenta-
tors, to make the four hundred years begin with the
birth of Isaac, and the four hundred and thirty of
the apostle to date from the call of Abram. — A. G.]

6. The demand for a sign relates to the promise
of the land, not the promise of a seed. The starry
heavens was the sign of the latter promise to him.
Compare the similar demand of Gideon (Judg. vi.
17), and of Hezekiah (2 Kings xx. 8). The pious
and beUeving desire for a sign points to a divine
assurance, the impious to an unsanctified knowledge,
or, indeed, a doubt. The constant form of the pious
desire for a sign, is the believing enjoyment of the
lacraments.

7. The sacrificial animals. See Leviticus.

8. The birds of prey. Compare Matthew xiii.
18, 19.

9. The profound sleep. Compare ch. ii. 21 ;
Biblework, p. 209. 7%ou shall go to thy fathers in
pence. With faith in the grace of God, the future is

Enan*8 will la conformed to God's will — that state in which
Adam waa created, but from which he fell by sin, p. 74.—
4. G.

not only made clear aiii glorified (John viii. 56), bu-
the other world also is illuminated,

10. The iniquities of the Amorites. See Ex
xxxiv. 11, 14 ; Lev. xviii. 24 ; xx. 23 ; Numb, xxxiii
52, 5.5 ; Josh, xxiii. 12. — No people is destroyeC
whose iniquity is not full.*

11. Both Dehtzsch (p. 373) and Keil (p. 151),
assert that there is no account here of a peonliai
sacrifice of a covenant, nor of a peculiar covenant
Against the sacrifice of the covenant, it is said that
Abram did not pass between the pieces of the sacri
fice ; but this is a pure supposition. Against the idea
of a covenant, that there is no account of a pactio, but
simply of a sponsio, a solemn promise of God to men.
Let it be observed, however, that upon this interpre-
tation the moral force in the doctrine of the covenant •
relation of God to the believer is fatally ignored,
and that this interpretation also threatens to ohangt
the covenant blessing of the Christian sacraments
from a moral to a magical blessing. The subject of
the promise, Delitzsch remarks, excludes the idea
of reciprocity. " In the covenant," says Keil,
" which God concludes with man, the man does not
stand as upon mutual and equal terms with God, but
God grounds the relation of communion, through his
promise, and his gracious condescension, to mat,
whereby he is first prepared to receive, and then,
thi'ough the reception of the gifts of grace, is pre-
pared to discharge the duties flowing out of the
covenant, and thus made obligatory upon him."
Although the covenant of God with believing hu-
manity, is not a contract between equals, but God
founds the covenant, it does not follow, that his
founding it is a simple promise, although, even a
simple promise, without some moral motive giving
rise to it, would be absurd. But now, according to
Rom. iv. the foundation of the gracious covenani
of God with Abram, was not laid in the covenant of
circumcision (Gen. xvii.), but in the covenant of
faith (ch. xv.;.f Hence the Jewish Targums, and
after them. Christian theologians, have found in this
chapter the forming of a covenant according to the
explicit declaration, ver. 1 7. Delitzsch himself, upon
ch. xvii., says first : " God sealed his covenant with
Abram," but then further, "God founded his cove-
nant with Abram." But Keil, p. 155, remarks:
" Long before, at least, long years before, God had
established his covenant with Abram." We make
the following distinction ; in ch. xv., the eternal,
valid covenant of faith was concluded ; in ch. xvii.
the specific, old covenant of circumcision, the pro-
visional sealing of the covenant of faith, of which,
under the New Testament, baptism and the Lord's
Supper are the seals. If we recall, that the relation
between the Lord and his church is that of the
bridegroom and the bride, we shall truly dismiss the
assumption of a magical working and efficacy of the
covenant, and return to the high estimate of moral
relations in the kingdom of personal life, in which
also the passive position, which the Formula Cone.
recognizes and holds in conversion is to be conceived
as a moral state— in which the soul is held in the

* [The I/ord administers th« affairs of nations or flvfl
principle of moral rectitude. Murphy, p. 299. WoHDf*-
WORTH calls attention to this sentence in its relation to the
destruction of the Canaanites by Israel, p. 76. — A. G-.]

t [Kurtz holds that Abram did not now pass between
the pieces ; that this is but one side of the covenant, ic
which God, but not Abram, brings himself under covenan*
obligation ; and that the covenant is computed and ra tifie<
by Abram in the transactions, Ch. xvii. p. 179.— A. G.l

414

GENESIS, OR THE FIBST BOOK OF MOSES.

attitude of waiting, and does not grasp beforehand —
produced in tiie strengtli of tlie gratia prceveniens,
and not as a pure creaturely and unconcerned yield-
ing of one's self to tbe pleasure of anotlier.

flOMTLETICAI, AND PRACTICAL.

See tile Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. — The
great thought: God himself is our God: 1. Our
Bbield; 2. our great reward (comp. Rom. viii.). — It
tg allowed the saints, to ask : Lord, Lord, what wilt
thou give me ? — We learn from Abram to consult
with God — as to our affairs; — to deliberate with
Jehovah as to our future. — Ter. 4. If the lesser is
denied us, that itself intimates a grant of the higher.
— In submission we are near the highest promises and
gifts. — Abram, the childless, shall become the father
of nations. — Abram in the starry night. — The word
of God in the starry night. — The faith of Abram :

1. Abram a believer ; 2. a father of believers (Rom.
iv.); 3. a fatlier of all believers, especially of be-
lievers from the circumcision. — Abram's righteous-
ness of faith.^The key-note of his righteousness of
faith : 1 . The blessing has overcome the curse in his
heart and life ; 2, he will overcome it in the world
through his seed ; his children shall be as the stars
of heaven. — The high antiquity of Evangelical faith.
— The covenant of God with Abram. — Abram's pro-
phetic sleep. — The holy land : 1. In the literal sense ;

2. as a type of the promised fatherland of believers.
— The certainty of the promises of God. — The first
mention of the grave cheerful and friendly. — The
grave already illuminated and glorified with the
glimpse of the life beyond.

Starke : Lange : Fear and discouragement may
Bomefimes assail the strongest heroes of faith ; it is
well, however, when they are not allowed to reign
(Ps. Ixxxiv. 12; Rom. viii. \1 ; Ps. Ixxiii. 26, 26;
cxlii. 6) — [When some astronomers have attempted
to specify the number of stars, and one asserts that
there are 1392, another 17ii9, and still another,
7000, these are pure conjectures, upon which they
cannot agree among themselves. Then, too, there
are the thousands of stars, so remote in space, that
they are not visible through the best telescopes. It
would have been a small consolation to Abram, if
his seed should only equal the small number of stars
specified.] — Rom. iv. 3 ; Gal. iii. 6 ; James ii. 23. —
Ver. 3. What a great thing, is it not, to be near
a prudent householder ! — Cramer : If we will be
counsellors of God, we will do it to our injury. —
God places before the reason, incomprehensible (and
incredible) things; for, what we can comprehend,
there is no necessity that we should believe.* — God
foreknows all things. — Ver. 15. This is a pleasant
description of death. — lu what a good age consists.
— The buriiil of the dead is a primitive custom, of
which this is the first notice. We never find, in the
Holy Scriptures, any mention of the burning of the
dead, customary among the heathen ; or of any other
way thaii of burial (Judg. ii. 9). — God exercises a
constant foresight, even over the seed of believers.

Lisco : The war with the kings, although victo-
riously ended, might provoke retaliation afterwards ;
thus the present state of Abram's mind is connected
with his previous state. Ter. 2. God is here for the

• iThia obvionsly needs modifloation.— A. G.l

first time called AdonaL — ^Ver. 6. Abram is undei
the trial or test. — Although Abram possessed sc
many beautiful and noble qualities of heart, and ir
his walk manifests so many virtues, yet he is not,
through all these, righteous before God, not in the
possession of the divine favor, for there is also sin
in him, etc. This defect his faith, liis living confi-
dence in God (more precisely, the word of God which
he grasps in his faith), supplies — The justification
of the sinner by faith, is the only way of righteous-
ness, before, during or after the giving of the law. —
Ver. 15. Go to thi/ fathers. They must then still live
upon the other side of death, in another state and
life ; the continued existence after death is here evi-
dent, and, indeed, as the word in peace, intimates, a
blessed existence for the pious. — Ver. 16. All na-
tions hold their land, likewise, in fee from God, and
will be deprived of it when their rebellion against
the Lord their God has reached its full height. Thus
the Amorites, and thus the Israelites at the exile,
and the second destruction of Jerusalem. — Ter. 17.
The fiame of fire is the sign of the gracious presence
of God, and of his pleasure in the sacrifice (Lev. ix.
24).— Gkrlach : Abram confesses his pain and grief
— Without the least apparent human probability, he
trusts unconditionally upon the divine and gracious
promise. The word "believed" is here exact, or
precise ; he cleaves to the Lord (precisely : he stays,
supports, rests himself upon the Lord). — The three
years old animals, because fully grown ; faultless
animals must be chosen for sacrifice. — Ver. 15. To
go to his fathers(ch. xxv. 8 ; xxxv. 29 ; xlix. 29,
33 ; Dcut. xxxii. 50 ; 2 Kings xxii. 20). The beauti-
ful expression for the life after death, testifies that
even in the highest antiquity, the outlook into the life
on the other side of the grave, was neither dark not
gloomy. — (Ver. 1 7. Description of the oriental fur-
nace ; a great, cylindrical-shaped fire-pot). — Calwer,
Handhuch: Abram's doubt, and newly strengthened
faith. He believed without the sight— Bonsen : [a
marvellous translation : The Son of Mesek, posses-
sion, is my house, Eliezer a Damascene]. — ScHRonER :
The present and future of Abram — He is suggesting
to God (with the Eliezer). Ch. xvi. states another
project, spnnging out of the weakness of his faith.
Abram sees not, he believes. — Here appears for the
first time the word, whose nature and strength we
have recognized from the first promise onward, and
especially in the previous history of Abram. — Hess :
Ver. 13. To prevent Egypt's becoming hateful to
him, the land was not named (this concealment is
rather a trait which attests and authenticates the gen-
uine prophecy). — The flame of fire is typical of the
divine presence and majesty. — Schwenke : Ver. 6.
We agree with Luther, this is the great word in this
book — Taube : The temptation of the believer :
1. What is the highest necessity? 2. the highest
consolation ? 3. How can one pass out from the high-
est necessity into the greatest consolation? — Hor-
MANN : It was the review of faith which fitted Abram
to look out into the future. He looked onward to
the blessed rest of the people of God, but he could
not do this, except as he recognized in God, the re-
storer of that life of man — his own life, the life of
his seed, and of the race — perverted and fallen by
sin, and burdened with the curse. Dark nnd troubled
it may well be, were the thoughts of the father uf
the faithful, but the experience of his heart and lift
were sure

CHAP. iVI. 1-16.

4U

FIFTH SECTION.

Abram't OoneestUm to Sarai's Impatience. Abram and Hagar. Hagar's Flight. The Angel of Iht
Lord. Hagar'' s Return, and hhmaeVs Birth.

Chapter XVI. 1-16.

1 Now Sarai, Abram s wife [in the feoe of the previous promise], bare him no children : an J

2 ehe had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar [flight, ftigitive]. And Sarai
said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing ; I pray thee,
go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain [hehuiided] children by her. And

3 Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar her
maid tat Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave
her to Her husband Abram to be his wife.

4 Ari'i he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived : and when she saw that she had

5 conceiveJ, her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarai said unto Abram, My
wrong be upon thee : I have given my maid into thy bosom ; and when she saw that
she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes : the Lord judge between me and thee.

6 But Abram tsaid unto Sarai, Behold thy maid is in thy hand ; do to her as it pleaseth
thee [isgoodinvix'neeyes]. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.

7 And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by

the fountain in the way to Shur [rocky. Josephus: Pelusium. Gesenins: Suez. Keil ; Dschlfar]

8 And he said, Hap-KV, Sarai's maid, whence earnest thou? and whither wilt tliou go^

9 And she said, I flee iVom the face of my mistress, Sarai. And the angel of the Lord

10 said unto her, Eetuni to thy mistress, and submit [how] thyfelf under her hands. And
the angel of the Lord baid unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall

11 not be [cannot be] numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said unto her.
Behold, thou art with ciiild, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishinael

i2 [God will hear] ; because ihe Lord hath heard thy aflliction [distress]. And he will be a
>7ild man ; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him ; and

13 he shaU dwell in the presence of all his brethren — [far and wide in a free country]. And she
called the name of the Lord that spake unto her. Thou God seest me [of true seeing] : foi

14 she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? [after the peculiar seeing t]
Whereforb the well was called, Beer-lahai-roi [well of the life of seeing, or yision] ; behold,

it is between Kadesh [consecrated] and Bered [hail, gravel-litehaill].

15 And Hagar b.tre Aoram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar

16 bare, Ishmael. A. id Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael
to Abram.

PEELIMINAET KEMAEK.

For the difficulties growing out of the sexual
felations in the history of the Pati-iarchg, see the
Introduction, p. 80.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITIOAL.

1. According to Knobel, this aection is a Jeho-
vistic enlargement of a iDrief Elohistic original
narrative. But the narrative bears upon its face
a complete and living unity.

2. Sarai's Fanatical Self-denial (vers. 1-4),
Bare him no children. Not even yet, although
he had already received (ch. 16) the solemn assur-
ance of the great promise. She was barren in ch.
ti. 30, and remamed so after ch. xv. 2. The child-

less state of Abram's house was its great sorrow, and
the more so, since it was in perpetual opposition to
the calling, destination, and faith of Abram, and was
a constant trial of his faith. Sarai herself, more-
over, the consort of Abram, came gradually more
and more to appear as a hindrance to the fulfilment
of the divine promise, and as Abram, according to
ch. XV., had fixed liis eye upon his head servant,
Eliezer of Damascus, so now, Sarai fixes her eye
upon her head maiden,* Hagar the Egyptian. Ha-
gar was probably added to the household of Abram
during his residence in Egypt (ch. xii. 10). She
manifestly occupied a prominent place in his house-
hold, and appears to have brought to that position,
not only mental gifts, but also an inward participa-
tion in the faith of the household. — The Lord hath

* [Here, of course, herslaie, bond-woman, —A. d.l

416

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

restrained me from bearing.* (The mother's
womb closed — a figuratire description of the ap-
pointed barrenness). The barrenness, also, is traced
back to the highest causalitv, the puipose of Je-
hovah (ch. xxix. 31; xxx. 32; Ps. cxxvii. 3; Is.
Ixvi. 9). The sexual ri>lations, and the declarations
in regard to them, are sanctified by their ultimate
end, their spiritual reference. The dejection, at least,
the sorrow, breaks out in the words of Sarai, also,
as they had in the utterance of Abram, ch. xv. 3. —
Go in unto. Euphemistic explanation of the sexual
connection. — It may be that I may obtain (be
buUded) by her. As to the connection between
nsa, "in, n^3, see the lexicons. To be built, is to
become a house ; to become a house, is to obtain
children, a family. Hagar should enlarge Sarai :
Hagar's child should be her child (see ch. xxx. 3).
The concubine, viewed in the light of this reason, for
which she is chosen, is not so much the concubine
of the husband, as supplemeritary concubine of the
wife. The moral idea of monogamy shines clearly
through this obscurity in its manifestation, and so
far this, "possession of concubines" (as Knobel ex-
presses it) must be distinguished from the later
polygamy, which appeared among the Jews. Sarai
practises an act of heroic self-denial, but still, in her
womanly and fanatical excitement, anticipates her
destiny as Eve had done, and carries even the patri-
arch awjiy with her alluring hope. The writer inti-
mates how nobly generous sne was in her error.
This greatness clouded even the clear-sightedness
of Abram. f The narrator brings al.*o into promi-
nence the extenuating fact, that they had been
already ten years in Canaan, waiting in vain for the
heir of Canaan. — When she aaiw that she had
conceived. ''The unfruitful Hannah received the
like treatment with Sarai, from the second wife of
her husband (1 Sam. i. 6). It is still thus, to-day, in
eastern lands (see Lane : ' Manners and Customs,'
1. p. 198). The Hebrew regards barrenness as a
great evil and a divine punishment (ch. xix. 31 ;
xxx. 1, 23 ; Lev. xx. 20), and fruitfulness as a great
good and a divine blessing (eh. xxi. 6; xxiv. 60;
Ex. xxiii. 26 ; Deut. vii. 14). The orientals regard
these things in the same light still (see Volnet :
' Travels,' ii. p. 369 ; Malcolm's ' History of Persia ; '
and Winer: Real-worterbucli, art. Kirider)." Knobel.
Hagar, however, had not the position of a second
wife, and erred, when in her disposition she assumed
this position, instead of recognizing her subordina-
tion to her mistress. This subordination was as-
sumed by Abram, and therefore he does not seem
to have noticed her haughtiness and pride. |

3. Sarai's DisplecKure and Hagar's Flight (vers.
5 and 6). — My wrong be upon thee. Precisely,
^rong in an objective sense, wrong which I suffer.
Sarai, in her indignation against the pride and inso-
lence of Hagar, believed that Abram looked with
approbation upon it, and therefore expresses herself
as if olfended.§ The overbent bow flies back with
violence. This is the back-stroke of her own eager,

* [Heb., shut me up. — A. G.]

t [Abram yields to the suggestioa of Sarai without oppo-
sition, because, as the prophet Malachi ea-^g, ii. 15, he
BOvght the seed promised by God. Keil, p. 152. — A G.j

4 [And it was this apparent indifferetce which probably
was tne source of Harai'B sense of injury. She was led from
it to suspect that the affections of her nusband were trans-
ferred—A. G.l

4 {She felt that Abram' ought to have redressed her
wrong — ought to have seen and rebuked the insolence of
thf bond-woman. — A. G.]

overstrained course. Still, her words are against
Abram ; the consequences of her wrong should faP
upon bim ; she would leave his conduct to the judg
ment of Jehovah, more as an appeal to his con-
science, than as a decided condemnation.* — Behold
thy maid is in thy hand. Abram adheres firmly
to the original standpoint. He regards Hagar 8*ill
as the servant, and the one who fulfils the part of
Sarai, and so far justifies himself against Sarai. But
this justification is turned now into the severe cen.
sure and affliction of Hagar, and this is the result of
the wrong position into which he has allowed him-
self to be drawn. — Sarai dealt hardly with her.
How, precisely, we are not told. Doubtless, through
the harsh thrusting her back into the mere position and
service of a slave. Hagar believed that she had grown
above such a position, and flees. The proud, unyield-
ing passion of the Ishmaelite for freedom, shows its
characteristic feature in their ancestress. Some have
ventured so far, as to suppose that Abram must have
hastened after her, and brought her back, full of honor.
4. The intervention on the part of the Art gel of
Jehovah, and Hagar's return (vers. 7-14). — The
Angel of Jehovah. See the preliminary remarks
to ch. xii. [The expression nin" ~S<^'? appears
here for the first time. While the Angel of Jeho-
vah is Jehovah himself, it is remarkable, that in the
very meaning of the name, as messenger, or one who
is sent, there is implied a distinction of persons m
the Godhead. There must be one who sends, whose
message he bears. — A. G.]f That this Angel is iden.
tical with Jehovah, is placed beyond question in vers.
13 and 14. The disposition of Hagar, helpless, for-
saken, with all her pride, still believing in God, warned
by her own conscience, makes it altogether fitting that
the Angel of Jehovah should appear to her, i. «., Jeho-
vah himself, in his condescension — manifesting him-
self as the Angel. — She had found rest, by afountain
in the wilderness ; and here, in her helplessness,
self-reflection, and repentance, she gains the disposi-
tion or fitness for the vision. It was by the fount-
ain in the ^ray to Shur. " Shur, now Dschifar,
is the northwestern part of the desert of Arabia, bor-
dering upon Egypt (comp. Ex. xv. 22 ; and TnCH :
in der deutschen morgerddnd. Zeitschrifi, i. p. 175)."
Keil. (Ch. XXV. 18; 1 Sam. xv. 7; xxvii. 8). A
waste stretch of land, of five or six days' journey,
lying between Palestine and Egypt (see Knobel, p.
158). Her location was thus upon the old, worn
path, leading from Hebron by Beersheba to Egypt.
The respect which she enjoyed agrees with her per-
sonal, inward worth, as to her character and faith,
but at the same time tends to the proper estimate oi
Ishmael, who, as the child of Abram, could not
be left undistinguishable among the heathen. The
Angel of the incarnation, even, could not permit
that Hagar, in an erroneous zeal to become hia
future mother, should go on his own account into
helpless sorrow. His first address sounds as the
voice of her own awakened conscience: Hagar,
Sarai's maid, whence camest thou 7 Truly, out
of a wilfully sundered relation of duty and piety, and
out of the house of blessing. [The angel brings her
to a sense of her true relation : Sarai's maid, nol

* [The appeal is hasty and passionate — springing from a
mind smarting Tinder the sense of injury — and not calm
and reverential. — ^A. G.]

t [The phraseotogy indicates to us a certain inherent
plurality within the essence of the one only God, of whirt
we have had previous indications, ch i. 1, 26 ; iii. 22. J»
COBUS, p. 277.1

CHAP XVI. 1-16.

417

Abram's wife. — A. G.]— And whither goest thou?
indeed, wilfully into guilt, disgrace, and sorrow. Her
answer'testifies to the oppression which she had ex-
perienced, but also to the voice of her own con-
science.— From the face of my mistress, Sarai.
—Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself.
[Submit, humble thyself ; the same word as that by
which Sarai's harsh-dealing is described. — A. G.]
The command to return to duty comes first, then the
promise. It carries the joyous sound of an innumer-
able progeny — ^the tribes of Ishmael. — Ishmael, be-
cause the Lord hath heard. Misery sighs ; the
sighs ascend to God ; hence misery itself, if not sent
as a curse, is a voiceless prayer to Gnd. But this is
true especially of the misery of Hagar, who had
learned to pray in the house of Abram. " According
to the later writers, it was the custom that the
mother should name the child (ch. iv. 1, 25 ; six.
87 ff. ; xxix. 32 ff ; xxx. 6 ff. ; xxxviii. 3 if.) ; but
the Elohist allows the child to be named only by the
father (ch. v. 3; xvi. 15; xvii. 19; xxi. 3; comp.
cb. XV. 18)." Knobel. This distinction is obviously
far-fetched. It is only on special occasions that the
mother is referred to as giving the name to the
child. In ch. xxxviii. 3. 4, the father and mother
are alternately concerned in giving the name. Abram
himself afterwards appropriates the maternal nam-
ing of Ishmael— And he will be a wild man
(wild-ass man). The limitation of the promise is
connected with the promise itself. Hagar must be
cured of the proud delusion, that she is destined to
become the mother of the believing people of Abram,
and that therefore the hope of Abram depends upon
her personal self-destination ; a supposition which
doubtless had taken firm possession of her mind,
through the presupposition of Sarai herself. The
image of the wild ass is not chosen in a contemptu-
ous sense. " The figure of the 6tlS , onager, in the
desert, free, wild-roving and untamable animal,
poetically described in Job xxxix. 5-8, designates,
in a striking manner, the Bedouin Arabs with their
unrestrained love of freedom, as upon camel (Delul)
or horse, with spear in hand, they ride over the
desertj noisy, hardy, frugal, delighting in the varied
beauties of nature, and despising life in towns and
cities : " and the words, his hand will be against
every man, and every man's hand against
him, describe the ceaseless feuds among themselves
and with their neighbors, in which the Ishmaelites
live." KeiL Compare the characteristics of Esau,
ch. xxvii. 40. For the description of the Arabs in the
books of travels, see Knobel, p. 158.* Knobel
thinks that here also the prophetic image is drawn
after the descendants (the free sons of the desert),
and finds besides that the promises (ch. xvii. 20 ;
xxi. 20,) " have a more favorable sound." If this
were true, it would be only the other side of the
same figure. Hagar must know, above all other
things, that Ishmael could not appropriate to him-
self the inheritance of blessing. This is intimated
in the words, In the presence of.all his brethren.
He will thus have brethren, but shall dwell in the
presence of all, a free man. Keil remarks, that
■"SB'bs signifies primarily, eastward, according to
ch.' XXV. 9, but that there is more in the terms
than a mere geographical notice, to wit, that Ish-
mael shall dwell independently, in the presence of
»11 the descendants of Abram. But history has

* [All the modem travellers speak of these same quali-
*ie8 as still exi/^ting amon^ the Arabs. — ^A. G.]

27

abundantly confirmed this promise. "Until to-day
the Ishmaehtes are in unimpaired, free possessiot
of the great peninsula lying between the Euphrates,
the isthmus of Suez, and the Red Sea, from whence
they have spread over wide districts in North Africa
and Southern Asia" (comp. Delitzsch, p. 377 S.)*
— And she called the name of the Lord ( Jehc
vah). The naming of God by Hagar ("'Sn-bx) ha«
been variously interpreted. Hengatenberg, with
Tuoh, explains the well named from this event " welt
of the living seeing," or " visior," i. e. where a per-
son has seen the face of God, and remains alive.
Delitzsch holds this to be a verbal impossibil-
ity. We add, that the actual i rcsi pposition also,
in this explanation, which appeirs also in Keil,
is incorrect. We must distingu eU between the
patriarchal and legal periods. Of the legal period it
is said : thou canst not see my face, f ■ ul. man shal
see me and live (Ex. xxxiii. 20) ; tho . was true of
Moses, so far as he was the mediatd' of his sinful
people (see Ex. xxxiii. 13). The preju^Moe in Israel,
that no one could see the revelation of GoO iind live
(Judg. xiii. 22), took its origin from these words.
But the sense of the words was, that the manifesta-
tion of God in the midst of the sinful people of
Israel, and even for Moses, so far as he was the
representative of the people, would he fatal. Hence
the regulation requiring darkness in the holy of
holies. But of Moses, viewed in and for himself, it
is said : The Lord spake with him face to face (Ex.
xxxiii. 11). Moses, in and for himself, stood upon
the patriarchal ground, but as the mediator of the
people, he stood upon the ground of the law, and
must first, through the sight of the grace of the
Lord, be prepared for the sight of his glory (Ex.
xxxiii. 19). It is an error to confuse the two econ-
omies, patriarchal and legal. Here the Angel of
the Lord reveals himself, there the law is ordained
through the Angel. Here, those wearied of life, go
in peace to their fathers, there death is the wages
of sin. Here one sees God in the reality of true
vision, there God retires into the darkness of the
Holy of Holies. It is still a question, however,
whether "'Xl Should mean, the one seeing my person
(the participle from tlXl with the sufBx of the first
person) as Hofmann, Baumgarten, and Delitzsch ex-
plain after the Chaldee : " thou art a God of sight,
whose all-seeing eye will not overlook the helpless
and forsaken, even in the most remote corner of the
desert." The meaning of the name Moriah (ch. xxii.
2, 8, 14) appears to be in favor of this reference of
the seeing, to God. But here, also, the seeing/ of Je-
hovah, was perceived from the appearance of Jeho-
vah i. e. from his becoming seen (or visible). Keil
quotes against the interpretation of Hofmann the
expression WxS (la. xxix. 16) and "'JsS (Is. xlvii.
10), as a designation of the one seeing — who sees
me. Thus : "'S"l in pause ^Nl is a substantive, and
designates the sight, the vision. Gesenius, Keil, and

* [Kalisch remarks in substance : *' Every addition to
our knowledge of Arabia and its inhabitants, coi^firms more
strongly the biblical statements. "While they have car-
ried their arms beyond their native tracts, and ascend wi
more than a hundred thrones, they were never subjected to
the Persian Empire. The Assyrian and Babylonian kin^
had only transitory power over small portions of their
tribes. Here the ambition of Alexander the Great and his
successors received an insuperable check, and_a BomHn
expedition, in tho time of Augustus, totally failed. Tb«
Bedouins have remained essentially unaltered sines the
time of the Hebrews and the Greeks,"— A. G.l

418

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OP MOSES.

others : " God has manifested himself to her as a
God of Tision, who can be seen of the actual, most
perfect sight, in his angel." — For she said, Have
I also looked after him. Do I see him still. This
Is not said in the sense of the popular judgment of
the legal period : Am I actually still seeing, i. e. in
the land of the living, after I have seen Jehovah ?
(Kiel, Knobel, etc.) ; but, what I now see in this
wretched desert, is that still to be regarded as see'ng,
after I have seen the Angel of the Lord? (= the
glory of the Lord?)* This is a true, and in the
highest degree, real characterizing of the glorious
seeing in the condition of the vision (" I have seen
thy throne, 0 Lord, from afar"). It is at the same
time, in the highest degree natural, as Hagar express-
es the contrast between the two conditions, that of
the ordinary seeing and that of the highest seeing
(vision). — Wherefore the well was called. Thus
not the well of the life of seeing or life of vision
JHengstenberg, Keil), but where the life = the Ufe-
giver — quickener, manifests himself, who grants the
vision. — Between Eadeah and Bered. "Al-
though Bered is not mentioned elsewhere, Rowland
has still, with great probability, pointed out the well
of Hagar, mentioned again (ch. xxiv. 62; 25, 11),
in the fountain Ain Kadesb, lying in the camping-
ground of the caravan.'! moving from Syria to Sinai
southward from Beersheba, Moyle, or Moilchi, Mu-
weilch (Robinson : Palestine), which the Arabians
call Moilahhi (or Mai-lahhi) Hadjar ; who show there
also a rocky dwelling, Beit-Hadjar (see Rowland, in
Ritter's Erdkunde, xiv. p. 1086), Bered must lie
to the west of this." Keil.

6. Hagar's Return (vers. 15, 16). There are two
points which must still be noticed here. First, that
Abram receives the name Ishmael, with which, of
course, the re-reception of Hagar is expressed ; and
secondly, the age of Abram, which is of importance
in view of the next recurring revelation of Jehovah,
as showing the lapse of time between them.

DOCTRINAL ANB ETHICAL.

See the Exegetical paragraphs.

1. Sarai's character : noble generosity, self-
denial, the female friend still more than the sister
or wife of Abram, but woman-like, and in a fanatical
way anticipating the patience of faith (see 1 Pet.
iii. 6).

2. The moral motive or impulse of seeking the
heir of blessing, made availing to an erroneous and
selfish degree, is here torn away from its connection
with the love impulse or motive, and exalted above
it in importance (see the Introduction, p. 81).

* lAmidst the variety of vergione of these phrflfies, the
general sense is obvious. There Is a recognition of the gra-
r.iouB and qnickening presence of God revealed to her, and
a devout wonder that she should have been favored with
such a vision. If we render the name which Hagar gives
to Jehovab, as the Hebrew seems to demand, "Thou art a
God of vision, or visibility," i. e. who hast revealed thyself,
then the reason for this name is given in the fact, that she
had enjoyed this vision. This would be true, whether the
Burprise she expresses was becanso she survived the sight
(vision), or because she here enjoyed such a vision at all.
This fact also gives the name to the well — not the well of
tho living one seeing me, but of the living— and of course,
lifo-giving, who here revealed himself.— It is true, that the
Heb. ^!<~l takes a different pointing in the 14th verse, from
that which It benra in the phrase rendered, "Thou God
seest me ;" but the sense given above seems, on the whole,
most consistent, and is one which the words will bear. —
A.O.]

Z. This substitution of the maid for the mistresn
must, however, be distinguished from polygamy in
its peculiar sense. Hagar, on the contrary, regards
herself — in the sense of polygamy, as standing with
Sarai, and as the favored, fruitful wife, exalts herself
above her. The shadow of polygamy resting upox
patriarchal monogamy. Isaac's marriage free from
thi-i. It has the purest New Testament form. Rs-
becca appears, indeed, to have exercised a certain
predominant influence, as the wife often does this
in the Christian marriage of modem times.

4. Abram's wrong position between Sarai and
Hagar — the result of his yielding to the fanaticiSK
of Sarai.*

5. The Angel of the Lord (ch. xii). The voice
of the Angel and the voice of the awakened con
science one, and yet distinct.

6. The words of the Angel leading to conver-
sion : 1. Clear description : Hagar, Sarai's maid ;
2. Whence camest thou? 3. Whither wilt thou go?
The beginning of conversion itself: simple, pure,
clear knowledge.

7. Obligation and promises are not to be sepa-
rated in the kingdom of God, for it is throughout a
moral region. But the form changes according to the
circumstances — now the higher (evangelical) prom-
ises and obligations, now the lower (preparatory)
obligations and promises. — Ver. 10. Gerlach; A
blessing in its external form greater even than that
promised to Abr:im, ch. xv. 5. Still, even in the
feebler splendor, we should recognize the great
promised blessing of the father of believers. " Ara-
bia, whose population consists to a large extent of
Ishmaelites, is a living fountain of men whose
streams for thousands of years have poured them-
selves far and wide to the east and west. Before
Mohammed, its tribes were found in all border-Asia,
in the East Indies as early as the middle ages ; and
in all Northern Africa it is the cradle of all the wan-
dering hordes. Along the whole Indian Ocean,
down to Molucca, they had their settlements in the
middle ages ; they spread along the coast to Mozam-
bique ; their caravans crossed India to China, ; and
in Europe they peopled Southern Spain, and ruled it
for seven hundred yeara." Ritter.

8. Hagar's satisfaction with the future of her son,
a sign of her humiliation.! The picture of Ishmael
here the image of a scion of Abram and the maid
(Goethe : " From my father comes the bodily stat-
ure, the bearing of the higher life ; from my mother
the joyful disposition and love of pleasure." Set
Lange: Vermischte Schrifien, i. p. 156.) The re-
lation between ancestors and their descendants. The
law of life which lies at the ground of the contrast
between the son of the maid and the son of the free
(John i. 13). The discord in the offspring of misal-
liances. Ed. Popping : " Travels in Chili, Peru, etc."
p. 139. On the color. Thpse mixed progenies re-
ward the dark mother with contempt, the white
father, with aversion. " A large part of the Bedouini
still lead a robber-life. They justify themselves in
it, upon the ground of the hard treatment of Ishmael,
their father, who, driven out of his paternal inherit-

• [A thousand volumes written against polygamy, would
not lead to a clearer, fuller conviction, of the evils of that
practice, than the story under review, Bush, Notes, p. 360,
-A. G.]

t [This appears, too, in the answer which she maltes tc
the question of the angel : Hagar, Sarai's maid, wheno*,
camest thou? And she said, I flee from the (ace of wn
mistress, Szrai. — A. G.]

CHAP. XVI. 1-16.

4Uf

race, received the desert for his possession, with
the permission to take wherever he could find."
Geilach. " The Arabian's land, according to their
isBumed right, reaches as far as they are free to
go." Ritter.

9. The importance of the Arabs in history.
Ishmael. Ood hears. The strong, world-historical
" wild-ass," springs out of the mercy of God towards
the misery of Hagar. His hand against every man :
this is true of the spiritual Ishmael, Mohammedan-
ism, in its relation to other religions It stands in a
fanatical polemic relation. — The Arabians have never
been overcome by any of the great world-conquer-
ors, while they have made great and world-wide con-

10. Hagar's expression in regard to her vision.
The divine vision a look into the eternal world.
Actual sight in the world of sense is no more sight,
when compared with this.

11. The living God is a God of human vision, be-
cause he is a God of divine revelation.

12. The well of the living God, in which he
makes men to see (the true seeing) a symbol of the
gospel of the kingdom of God, of the Church in the
desert of the world.

1.3. Hagar's return laid the foundation for the
world-historical dignity and honor of her son Ish-
mael.— Ishmael, also, must return to Abram's house.

HOMTLKTICAL AND PEACTICAL.

Vers. 1-4. The fanatical anticipation of men,
grasping after their destination, and its results, a
judgment in favor of the more patient waiting and
expectation : 1. In the history of Sarai ; 2. the his-
tory of Eve ; 3 in the history of the Church (the
mediaeval anticipation of the Idngdom of glory). —
The perils of the husband in his relations to the wife :
1. Her fanaticism (Sarai) ; 2. her sensuality (Hagar).
— Sarai's indignation : the reaction from fanatical,
over-strained zeal. — Ver. 4. Hagar's pride : the ex-
altation which we experience, is easily destroyed if
we are so disposed, through self-glorying. — The
wrong position of Abram the result of his conduct
not originating in himself. — Ver. 7. The Angel of
the Lord ; or the most wretched in the kingdom of
God, enjoy tlie highest revelations of his mercy. —
The Angel of the Lord as an angel of conversion :
1. His address ; 2. his question, Whence ; 3. his
question. Whither; 4. his instruction; 5. his prom-
ises; 6. the extent and order in his promises. — Ha-
gar's experience, that sight, is no more sight after the
vision. — Man beholds by faith, because God looks
upon him in grace. — At the wells in the desert. —
Hagar's return. — The perpetuation of the experience
of Hagar, in the name Ishmael — Abram eighty-six
years old. — Age no security against folly. — God
turns the follies of believers to their good.— Ish-
mael's importance in history (field for missions in
the East).

Starke : Ver. 2. That was an abuse of the rul-
ing power over her maid, and of the power of mar-
liage which Sarai had over the body of her husband
(1 Cor. vii, 8). Sarai, as well as Abram, was con-
cerned in the sin, hence the defenders of concubin-
age and polygamy have no ground upon which to
stand here. — (Foreign, and especially unbelieving
Bijrvants of strange religions, may often work great
Injury to a master or a government). — We must not
Jo evil that good may come (Rom iii. 8). — Although

a man may counsel with his wife, and follow hei
counsel, it must not be done to go into evil. —
Lanqk: See, fellow-christian, what one's own will
and choice wiU do for a man! It enjoins often n
greater denial than God requires of him. — Cramer ;
Ver. 4. It is a common fault, that the morals of
many are changed by their elevation to honor, and
that prosperity brings pride (Prov. xxx. 21-23). —
Kindness is quite generally rewarded by ingratitude,
Ver. 7. A proof that the Angel of the Lord was th(
Son of God. — Ver. 5. It is a common courf^e witt
men (o roll their guilt upon others. — Lange ; Noth
ing is more injurious to the quiet comfort of mar
riage, and of the whole household, and to the training
of children, than polygamy : it is impossible, there-
fore, that it should be in accordance with the law
of nature. — The Same : Ishmael is the first of those,
to whom God has assigned their name before their
birth. After him there are five others : Isaac (ch.
xvii. 19), Solomon (1 Chron. xxii. 9), Josiah (1 Kings
xiii. 2), Cyrus (Is. xlv. 1)? and John (Luke i. 13).
Lastly, Jesus, the Saviour, is the seventh (Matt. i. 21).
— LnxHKE : The positions in life are very unlike.
Therefore we should remember and hold to this con-
solation, which the Angel shows : lo, thou art a ser
vant, a maid, poor, etc. Let this be for thy com
fort, that thy God looks alike upon masters and
servants, rich and poor, sinners and saints. — Cra-
mer : It is according to the ordinance of God, that
one should be lord, another servant, etc. (1 Cor. viL
10). — £ibl. Tub. : Thou hast sinned, humble thyself,
take cheerfully the chastisement; nothing is mors
wholesome than that which will bow our proud spir-
its into humility (2 Sam. xxiv. 10, 14). — Ver. 14.
He who not only holds Hagar in lifo, but is also the
life itself (John xi. 25; Deut. xxxii. 46), the living
God (Deut. V. 26 ; Ps. xliL 3, etrj.).— In this God we
shall find the true living springs of all good and
mercy (Ps, xxxvi. 9; Jer. ii. 13 ; xvii. 13; Is. Iv. 1).
Lisco: Sinful helping of ourselves. — Man must
not only leave the end to God, but also the means
(Rom. xi. 36).— Ver. 7. The (not one) Angel of the
Lord, the uncreated Angel of the Covenant (Mai.
iii. 1). — Ver. 13. These words designate the reality
of that revelation made to her and for her good. —
The breach of the divine ordinance soon avenges
itself, for the unnatural relation in which the slave
had been placed by her mistress herself, prepared
for the mistress the most vexatious grief. — Gerlacb :
The Angel of the Lord, is the divine revealer of God,
the leader of the patriarchs (ch. xlviii. 16) ; the one
who calls and animates Moses (Ex. iii. 2) ; the leader
of the people through the wilderness (Ex. xiv. 19,
etc. ; Is. Ixiii. 9) ; the champion of the Israelites in
Canaan (Josh. v. 13); and still farther, the leader
and ruler of the covenant people (Judg. ii. 1 ff. ;
vi. 11 ; xiii. 13) ; then he who in Isaiah is the Angel
of Ins face or presence (ch. Ixiii. 9) ; in Daniel,
Michael (and by whom Gabriel was sent to the
prophet, Dan. x. 13?) in Zechariah, measures the
new building of Jerusalem (ch. ii. 1) ; and in Mala-
chi is the Angel of the Covenant (ch. iii. 1).— Cal-
WEE, Handbuch: Mohammed is a son of Ishmael,
and Abram is thus, according to the flesh, the ances-
tor of Islam. — The Arabian, even now, grounds upon
this passage, in his pride and delusion, a claim that
the rights of primogeniture belong to Ishmael in-
stead of Isaac, and asserts his own right to laLids and
goods, so far as it pleases him.— Vengeance foi
blood rules in him, and in many cases, also, the worl"
of the robber is seen all along his path. — Ver. 12

420

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

In the presence of all his brethren : the Israelites,
Midianites, Edomites, and the Moabites and Ammon-
ites, who were descended from Lot. — Schroder :
Ver. 1. The Angel of the Lord finds Hagar ; that
presupposes he had sought her (Deut. xxxii. 10). —
God meets thee in thy desert ; he comes to thee in
thy conscience ; he kindles in thee the sparks into a
flame, and comes to thy help in his grace (Berleb.
Bihel). — Islamism occupies incontestably the place
of a middle link between revelation and heathenism ;
as even the Koran calls the IshmaeUtes, an interme-
diate nation (Ziegleh : it names it thus in another
sense, however). — God tries us in such changes:
comfort follows sorrow ; hope succeeds to despond-
ency ; and life to death. (Portraiture of the Ara-
bian, of the wild-ass. The Arabian = son of the
morning — Judg. vi. 3, 33; viii. 10). — Ver. 16. Mo-
ses records the age of Abram, that we might know
how long he had to wait for Isaac the promised son,
whom Sarai should bear (Calvin). — Passavant : Im-
patience.— Vers. 1-6. Ah, should God grant us our
own way, permit us to order our present, to arrange
our future, to adorn our houses, without consulting

with him, it would be no good and joyful thing tc
us. Whoever has, as to his way, separated himself
from him, and sought afar from him, without hi«
wisdom, happiness, salvation, life, acts unwise]}
wickedly. His light is obscure, his step uncertain
the ground trembles beneath him, and his lighti
(lamps) are .soon extinguished in darkness. — Tht
woman has learned, in Abram's house, to recognize
the God over all gods. — Sohwenke : Ver. 1. She be-
lieves that her departure from the house of Abram
would determine him to hasten after her and bring
her back, etc. She sits down by the fountain
vainly waiting, until Abram should come to lead hei
home. Her pi ide is broken. — The call of the Angel.
— That was the call of the good shepherd, whc
would bring back the wandering sheep. Thus evec
now the two peoples who received the promise, the
descendants of Ishmael and Israel, stand as the
monument of the divine veracity, as peculiar anc
even singular instances ; guarding with the greateaf
care their nationality, practising their old customs
and usages, and preserving, in their excluslveness,
their spiritual strength (destination ?)

SIXTH SECTION.

Abram and the repeated Promise of God. The name Abram, changed to Abraham. Tlie per tonal

Covenant of Faith^ now a Covenant iTiStitution fcyr him., his Household and his Seed.

Circumcision. Tiie name Sarai changed to Sarah. The n&u Names.

The promised one not Ishmael, but Isaac.

Ch. XVII. 1-27.

And when [after the lapse of a long period] Abram was ninety years old and nine, the
Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him. I am the Almighty God [El Shaddai] ;

2 walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and

3 thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face : and God

4 [Eiohlm] talked with him, saying, As for me [in the covenant promise], behold, my covenant

5 is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many [multitude of] nations. Neither shall thy

name any more be called Abram

multitude of nations ; of a people of peoples

high father], but thy name shall be Abraham [father of a
; for a father of many nations [a people of peoples] have

6 I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of

7 thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me
and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to

8 be a God [Elohim] unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee,
and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger [thou hast settled], all the

9 land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession ; and I will be their God [Eiohlm].

9 And God [God Elohim, as Elohim] said tO Abraham [first after hie new name], ThoU shall

10 keep ray covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations. This
is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee ; Every

11 man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your

12 foreskin ; and it shall be a token [rign] of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he
that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your gene-
rations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which ia

13 not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money,
must needs be circumcised [bia; blan] : and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an

14 everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child, whose flesh of his foreskin

CHAP XVII. 1-27.

421

is not circumcised [who win not suffer himself to be oircnmciBed, or avoids droumblsionl, that fjame]

80ul shall be cut ofi from his people ; he hath broken my covenant.
l5 And God [EloMm] said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not oaL
le her name Sarai [heroine], but Sarah [princess] shall her name he. And I will bless her

and give thee a sou also of her : yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of

17 nations ; kings of people [o-'as] shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face
and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is one hundred

18 years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said untc

19 God, 0 that Ishmael might [even yet] live before thee. And God said, Sarah thy wife
shall bear thee a son indeed ; and thou shalt call his name Isaac [he or one will laugh] : and
I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed

20 after him. And as for Ishmael [God hears], I have heard thee : Behold, I havn blessed
him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly [evermore] ; twelve

21 princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I
establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear uuto thee at this set time in the next year.

22 And he left off talking with him, and God [Eiohim] went up from Abraham.

23 And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all
that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house;
and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as God [Eiohim] had said

24 unto him. And Abraham was ninety years old and nine, when he was circumcised in

25 the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his sou was thirteen years old, when he was

26 circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised

27 and Ishmael his son ; And all the men of his house, born in his house, and bought with
money of the stranger, were circumcised with him.

GENEBAl. EEMAEKS.

1. This Section is described by the pseudo-
critical exegesis as Elohistio (Knobel, p. 161). But
here, also, the internal reasons for the use of tlie name
Elobim, are obvious. The sealing or ratifying of the
covenant of God with Abram, whose foundation (not
Bomething holding a mere connection with it, its side-
piece) we recognize in ch. xv., embraces not only the
immediate bearer and mediator of the covenant, in
the narrower sense, Isaac and his seed, but all those
who, in a wider sense, are sharers in the covenant,
Ishmael and his descendants. If we do not distin-
guish these two conceptions of the covenant in this
chapter, we shall not thread our way through the
apparent confusion, to a correct understanding of it.
It is entirely incorrect when Keil (p. 157), says,
Ishmael was excluded from the salvation of the cov-
enant, the grace of the covenant was promised only
to Isaac. Upou this supposition what does the cir-
cumcision of Ishmael mean? We must distinguish
the relations of the different parties to the covenant
as stated above ; and since here the covenant em-
braces all who share in it, God appears and acts as
Eiohim, although under a new title : El Shaddai.

2. That thirteen years should have rolled away
between the birth of Ishmael and this new revela-
tion, appears to us very important. Abram had an-
ticipated the purpose of God in his connection with
Hagar, and must now, therefore, pass through a long
time of discipline, of expectation, and of temptation.
['' Tl.it which could not be reached by nature was
to be Becured by promise, in the miraculous seed,
thus pointing forward to Jesus of Nazareth. There-
fore the time has come when, after having first al-
lowed the unbelieving spirit to make proof of human
expedients (1 Cor. i. 20), God will show Himself
again, and place the fulfihnent on the basis of the
promise alone (Gal. iii. 18). The covenant, there-

fore, must now be solemnly and formally sealed."
Jacobus: "Notes," vol. i. p. 281. — A. G.] Thus,
indeed, Moses must wait forty long years after hia
premature attempt to reach his destination The di
vine decree over Adam and Eve mirrors itself in these
facts. They anticipated their destination, to be as
God ; and therefore a waiting time of thousands of
years was decreed for the people, until the Messiah,
the image of God, should appear.

3. ITie new Names. The ground upon which the
new names are given to Abram and Sarai, lies in the
fact, that God reveals himself to Abram under anew
name, Ml Shaddai. For he is El Shaddai as the
omnipotent God, i. e., God of power to do wonders,
to create new things in the old world, and the very
centre of his wondrous deeds is the new birth, in
which man receives a new name, and of which cir-
cumcision is here set apart to be the typical sign.
The titles. El Shaddai, Abraham, Sarah, and circum-
cision, are connected by the closest inward tie ; they
lie upon one line of thought. The name El Shaddai
may have been known to Abram before, as the name
Jehovah, and even circumcision ; but now it became
to him the specific name of the Covenant God, for
the patriarchal history, as circumcision was now
consecrated to be the sacred sign of the covenant,
and as later in the history, Jehovah was made the
specific designation of the God of covenant truth,
(Ex. vi. 3). The names Eiohim and El Eljon (Gen.
xiv. 18) have not lost their meaning and value un-
der the new economy of El Shaddai, and thus also
the name El Shaddai preserves its meaning and value
under the economy of Jehovah, which is modified
in the prophetic times into the economy of Jehovah-
Zebaoth. The wonders of El Shaddai run through
the whole kingdom of grace ; but the great wondti
lying at the foundation of all that follow, is the birtl
of Isaac, in the nearf'uiure from his dead parent!
(dead in this respect, Rom. iv. 18-21 : Hcb. xi. 11-

422

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

19), ill coanection with the marvellous faith corre-
jponding with it, and with circumcision the seal of
the covenant, the type of the great, eternal, central
miracle of the kingdom of God, the new birth of
Christ from heaven, and that new birth of Christians
»hich is grounded and confirmed in his.

EXEGETICAL AND CKITICAl.

A. The Covenant of God with Abram in the
jpider sense. The sharers in the Covenant (vers.
1-14).

1. The Covenant in the wider sense on the part
of God (vers 1-8). When Abram was ninety
years old and nine. [Lit., a son of ninety and
nine years. — A. G.] The long interval between this
age and that given ch. xvi. IB, must be closely ob-
served. It marks a great delay of the promise, a
tarrying on the part of God, but which indeed cor-
responds with the over-haste of Abram (see 2 Pet.
iii. 9). — I am God the Almighty [El Shaddai ; ch.
xxviii. 3; xxxv, 11; xliii. 14; xlviii. 3; Exod.
vi. 3]. "^^la formed from TlUi, to be strong, to
practise violence, with the nominal termination ^— •
as isn festive, "'lU'^li^ the old, "'5^0 thorn-covered,
and other nouus are formed." Keil. The idea of
omnipotence is inwoven through the whole Scripture,
with the idea of his miraculous works, the creation
of the new, or the now creation (Ps. xxxiii. 9 ; Kom.
iv. 17 ; Numb. xvi. 30 ; Is. xlii. 9 ; Ixii. 6 ; Jer. xxxi.
22 ; the new covenant j the new man ; the new
child; Rev. xxi. 1, 5). Delitzsch has raised this
idea to a supposition of violence done to nature,
which corresponds well with the idea of a miracle
held in the seventeenth century (" that which is con-
trary to nature.") " Elohim is the God who makes
nature, causes it to be, and preserves it — causes it to
endure ; El Shaddai the God who constrains nature,
so that it does what is against itself, and subdves it,
so that it bows and yields itself to the service of grace.
[" It designates Jehovah the Covenant God, as one
who has the power to fulfil his promises although
the order of nature may appear against them. It is
a pledge to Abram that notwithstanding 'his own
body already dead, and the deadness of Sarah's
womb' (Rom. iv. 19), the numerous seed promised
could and would be given to him." Keil — A. G.]
Jehovah is the God wIjo, in the midst of nature, causes
grace to penetrate and break through the forces of
nature, and at last, in the place of nature, establishes
an entirely new creation of grace" (p. 381). A sad
dualistic conception of nature however lies at the
bottom of this supposition. The creature is against
its will subject to vanity (Rom. viii. 20) ; on the con-
trary, it sighs after the liberty of the children of
God. We can only speak of an element of opposi-
tion to nature, in the miracle, so far as the lower
nature is penetrated by the higher, and must of
course give way to it. The play upon the letter n
by DeUtzsch (p. 882), appears to us cabalistic, and
the more so, since the names Abraham and Sarah,
into which the fl enters, are not grounded in the
Qame Jehovah with its n , but upon El Shaddai. —
Walk before me (see ch. v. 22 ; xxiv. 40 ; xlviii.
15 ; Is. xxxviii. 3). The great elements of Abram's
faith must be permanent ; he must walk continually
before the eye of the Almighty, in the consciousness
»f his presence who is mighty to work miracles. He

was still wanting in the development of this wondui
working faith, and therefore, also, was not blameless
— And be thou perfect *—/»-«c from blame oi
guiltless. This is not, indeed, a new command, but
the result of the command: walk before me. He
will be guiltless, free from blame, if he remains in
the presence of the God who works wonders ; that,
indeed, will make him guiltless, free, purify his con-
sciousness.— And I vnH, make my covenant

The ni"i2 irj must be vmderstood here after the
analogy of ch. ix. 12, where the previously formed
covenant (ch. vi. 18) with Noah, was presupposed,
as here the covenant with Abram (ch. xv.) is pre-
supposed. " It does not signify to conchide a cove-
nant (= an^S), but to give, settle, arrange," etc.
Keil. ["At the former period (Gen. xv.) God form-
ally entered into covenant with Abram, here he takes
the first step in the fulfilment of the covenant, seals
it with a token and a perpetual ordinance." Mdk-
PHT, p. 307. — A. G.] It thus denotes the establish-
ing of the covenant, or the giving it a traditional
force for his seed, the arrangement of a permanent
order or institution of the covenant (eomp. Numb.
XXV. 12). — And Abram fell on his face. An ex-
pression of deep humiUty and trustful confidence,
and indeed also of the joy which overpowered him ; \
hence he repeats (ver. 17) the same act in the most
emphatic way. — And God talked with him. —
We must notice here the expression Elohim, and the
"lan . God, as the God of the universe, begins a
conversation with Abram, when he should become
Abraham the father of a multitude of nations. — Aa
for me. I for my part. The "'jS evidently empha-
sizes the opposition of the two parties in the cove-
nant (what concerns me or my part). It answers to
MFiKI of ver. 9. Just as in the ninth chapter the
"i33ii 15x5 of ver. 9 stands in opposition to the
T)S< T|N1 of vei-ses 4 and 5 (comp. Exod. xix. ; ch.
xxiv). — And thou shalt be a father. The 1 an-
nounces the subject of the covenant. For it is not
simply the individual covenant of faith of Abram,
but the entire general covenant of blessing in him
which is here spoken of. Knobel thinks that the
name Abraham was first formed after Abraham had
become the father of many nations. This is the
well-known denial of the prophetic element. His
own quotation, however, refutes him. "The He-
brews connected the giving of names with circumci-
sion (eh. xxi. 3 if.; Luke i. 59; ii. 21). The Per-
sians likewise, according toTAVERNIEB: 'Travels,' i.
p. 270, and Chardin : ' Voyages,' x. p. 76." The
connection of the giving of names, and circumcision,
effects a mutual explanation. The name announces
a definite human character, the new name a new
character (the new name. Rev. ii. 17, the perfect
stamp of individual character), circumcision, a new
or renewed, and more noble nature.:]: "Moreover,"
Knobel remarks: " we hear only in the Eloliist the
promise of a multitude of nations (vers. 16, 20; ch.
xxxv. 1 1 ; xlviii. 4) ; the Jehovist uses only the sin -

* ["Not sincere merely, unless in the primitive sensfl
of duty, but complete, upnght, holy ; not only in walk, but
in heart." Muepht, p. 308.— A. G.]

t [Calvin and Keil recognize in this prostration of thi
patriarch his appropiiation and reception of the promise,
and his recognition of the command. — A. G.]

X ["For the eigniiicance of names, and the change 0/
names, see HENosTENBBan's Beilrdge ii. p. 270 ff* ; " Kubtx
—A. G.l

CHAP. XVII. 1-27.

4ao

gular (ch. xii. 2; xvm. 18; xlvi. 3). So likewise
the promise of kings and princes among the sucoes
Bors of the patriarch is peculiar to the Elohist (ver
20; eh. xxt. 16; xxxv. 11 ; xxxvi. 31)." This dis-
dhction corresponds entirely with the fact, that Je-
hovah, out of the (Goim) nations, which he rules as
Klohim, forms one peculiar people (DS) of faith, as
he at first changed the natural Israel to a spiritual.
As to this promise of blessing from God, the name
Abraham, father of a ma^, Tioise, tumult of nations,
embraces the whole promise in its widest circum-
ference. 1. People and kings [^' Kings. David,
Solomon, Christ, whose royal genealogy is given
Matt. i. 1-16." Wordsworth, p. 79. Especially in
Christ and the spiritual seed of Abraham, who are
kings and priests unto God, Rev. i. 6. Jaoobus :
" Notes." — A. G.] ; even rich kings should come
from him ; 2. the covenant of blessing from God
with him and his seed should be eternal; 3. the
whole land of Canaan should belong to his seed for
an eternal possession. It should be observed here,
that Canaan has fallen in the very same measure to
the Arabians as descendants of Abraham (Gal. iv.
25), in which it has actually been rent from the peo-
ple of Israel for indefinitely long periods of time ; it
has thus remained permanently in the possession of
the dest'endants of Abraham in the wider sense;
4. Jehovah wiU remain (be) the God (Elohim) of the
seed of Abraham. This promise, also, notwithstand-
ing all the transient obscurations, has been fulfilled in
the patriarchal monotheism in Palestine, and Arabia.
The stipulated, imprescriptible, peculiar right of the
peeple of Israel to Canaan is included in this general
promise. [Literally to the lineal seed and the earthly
Canaan, but cAe everlasting covenant and the everlast-
ing possession, show that the covenant and the prom-
ised inheritance included the spiritual seed, and the
heavenly Canaan. — A. G.] " In this new name, God
gave to him a real pledge for the establishment of
his covenant, since the name which God gave to him,
could not be, or remain an empty sound, but as
the expression of nature or essence must win real-
ity." KeiL " A numerous posterity was regarded
by the Hebrews as a divme blessing, which was the
portion of those well-pleasing to him (ch. xxiv. 60 ;
xlviii. 16, 19 ; Ps. cxxviii ; Ecc. vi. 3)." Knobel.

2. The covenant of Abraham (on his part) with
God, in the wider sense (vers. 9-14). And God
(Elohim) said unto Abraham. The covenant of
circumcision in the wider sense is a covenant of
Elohim, In his new destination Abraham was called
to introduce this sign of the covenant for himself and
his seed. He came under obligation at the first for
himself with his seed to keep the covenant with Elo-
him. But circumcision is the characteristic sign and
seal of this covenant, as a statute and a type, i. e., with
the included idea of its spiritual import. In this sense
it is said : This is my covenant, . . . shall be
circumcised. Upon circumcision compare Winer :
Real -WiirterbiKh, and similar works. 1. The act
of circumcision : the removal of the foreskin; 2. the
destination: the sign of the covenant; 3. the time:
sight days after the birth (see ch. xxi. 4 ; Lev.
liL 3 ; Luke 1. 69 ; ii. 21 ; John vii. 22 ; Phil. iii. 5 ;
Joseph.: "Antiq." i. 12, 2); 4. the extent of its
efficacy : not only the children, but slaves born in
the house [and those also bought with his money —
A G.] were to be circumcised ; 6. its inviolability :
those who were not circumcised should be cut offl
uprooted. — Circumcision, as a sign of the patriarchal
eoreuant, appears to presuppose its earlier existence

as a religious rite. According to Herodotus, circum
cision was practised among the Colchi, Egyptian.
[It has been urged, however, against the idea thai
the Egyptians practised this rite generally; 1. That
Abraham circumcised all his male servants — among
them probably those who were presented by Pha-
raoh ; 2. that Pharaoh's daughter knew that Mosea
was a Hebrew child — (Heb., and behold a male-child) ;
— 3. Ezek. xxxi. 18; see Bosh: "Notes," p. "73. —
A. G.] and Ethiopians ; and the Syrians of Pa!csdn«
and PuoBnicians might have learned it froia the
Egyptians. In Ewald's view, its original heme was
the valley of the Nile ; and it still exists as a national
usage among the Ethiopian Christians, and among
the Congos. With regard to the circumcision of the
Egyytians, we remark, that while Herodotus and
Philo regard it as a general custom, Origeu ascribes it
simply to the priests. [Wordswokth, p. 81, urges
in favor of this view, that circumcision was not prac-
tised by the other sons of Ham ; that Ishmael, the
son of an Egyptian mother, was not_ circumcised
until after this institution of the covenant; and that
Joshua is said to have rolled away the reproach of
Egypt when he circumcised the Israelites at Gilgal. —
A. G.] According to Ezek. xxxi. 18; xxxii. 19, the
Egyptians seem to be included among the uncircum-
cised. We need not, however, insist too strictly
upon a prophetic word, which may possibly have a
higher symbolical sense (comp. Rom. ii. 28). And
Origen informs us of a later time, in which the
Coptic element was mingled with Hellenic elements
in Egypt. Some have viewed Egyptian circumcision
as an idolizing of the generative power. The bloody
act points rather to purification. Delitzsoli remiirks :
that circumcision, as some think, has been found in
America, upon the South Sea Islands, e. g. in a mode
resembling that in use among the Jews, in theFeegeo
Islands, and among the southeastern Negro tribes,
e. g. among the Damaras in tropical South Africa.
And here we cannot assume any connection with
the Abrahamic, nor with the Egyptian circumcision.
But the customs prevailing in the valley of the Nile,
might spread themselves widely over Africa, as those
of the Phoenicians over the ocean. The Epistle of
Barnabas, in a passage which has not been suffi-
ciently regarded (ch. ix.), brings into prominence
the idea, that we must distinguish circumcision, as
an original custom of different nations, from that
which receives the patriarchal and theocratic sanc-
tion. " The heathen circumcision," as Delitzsch re-
marks, " leaving out of view the Ishmaefites, Arabians,
and the tribes connected with them both by blood
and in history, is thus very analogous to the heathen
sacrifice. As the sacrifice sprang from the feehng
of the necessity for an atonement, so circumcision
from the consciou.sness of the impurity of human na-
ture." But that the spread of circumcision among
the ancient nations is analogous to the general prev-
alence of sacrifice, has not yet been proved. It re-
mains to be investigated, whether the national origin
of circumcision stands rather in some relation toi
religious sacrifice ; whether it may possibly form an
opposition to the custom of human sacrifices (for it is"
just as absurd to view it with some, as a remnant of
human sacrifice, as to regard it with others, as a
modification of eunuchism) ; whether it may have
prevailed from sanitary motives, the obligation of
loodily purity and soundness, (see Winer, i. p. 159);
or whether it has not rather from the first had iti
ground and source in the idea of the consecration
of the generative nature, and of the propagation o/

124

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OP MOSES.

the race (Delitzsch, p. 385). At all events, circum-
cision did not come to Abraham as a custom of his
ancestors; he was circumcised when ninety-nine
years of age. This bears with decisive weight against
the generalizing of the custom by Delitzsuh. As to
the destination of circumcision to be the sign of the
covenant, its patriarchal origin is beyond question.
[As the rainbow was chosen to be the sign of the
covenant with Noah, so the prior existence of cir-
eomcision does not render it less fit to be the sign
of the covenant with Abraham, nor less significant.
" It was the fit symbol of that removal of the old
man, and that renewal of nature which qualified
Abraham to be the parent of the holy seed." Mur-
phy. See also Kurtz and Baumgarten. — AG.] (See
John vii. 22). Still it was placed upon a new legal
basis by Moses (Exod. iv. 24, 25; Lev. xii. 3), and
was brought into regular observance by Joshua
(Josh. V. 2). That it should be the symbol of the
new birth, i. e., of the sanctificatiou of human nature,
from its very .source and origin, is shown both by the
passages which speak of the circumcision of the
heart (Lev. xxvi. 41 ; Deut. x. 16; xxx. 6 ; Jer. iv.
4 ; ix. 26 ; Ezek. xliv. T), and from the manner of
speech in use among the Israelites, in which Jewish
proselytes were described as new-bom. As to the
terminus of eight days, which was so strictly ob-
served, that even the law of the Sabbath was held
subordinate to the law of Circumcision, Delitzsch ex-
plains the prescription of this period, from the fact
that the child was not separated and purified from
the sustenance of its embryonic state until this
period. It is better to regard the week of birth as a
terminus for the close of the birth throes and labor,
and at the same time, as the term fixed for the out-
ward purification. Keil explains : " because this day
was viewed as the beginning of the independent life,
as we may infer from the analogous prescription as
to the age of the young animals used in sacrifice
(Lev. xxii. 27 ; Exod. xxii. 30).' He remarks also,
" that the Arabians circumcise at a late period,
usually between five and thirteen years, often during
the thirteenth year, becau.^e Ishmael was thirteen
years old when he was circumcised." For more de-
tailed observations, see Knobel, p. 164, — The
threatening that the uncircumcised should be cut
off — uprooted, can refer only to the conscious, wick-
ed contempt of the command, as the same threaten-
ing must be understood in regard to other offences.
Clericus and others explain the " cutting-off " as a
removal from the people and its privileges. But the
theocratic death-penalty (which was indeed the form
of a final, complete excommunication from the peo-
ple) can alone be understood here, as it naturally
could alone meet the case of the despiser of the
covenant-sign, and of the covenant itself. [But it is
the covenant between .lehovah and the seed of Abra-
ham which is here before us, and exclusion from the
people of the covenant would be, as Baumgarten
urges, exclusion from all blessings and salvation.
That this was connected with the death-penalty in
other passages (as Exod. xxxi. 14), would eeem to
show that the phrase itself did not necessarily imply
such a penalty. — A. G.] (see Knobel, p. 163). The
reference by Delitzsch, to an immediate divine judg-

* 1.4 s<m of Ight days. It was after a week's round,
wiien a new period was be^n, and thus it was indicative
ttf starting anew upon a D'_'w life. The seventh day was a
Kacred d:iy. And this period of seven days was a sacred
period, so that with tte eij^'hth day a new cycle was com-
Dienced Jacobus, p 287. — ^A. G.]

ment, or to the premature, childless death of the an
circumcised, who had reached full age, implies an
extraordinary introduction or enlargement of the
theocratic regulation, which belongs to the Israel-
itish tradition. Keil strives to unite both views
(p. 156). But here also we must distinguish the
legal and typical elements. In the typical sense,
the " cutting-ofif " denotes the endless destruction,
the total ruin of the man who despises the covenant
of God. [And it is worthy of observation, that to
despise and reject the sign, was to despise and reject
the covenant itself He who neglects or refuses the
sign, hath broken my covenant. — A. G.]

B. — 3. The establishment of the covenant in a nar-
rower sense with Isaac — the more direct bearer and
mediator of the covenant (ver. 15-22). And God
(Elohim) gaid. God establishes the covenant in
this form also as Elohim, not as Jehovah, since not
only Israel, but Bdom, should spring from Isaac, the
sou of Sarah. — Sarah thy wife. " As the ances-
tress of nations and kings, she should be called rriia
(princess), not "'^iu (heroine)." Knobel. Delitzsch
explains ^"IC the princely, but this does not distin-
guish sufficiently the old name from the new. (Je-
rome distinguishes : my princess, my dominion and
princess generally). Even in this case the name de-
clares the subject of the following promise, and its
security. Now it was definitely promised to Abra^
ham, that he should have a sou from Sarah ; and it
was also intimated that the descendants from this
son should branch themselves into (Goim) nations. —
Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed.
The explanation of Knobel is absurd : " Abraham
doubted the possibility, since he was an hundred,
and Sarah was ninety years old, and laughs, there-
fore, but falls upon his face, lest God should notice
it" ( ! ). " In the other writer, the patriarch, as the
man of God, believes (ch. xv. 6), and only the less
eminent wife, doubts and laughs (ch. xviii. 12). But
here as there, the laughter, in the name of the prom-
ised seed ( pna^), passes into the history of Abra-
ham." That the interpreter, from this standpoint,
knows nothing of a laugh of astonishment, in connec-
tion with full faith, indeed, in the immediate experi-
ence of the events (Ps. cxxvi. 1, 2), is evident.
Delitzsch : The promise was so very great, that he
sank reverently upon the ground, and so very para-
doxical, that he involuntarily laughs (see also the
quotation from Calvin, by Keil, p. 161). ["The
laughter of Abraham was the exultation of joy, not
the smile of unbelief." Aug. : de Civ. Dei. xvi. 26.
Wordsworth, who also urges that this interpretation
is sustained by our Lord, John viii. 66. — A. 6.]
We may confidently infer from the different judg-
ments of Abraham's laughter here, and that of Sa-
rah, which is recorded afterward, that there waa an
important distinction in the states of mind from
which they sprang. The characteristic feature in the
narration here is, that Abraham fell upon his face,
as at first, after the promise, ver. 2. — Shall there
be bom unto him that is an hundred years
old?* The apparent impossibility is twofold (see

* ["These questions are not addressed to God; thev
merely agitate the breast of ttie asttmished patriarch.*'
MuBPHY, p. 311. " Can this ho ? This that was only too
good to be thought of, and too blessed a consnmmaiion of all
his ancient hopes, to he now, at this late day, so dlstinctlj
assured to him by God himself." JicoBoa, p. 289.— A. G.l

CHAP. Xm 1-2T.

425

the quotations, Rom. Iv. and Heb. xi.). — O that
Ishmael might (still) live. The sense of the
prayer is ambiguous. " Abraham," says Knobel,
" turns aside, and only wishes that the son he al-
ready had should live and prosper." Calvin, and
others, also interpret the prayer in the sense, that
Abraham would be contented if Ishmael should pros-
per. Keil, on the contrary, regards the prayer of
Abraham as arising out of his anxiety, lest Ishmael
ihould not have any part in the blessings of the cov-
enant. The fact, that the answer of God contains
no denial of the prayer of Abraham, is in favor of
this interpretation. But in the prayer, Abraham ex-
presses hLs anticipation of an indefinite neglect of
Ishmael, which was painful to his parental heart.
He asks for him, therefore, a life from God in the
highest sense Since Abraham, according to ch. xvl.,
actually fell into the erroneous expectation, that the
promise of God to him would be fulfilled in Ishmael,
"and since there is no record of any divine correction
of his error in the mean time, the new revelation
from God could only so be introduced when he be-
gins to be in trouble about Ifhmael (see ch. xxi. 9),
and to doubt, as to the truth and certainty of his
self-formed expectation, both because Jehovah had
left him for a long time without a new revelation,
and because Hagar had communicated to him the
revelation granted to her, as to the character of her
eon — a prophecy which did not agree with the heir
of the promise. In this state of uncertamty and
doubt [Calvin, however, holds, that Abraham was,
all this time, contented with the supposition, that
Ishmael was the child of promise, and that the new
revelation startled him from his error. — A. G.] the
promise of the heir of blessing was renewed to him.
But then he receives the new revelation from God,
that Sarah shall bear to him the true heir. It puts
an end to the old, sad doubt, in regard to Ishmael,
since it starts a new and transient doubt in reference
to the promise of Isaac ; therefore there is mingling
with his faith, not yet perfect on account of the joy
(Lulie xxiv. 41), a beautiful paternal feeling for the
siill beloved Ishmael, and his future of faith. Hence
the intercession for Ishmael, the characteristic feat-
ure of which is, a question of love, whether the son
of the long-delayed hope, should also hold his share
of the blessing, bas may, indeed, include so far the
granting of the prayer of Abram ; it may mean, still,
nevertheless. [Better, as Jacobus, indeed, as ad-
dressed to the transient doubt as to Isaac, which
may lie in Abraham's prayer for Ishmael. Indeed,
on the contrary, Sarah is bearing thee a son. — A. G.]
But the nineteenth verse distinctly declares that the
son of Sarah should be the chief heir, the peculiar
bearer of the covenant. Closer and more definite
distinctions are drawn in ver. 20. — Twelve princes
shall he beget (see ch. xxv. 12-16). — At this set
time. The promise is now clearly revealed even in
regard to time ; and with this the revelation of God
for this time ceases.

4. The compliance with the prescribed rite of
circumcision (vers. 28-27). The prompt obedience
of Abraham [This prompt obedience of Abraham re-
reals his faith in the promise, and that this laughter
was joyful and not unbelieving. — A. G.] is seen in
his circumcising himself and his household, i. e. the
male members of his household, as he was com
manded, in the same day. According to the expres-
sion of tne text, Abraham appears to have performed
the rite upon himself with his own hands.

DOCTHrNAL AND ETHICAL.

1. See the General Remarks, and the Critica.
Notes upon the double circle of the covenant, and
circumcision.

2. M Shaddai. We do not comprehend the
whole of this name, if we identify it with Elohim.
We make it too comprehensive if we represent it ag
including the idea of all the divina attributes, or aa
an expression of the majesty of God. It is the name
of the Almighty, and stands here at the very be-
ginning of the announcement of theocratic miracles,
for the same reason, that in the Apostles' Creed, it
designates the nature of God the Father, for the
Christian faith. The Almighty God {wafToicpaToip)
is the God of the Theocracy, and of all the miracles.
He makes the highest revelation of his miraculous
power in the resurrection of Christ (Eph. i. 19 if.).

3. Before my face. The anthropomorphisms of
the Scripture. The soul, head, eyes, arm of God,
are mentioned in the Bible. The Concordances give
all the information any one needs. It is not difficult
to ascertain the meaning of the particular descrip-
tions. His face is his presence in the definiteness and
certainty of the personal consciousness (Ps. cxxxix.)

4. Keil brings the narrower circle of the cove
nant into conflict with the wider, as was above re-
marked. [KeU puts his argument in this form :
Since the grace of the covenant was promised alone
to Isaac, and Abraham was to become the father of
amass of nations by Sarah (ver. 16), we cannot in-
clude the Ishmaelites nor the sons of Keturah in this
mass of nations. Since, further, Esau had no part
in the promise of the covenant, the promised de
scendants must come alone through .Jacob. But the
sons of Jacob formed only one people or nation;
Abraham is thus only the father of one people. It
follows, necessarily, that the mass of nations must
embrace the spiritual descendants of Abraham, all
who are ck- Triarecits 'AjSpoaM (comp. Rom. iv. 11, 16^
He urges also, in favor of this view, the fact, that
the seal of the covenant was apphed to those who
were not natural descendants of Abraham, to those
bom in his house and bought with his money. He
holds, also, that the promise of the land of Canaan
to this seed for a possession is not exhausted by the
fact, that this land was given to the literal Israel,
but that as the *I(rpo7;A Kara adpKa are enlarged
to the 'IcrpaTjA Kara TrreDjua, so the idea and limits
of the earthly Canaan must be enlarged to the limits
of the spiritual Canaan, that in truth, Abraham has
received the promise KKripovo/j-ov abrhv ehat KOafiou,
Rom. iv. 13, p. 138. — A. G.] Under the seed
promised to Abraham of a " multitude of nations,"
the descendants of Esau should not be understood ;
on the contrary, the spiritual descendants of Abra-
ham must have been intended, and reckoned with
the people of Israel, which constitutes, indeed, but
one nation. But we must always clearly distin-
guish between the promise, " in thy seed shall br
blessed all the famiUes of the earth," and the prom
ise, "from thee shall spring a mass of nations,'
through Ishmael and Isaac, and these shall all bt
embraced in the covenant of circumcision, the oue
as bearer of the covenant, the others as associates
and sharers in the covenant. Otherwise, indeed,
even the spiritual seed of Abraham mifct be circum
cised. But as circumcision is the type ^f the new
birth, so the mass of nations which should spring
from Abraham, is the type of his spiritual descend

126

GENESIS, OE THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

tuts, and in the typical sense, truly, he is here the
father of all believers. In the typical sense, also,
tlie promise of Canaan, and the promise of the eter-
nity of the covenant, have a higher meaning and
importance. The remarks of Keil, as to the estima-
tion of this spiritual significance of the Abrahamic
promise, against Auberlen and others, v/ho sink the
relerence of the promise to the spiritual Israel to a
" mere application," are well founded [and are most
important and suggestive. — A. G.]

5. Circumcision (as also baptism still more effect-
ually, Kom. vi.), as the type of the renewing through
natural suffering, evidently forma an opposition be-
tween the old and sinful human nature, and the new
life. It is therefore a testimony to human corrup-
tion on the one hand, and to the calling of men
through divine grace to a new life, on the other.
[The ground of the choice of circumcision as the
sign and seal of the covenant may be thus stated.
It lies in the nature of the blessing promised, i, e. a
seed of blessing. Tliat which is born of the flesh is
flesh, but the promised seed were to be holy, and
thus channels of blessing. The seed of Abraham
were thus to be distinguished from other races. As
corruption descended by ordinary generation, the
seed of grace were to be marked and symbolically
purified from that corruption. It thus denoted the
purifying of that by which the promise was to be se-
cured.— A. G.] But as a sign placed upon the fore-
skin, it designates still more definitely on the one
side, that the corruption is one which has especially
fallen upon or centres in the propagation of the race,
and has an essential source of support in it, as on
the other side, it is a sign and seal, that man is called
to a new HCe, and also, that for this new life the con-
ception and procreation should be consecrated and
sanctified (see John L 13, 14). The male portion
of the people only, were subjected to this ordinance.
This rests first of all upon natural causes. Luther
finds a compensation in the birth-throes and expos-
ure to death on the part of the females. The pains
of birth were truly translated to the male sex through
circumcision. But then this one-sidedness of the
sacrament of circumcision declares the complete de-
pendence of the wife upon her husband under the
old covenant. [Kurtz : The dependent position of
the woman, by virtue of which, not without the man,
but in and with the man, not as woman, but as the
bride, and mother, she has her importance in the
people and life of the covenant, does not allow her
to come into the same prominence here as the man,
p. 188. Jacobus says : " Under the Old Covenant,
as everything pointed forward to Christ the God-
Man — Son of Man — so every offering was to be a
male, and every covenant rite was properly enough
confined to the males. The females were regarded
as acting in them, and represented by them. Under
the New Testament this distinction is not appropri-
ate. It is not male and female, Gal. iii. 28 ; Col.
iii. 11. That the rite was applied so expressly to
those bom in the house, and those bought with his
morey — the son of the stranger — was intended to
point to the universal aspect of the covenant, the ex-
tension of its blessings to all nations. — A. 6.] But
it was enlarged, or completed, in fact, through the
law of purification, to which the mother was sub-
jected. Its spiritual significance is that it is
not birth itself, but the sexual generation, as such,
which is tlie tradux peccati. In the New Covenant,
the wife has an equally direct share in baptism as
the husband. And this waa typified la the Old Cov-

enant through the giving of the name. Sarah poa
sesses a new name as well as Abraham.

6. It scarcely follows from Exod. iv. 25, as De-
litzsch thinks, that circumcision proclaimed to th€
circumcised man, that he had Jehovah for a bride-
groom ; although Jews, Ishmaelites, and Moslems
generally name the day of circumcision the wedding-
feast of circumcision. The Scripture constitutes a
bridal relation between Christ and his Church, viewed
in its totality.

1. If Delitzsch in this, as in other passages, give*
to circumcision too great an importance, he does not
esteem sufBciently its importance when he remarks,
that it is no peculiar rite of initiation, like baptism.
" It is not circumcision which makes the Israelites
what they are as such, i. e., members of the Israel-
itish church. It is through its birth [While it ia
true that the Israelite by his birth was so far a mem-
ber of the congregation or church, that he had a title
to its rites and ordinances, it is true that circumci-
sion was the recognition of that membership, and
that if he neglected it, he was exscinded from the
people. — A. G.] ; for people and church are cotermi-
nous in the Old Testament." This is totally incor-
rect, just as incorrect as if one should say, Christen-
dom and the Church are coterminous. [It lies, too,
in the face of the whole New Testament, which
places circumcision and baptism in the closest rela-
tions to each other, and makes the one to come in
the place of the other. The differences between them
upon which Delitzsch dwells are just those which we
should expect under the two economies. — A G.]
As one must distinguish between Jacob and Israel,
so one must distinguish between Israel as the natur-
ally increased ('ij) and Israel as the called people
of God (D5). Israel is, in a qualified sense, the peo-
ple of God ; viz., as it, through circumcision, purifi-
cation, and sacrifice, was consecrated a congregation
of God (}ir\'p). And thus we must distinguish cir-
cumcision as to its old national, its patriarchal, and its
theocratic and legal power and efficacy. In the last
meaning alone, it belonged to the people of Israel aa
the Church of God, and was so far an initiatory rite,
that by means of it an Edomite or Moabite could
be incorporated into the people of God, while genu-
ine Jews, even the sons of Aaron, might be exscind
ed, if it were neglected. The Old Testament peoplo
of God, has thus definitely the characteristic traits
of the spiritual New Testament Israel, a people of
God, gathered from all the nations of the earth. It
was precisely the fault of the Edomite Jews, that
they failed to distinguish between circumcision in
this higher sense, as it passed over into baptism, and
circumcision as a national custom. And this is the
fallacy of the Baptists, through which they, to this
day, commonly attempt to rend away from the de-
fenders of infant baptism the argument which they
draw from circumcision. They say, " circumcision
was no sacrament of the Jews ; it was a mere na-
tional custom." But it was just as truly a sacra-
ment of the Jews, as the passover, from which we
must distinguish likewise, the eating of a roasted
lamb in the feasts of the ancients. We refer again
to the well-known distinction in the Epistle of Bar-
nabas (ch. ix.).

8. The moral nature of the divine covenant ap-
pears in this chapter, as in the earlier formation o
the covenant ; and here still more definitely througj
the opposition : I on my part (ver. 4), but thou on
thy part (ver. 9). Circumcision, according to thii

CHAP. XVn. 1-27.

421

antitlieBis, must be regarded by Abraham eapeeially
18 a duty, which declares comprehensively all his
duties in the rendering of obedience, in the self-
denying, subduing, and sanctifying of his nature;
while the giving of the name is the act of God, which
is comprehensive of all his promises. There is no
conflict between this first and nearest significance of
circumcision, and the fact, that it is a gift, a sign
and seal, and type of the truth of the covenant of
God. The application to the paasover-meal, and in-
deed to the Christian sacraments, will be obvious.
[" As a sign, circumcision was intended to set forth
Buoh truths as these: of repentance and flesh-
mortifying, and sanctification and devotement to
God ; and also the higher truth of the seed of prom-
ise which Israel was to become, and the miracuious
seed, which was Christ. As a seal, it was to authen-
ticate God's signature, and confirm his word and
covenant promise, and execute the covenant on
God's part, making a conveyance of the blessings to
those who set their hand to this seal by faith. Un-
der the New Testament economy of the same cove-
nant of grace, after " th^ seed" had come, the seal
is adapted to the more spiritual dispensation, though
it is of the same general import. Jacobus, " Notes,"
vol. i. p. 286.— A. G.]

9. The first laughter mentioned in the Bible is
that of Abraham, ver. lY. A proof that there is
nothing evil in the laugh itself. The first weeping
which is mentioned is the weeping of Hagar in the
desert (ch. xxi. 16). Both expressions of himian
feeling thus appear at first, in a consecrated and
pious form.

10. The Jews declare that the law of circumci-
sion is as great as the whole law. The idea is, that
circumcision is the kernel, and therefore, also, that
which comprehends the whole law : a. as a separa-
tion from an impure world ; b. as a consecration to
God. When they say, it is only on account of cir-
cumcision that God hears prayer, and no circumcised
man can sink to hell, it is just as true, and just as
false, as the extra ecclesiam nulla salics, according as
it is inwardly or outwardly understood.

11. We have here the first allusion to slaves who
were bought with money (ver. 27). Staeke : "Thus
it seems, alas 1 true, that at this tune slavery pre-
vailed, which, indeed, to all appearance, must have
begun from the Nimrodic dominion. For when men
have begun to treat their fellow-men as wild beasts,
after the manner of hunters, they will easily enslave
those who are thus overcome ; and this custom,
though against the rights of nature, soon became
general. When, now, Abraham found this custom in
existence before his time, he used the same for the
good of many of these wretched people ; he bought
them, but brought them to the knowledge of the
true God, etc. To buy and sell men for evil is sin,
and opposed both to the natural and divine law (Ex.
xxi. 2); but to buy in order to bring them to the
knowledge of the true God is permitted (Lev. xxv.
44, 45)." — To buy them in order to give them bodily
and spiritual freedom is Christ-like.

12. Starke : " The question arises here, whether
a foreign servant could be constrained to be circum-
cised. Some (Clericus, e. g.) favor, and others op-
pose this opinion. The Rabbins say : If any one
should buy a grown servant of the Cuthites, and he
refused to be circumcised, he should sell him again."
tfalmonides.

13 As in the ark of Noah, so in the fact that
Abraham should circumcise all the male members

of his household, the full bibUcal significance and
importance of the household appears in a striking
way; of the household in its spiritual unity, whicl
the theory of the Baptists in its abstract individual
ity, dissolves.

14. The promise of blessing which Abraham re-
ceives, repeats itself relatively to every believer. Hia
life will be rich in fruits of blessing, reaching on
into eternity. In the abstract sense this avails only
of Christ (Isa. liii. 10), but therefore in some meas-
ure of every beUever (Mark x. 30).

15. The word ver. 14 in a typical expression
contains a fearful and solemn warning against the
contempt of the sacraments. The signs and seals
of communion with the Lord and his people are not
exposed to the arbitrary treatment of individuals.
With the proud contempt of the signs of communion,
the heart and life are Separated from the communion
itself, and its blessings and salvation.

16. The New Testament fulfilment of circumci-
sion (Rom. ii. 29). If circumcision is the type of the
new birth, its essential fulfilment lies in the birth of
Christ. The sanctification of birth has reached its
personal goal in his birth, which is a new birth. But
Christ must be appropriated by humanity through
his sufferings. Therefore he was made subject to
the legal circimicision (Gal. iv. 4), and the perfect
result of this communion with his brethren, was his
death upon the cross (Rom. vi. 6; Col. iL 11, 12).
In the communion with this death, into which Chris-
tians enter with baptism, they become the people
of the real circumcision, over against which bodily
circumcision, in a religions sense, becomes a cruel
manghng of the body (Phil. iii. 3).

17. We must distinguish the typical significance
of our chapter from its historical basis, and bind
both sides together without confounding them. This
avails of the twofold circle of the covenant ; of the
name Abraham; of the blessing for his seed; of the
eternity of the covenant ; of his sojourn in Canaan,
and the gift of the land to him for an eternal pos-
session ; of circumcision, and of the threatening of
excision. In all these points we distinguish the his-
torical greatness and spiritual glory of the covenant
of promise.

HOMTLETICAL AND PEACTICAL.

See the Doctrinal paragraphs. — The visitation of
Abraham after his long trial and waiting. — God's de-
lay no actual delay (2 Pet. ii. 9). — The establish-
ment of the covenant between God and Abraham ;
1. The precondition of the establishment of the cov-
enant (see ch. xv.-ch. xvii. 1); 2. the contents of
the covenant of promise : the name Abraham ; a. in
the natural sense ; b. in the typical sense ; 3. the
covenant in the wider and narrower sense : 4. the
covenant-sign. — The new covenant of God in hia
name (El-Shaddai, God of wonders), the basis of the
new name of believers. — Faith in the miracle is faith
In that which is dimnely new. — The renewed call of
Abraham : 1. As a confirmation of his calling ; 2. aa
the enlargement and strengthening of it — The con-
tents of the call : Walk before me and be perfect,
i. e., walk before me (in the faith and vision of mj
presence, in grace and miraculous power), 1, so art
thou blameless (pious, righteous, perfect) ; 2. so will
thou be blameless ; 3. so prove it through thy pious
conduct. — The particular promises of God, which
are contained in the name Abraham : 1. According

428

GiiNESIS. OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

to its natural greatness ; 2. according to its typical
glory. — The promises of God conditioned through
the covenant of God. — The two sides in the covenant
of God.— In the covenant of circumcision. — Circum-
cision as a type : 1. Of the new birth ; 2. of baptism ;
3. of infant baptism. — Abraham's laughter. — Abra-
ham's intercession for Ishmael. — For missions among
the Mohammedans. — He will laugh. — Isaac's name
henceforth a name of promise. — The significance of
ttis name for the children of God (Ps. cxxvi. 2 ;
Luke VL 21). — Abraham's obedience the spiritual
side of circumcision.

Starke: [derivations of El-Shaddai. More par-
ticularly upon the biblical anthropomorphisms].
The change of names. There is here a glorious
proof that even the heathen shall come to Christ,
and become the children of Abraham. — Upon ver, 6.
But above all, the King of kings, Christ, is to de-
scend from him (Luke i. 32 ; Rom. ix. 5). — Upon
ver. 7. As to the earthly prosperity which God
promised to the natural seed of Abraham, namely,
the possession of the laud of Canaan, the word Eter-
nal is here used to denote a very long time, which,
however, has still an end (vers. 8, 13, 19; Exod.
xxi. 6 ; Deut. xv. 17 ; Jer. xviii. 16). But as to the
spiritual good which he promised to the spiritual
seed of Abraham, to all true believers, namely, the
grace of God, forgiveness of sins, protection and
blessing in this life, and heavenly glory in the life
to come, it is surely an eternal, perpetual covenant.
[Thus also Wordsworth, essentially, and Murphy :
*' The phrase, perpetual possession, has here two ele-
ments of meaning — first, that the possession in its
coming form of a certain land, shall last as long as
the CO- existing relations of things are continued;
and secondly, that the said posse.«Bion in all the va-
riety of its ever grander phases, will last absolutely
forever, p. 309." — A. G.]. — Cramer : The covenant
of grace of God is eternal, and one with the new cov-
enant in Christ( Jer. xxxi. 33 ; Isa. hv. 10). — Osian-
der; Even the children of Christian parents, born
dead, or taken away before the reception of baptism,
are not to be esteemed lost, but blessed. — He intro-
duces a sacrament which, viewed in itself alone,
might be regarded as involving disgrace. But on
this very account it typifies, 1. the deep depravity of
men, in which they are involved from the corruption
of original sin, since not only some of the members,
but the whole man, is poisoned, and the member
here aifected in particular as the chief instrument in
the propagation of the human race. 2. For the
same reason, it confirms the promise of the increase
of the race of Abraham. 3. Through this sign God
intends to distinguish the people of his possession
from all other nations. 4. He represents in it, the
spiritual circiuncision of the heart-— the new birlih. —
Upon ver. 14. Ckaueb : Whoever despises the word
of God and the sacraments, will not be left unpun-
ished by God (Isa. vii. 12; Luke vii. 30 ; 1 Cor. xi.
80. — MnscnLTis: Sarah, although appointed to be
',he royal mother of nations and kings, does not bear
them to herself, but to Abraham, her own husband ;
thus the Church of Christ, espoused to Christ, al-
though the true royal mother of nations and kings,
i. e., of all believers, bears them not to herself, but
to Christ. — Cramer : Although women in the Old
Testament had no sacrament of circumcision, they
share in its virtue, through the reception of the
names, by which they voluntarily subscribe to the
covenant of God (Isa. xUv. 5). — God is an Almighty
God, who is not bound to nature. — Ver. 23. As to

the readiness with which all the servants of Abiahan
suffer themselves to be circumcised, we see at onc«
that they must have had already, through the in.
struction of Abraham, some correct knowledge of
God, since otherwise they could not have understood
an act which, to mere reason, appears so preposter-
ous, foolish, and disgraceful. — Osiander: Believing
householders, who yield themselves in obedience to
the divine will, shall have also, through the divine
blessing, yielding and docile domestics. — Cramer
As circumcision was applied to all the members of
Abraham's household, so all, great and small, should
be baptized (Mark x. 14 ; John ill. 5, 6 ; Acts xvi.
15 ; xviii. 8 ; 1 Cor. i. 16.— As Abraham used no
delay in the sacrament of circumcision, even so we
also should not long defer the baptism of infants.

Lisoo : The essential element of the covenant on
the part of God is grace ; on man's part, faith (still,
the grace here receives a concrete expression in a
definite, gracious promise, and faith likewise in obe-
dience, and in a definite, significant rendering of obe-
dience).— Gerlaoh: ver. 19. Isaac ("he laughs,"
or "one laughs"), the child oi joyful surprise is now
announced as soon to appear. — Ver. 8. The eternal
possession stands in striking contrast to the tran-
sient, ever-changing place of sojourn, which Canaan
was, at that time, for Abraham. This land, how-
ever, which God promises to Abraham and his seed
for an inheritance, is still at the same time a visible
pledge, the enclosing shell of the still delicate seed
or kernel, therefore the prophetic type of the new-
world, which belongs to the Church of the Lord ;
therefore it is pre-eminently an eternal possession.
This is true, also, of all divine ordinances, as circum-
cision, the passover, the priesthood, etc., which,
established in the Old Testament as eternal, are, as
to the literal sense, abolished in the New Testament,
but are in the truest sense spiritually fulfilled. —
Calwer (Handbuch) upon ver. 1 : Walk before me,
etc. The law and the gospel, faith and works, are
brought together in this one brief word or sentence.
Ver. 7. Eternal covenant. Truly, in so far as the spir-
itual seed of Abraham take the place of the natu-
ral Israel, and the earthly Canaan is the type of the
heavenly, which remains the eternal possession of
all believers. — The female sex, without any external
sign of the covenant, were yet included in the cove-
nant, and shared its grace, so far as through descent
or marriage they belonged to the covenant people
(ch. xxxiv. 14 flf. ; Exod. xii. 3 ; Joel ii. 16, 16). —
Schroder: Ver. 1. This manifestation was given
to Abraham, when he had now grown old and gray
in faith, for the hope of the fulfilment of the divine
promise. How he rebukes and shames us who are
so easily stumbled and offended, if we do not see at
once the fulfilment of the divine promises! (Ram-
bach). — Upon the name Elohim. The same epoch
which (ch. xvii.) introduces the particular view of
that economy (Rom. iv. 11, 12), opens also its uni-
versal tendencies and features. What profound di-
vine wisdom and counsel shine in these paradoxes !
(The foundation, however, of this opposition is laid
already in ch. xii. 1, and first appears in its decisive,
complete form in the Mosaic institution^of the law).
— Ver. 1. We need to mark more carefully the
"I am" of ver 1, because, so many false gods pre'
sent themselves to our hearts, and steal away oui
love {Berleb. Bihel). — Before Abraham was command
ed to circumcise himself, the righteousness of faith
was counted to him, thiough which he was already
righteous (Luther). — Although he utters no word.

CHAPS, xvm., XIX.

-±2^

his gilonce speaks louder than if he had cried in the
clearest and loudest tones, that he would surely obey
Ihe word of God (Calvin). — The significance and im-
portance of names, among the Hebrews, especially
in Genesis. — ^Ver. 5. Abraham is not called the father
of many nations, because his seed should be sepa-
rated into different nations, but rather because the dif-
ferent nations should be united in him (Rom. iv. ; Cal-
vin).— Ver. 8, The land wherein thou art a stranger.
The foreigner shall become the possessor. — Upon
Ver. 14. The connection shows that the reference is
to the conscious contempt of the sacraments, not to
those children who, through the guilt of their parents,
were not circumcised upon the eighth day (Exod. iv.
24, £f.) — Ver. 17. Abraham laughed. In the region
of unbelief the doubt is of no moment. It has its
importance in the life of believers, where it pre-
■upposes faith, and leads as a transition step to a

firmer faith. (There is, however, a twofold kind of
doubt, without considering what is still a questiou,
whether there is any reference to doubt in the text)^
Luther thinks that Christ points to this text (in John
viii. 66). Then the laughing also is an intimation
of the overflowing joy which filled his heart, and be
longs to his spiritual experiences. — Ver. 19. Isaac
The name teaches that those who tread in the foot-
steps of Abraham's faith, will at times find cause fo-
laughter in the unexpected, sudden, and great bless
ings they receive. There is reason in God, both fo.
weeping and laughter (Roos). — Ver. 23. We sec
how well his house was ordered, since even those
who were bought with money cheerfully submitted
to circumcision (Calvin) — Passavant : (Abraham).
The Almighty God, the God who can do all, sees
all, knows all, he was, is, and wUl be aU, to his
servants.

SEVENTH SECTION.

Ahraham in the Oak-Orove of Mamre, and the three Heavenly Men. Hospitality of Abraliam. The
definite announcement of the birth of a Son. Sarah's Doubt. The announcement of ihe judgmem
upon Sodom connected with the Promise of the Heir of blessing. The Angel of the Lord, or thi
Priend of Abraham and the two angels of deliverance for Sodom. Abraham's intercession foi
Sodom. The destruction of Sodom. JLoi's rescue. Lot and his Daughters. Moab and Ammon

CbS. XVIII. AND XIX.

1 And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre ; and he sat in the tent-

2 door in the heat of the day ; And he Hfted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men
stood hy him : and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent-door, and

3 bowed himself toward the ground, And said, My Lord ["'ps not is^s,],' if now I have

4 found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant : Let a httle
water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree

5 [enjoy the noonday restj : And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort [stay, strengthen]

ye your hearts ; after that ye shall pass on : for therefore are ye [even] come to youi

6 servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. And Abraham hastened into tlie
tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready [hasten] quickly three measures of fine meal,

7 knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. And Abraham ran unto the herd, and
fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man [a servant] ; and he hasted

8 to dress it. And he" took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed [caused to
be dressed], and set it before them ; and he stood " by them under the tree, and they did eat.

9 And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife ? And he said. Behold, in the
10 teiit. And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life

then] have £
was behind

[return when this time of the next year shaU be reached] ; and lo, Sarah thy wife shall
son. And Sarah heard [was hearing] it in [behind] the tent-door, which [door_

11 him [Jehovah]. Now Abraham and Sarah were old awd well stricken in age ; and\X

12 ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed within
herself, saying, After I am wazed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old |gniy]

13 also ? And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh saying, Shall 1

1 4 of a surety bear a child, which am [and I am] old ? Is any thing too hard ' [an exception]
for the Lord ? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of

15 life [this time in the next year], and Sarah shall have a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, ]
laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said. Nay; but thou didst laugh.

430 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

16 And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom : and Abra'iam wenl

17 with them to bring them on the way. And the Lord' said, Shall I hide frsm Ahra

18 ham that thing which I do [will do] ;' Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great

19 and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I
know [have chosen] him, that he will [shall] command his children and his household after
him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment ; that the

20 Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. And the Lord said
Because the cry [of the sins, ch. iv. lo] of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because theL

21 sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done [until a decisioiij
altogether ' according to the cry of it, which is come unto me ; and if not, I will know.

22 And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom : but Abraham
stood yet before the Lord.

23 And Abraham drew near [hewing, praying], and said, Wilt thou also destroy the right-

24 ecus with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city [concealed in
the mass] : wilt thou also destroy, and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are

25 therein? That be far from thee° to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with
the wicked : and that the righteous should be as the wicked [that it is all one hoth to the right-
eons and the wicked], that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

26 And the Lord said. If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare

27 all the place for their sakes. And Abraham answered and said, Behold now [once] 1
have taken upon me to speak [to say] unto the Lord, which am hut dust and ashes.

28 Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous : wilt thou destroy all the city
for lack of five ? And he said, if I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.

29 And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found
there [ifone should search for them]. And he said, I will not do [will leave off to do] it for forty's

30 sake. And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak ; Per-
adventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it if I find

31 thirty there. And he said. Behold now I have taken upon me to speak unto the
Lord : Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy

32 it for twenty's sake. And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yel
but this once : Peradventure there shall be ten found there. And he said, I will not

33 destroy it for ten's sake. And the Lord went his way, as soon as he had left commun-
ing with Abraham : and Abraham returned unto his place.

Ch. XIX. 1 And there came two' angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat [was sitting] in
the gate of Sodom : and Lot seeing them, rose up to meet them ; and he bowed himself

2 with his face toward the ground ; And he said, Behold now, my lords,' turn in, I pray
you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall
rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay ; but we will abide in the

3 street all night. And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him,
and entered into his house; and he made them a feast [literally, a banquet], and did bake
unleavened bread, and they did eat.

4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed
the house round, both old and young, all the people, from every quarter [all collected] :

5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him. Where are the men which came in to

6 thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. And Lot went out
' at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do
S not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man ;

let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes :
only unto these men do nothing ; for therefore came they under the shadow [and protection]
9 of my roof [thecross-beamsorrafters of the house]. And they Said, Stand back. And they
said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge : ' now
will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man,

10 even Lot, and came near to break the door. But the men put forth their hand, and

11 pulled Lot into the 'jouse to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men tha«
were at the door of vhe house with blindness [dazzling blindnesses], both small and great ; sc
that they wearied hemselves to find the door.

,1' And the men v^aid unto Lot, Hast thou here [in the city] any besides? son-in-law
and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out

CHAPS. XVm., SIX. 43J

}3 of this place: For we will destroy* this place, because the cry of them [the outcry of theh
riiifl] is waxen great before the face of the Lord ; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.

14 And Lot went out and spake unto his sons-in-law, which married his daughters,' anrl
said, Up, get you out of this place ; for the Lord will destroy [as a destroyer] this city

• But he seemed as one that mocked" unto his sons-in-law [Luther: he was ridiculous in their eyon].

15 And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying. Arise, take
thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here [are found and fescued] ; lest thou be coi>

16 sumed in the iniquity [the visitation for the iniquity] of the city. And while he lingered,
the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his \nfe, and upon the hand ol
his two daughters ; the Lord being merciful unto him : and they brought him forth,
and set him without the city.

17 And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad [into the open country],
that he said. Escape for thy life [thy soul]; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in

18 all the plain [raiiey-reglon] ; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. And Lot

said unto them [the two passing from him ; hetween whom Jehovah had revealed himself], Oh, HOt SO,

19 my Lord ! ' Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast
magnified thy mercy, which thou hast showed unto me, in saving my life; and I cannot

20 escape to the mountain, lest some [the] evil take me, and I die : Behold now this city
is near to flee unto, and it is a little one : Oh let me escape thither ! (is it not a little

21 one?) and my soul [through its exemption] shall live. And he said unto him, See, I have
accepted' thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the

22 which thou hast spoken. Haste thee, escape thither ; for I cannot do anything till
thou be come thither; therefore the name of the city was called Zoar [smaliness].

23, 24 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered '° into Zoar. Then the Lord
rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven ;

25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities,
and that which grew upon the ground.

26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

n And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the

!8 Lord: And he looked toward (■'JS'bs) Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land

of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a

furnace [lime-ldlns or metal-fumaces. The earth itself humed as an oven] ,

29 And it came to pass when God [Elohim] destroyed the cities of the plain, that God
remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he over-
threw the cities in the which Ldt dwelt.

30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters
with him ; for he feared to dwell in Zoar : and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two

31 daughters. And the firstborn said unto the younger [smaller], Our father is old, and
there is not a man [hesides] in the earth to come in unto us, after the manner of all the

32 earth : Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may

33 preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night : and
tlie firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he perceived not [was not in a conscious

34 Btats] when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow,
that the firstborn said unto the younger. Behold, I lay yesternight [nights] with my
father : let us make him drink wine this night also ; and go thou in, and lie with him,

35 that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that
night also : and the younger arose and lay with him ; and he perceived not when she

36 lay down, nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by

37 their father. And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab [from the father; ox
seed of the father; son of my father; brother and son] : the same is the father of the Moabites imtO

38 this day. And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Ben-ammi [son of
my people, son and brother] : the same is the father of the children of Ammon [=Ben-ammrn

unto this day.

[* Ch. XYIII. ver, 3. — The versions vary, some reading one form and some the other. The Septu»-?int has Kvpte
Vulg. Bamine. So also the Syriac and Onkelos. The Masoretic text, therefore, is preferable to that u^ed in our ni
lion.— A. G.j

I" Ver. 8.— He, i. e. Abraham.— A. O.l

[' Ver. 8. — was standing. — A. G.]

t* Ver. 10. — Heb., according to the living time. — A, G.] .

432

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

{• Ver. 14. — Heb., difficult, wfmderful, 8ept. i±r] aivvaTri<rei irapa Tcjj 0eai p^fjia? Bee Lake i, 37.— A. fl .1

[• Ver. 17.— Jehovah.— A. G.]

[^ Ver. 18.— Lit., I am doing, am about to do. — A. G.]

[^ Ver. 21.— Heb. whether they have made completeness, or to a. consummatimi. — A. Q.l

[> Ver. 25.— nbbn , abaminahle.—A. G.]

[' Ch. XIX. ver. I'.—lwo of the angels.- A. G.]

[3 Ver. 2. — "^STS . Not the same form which Abraham uses.— A- G.]

[■ Ver. 9.— i:lEHU tJStt!^ , will he always be judping.— A. G.)

[• Ver. 13. — T.it., are destroying. — A. 0.]

[* Ver. 14.— Lit., The takers of his daughters. — A, G.)

[• Ver. 14. — as a jester. — A. G.]

I' Ver. 16.— Hob. delayed himself.— A. 0.]

[• Ver. 18.— ins . O Lord.-A. G.l

[• Ver. 21. — have lifted up thy face. — A. G.]

('" Ver. 23.— Heb., and Lot came unto.— A. G.l

GENERAL PEELIMINABT EBMAEKS.

I. It ia evident that these two chapters form but
one section : the first verse of the xixth chapter forms
the direct continuation of the previous narrative.
[The connection of this chapter with the preceding
is twofold, and very closa This forms the more
complete unfolding of the promise, ch. xvii. 21, and
the friendly intercourse which Jehovah here holds
with the patriarch is the direct fruit of the symboli-
cal purification of himself and his house through the
rite of circumcision, ch. xvii. 2.3-27. Thus purified,
the way was open for this friendly appearance and
fellowship. — A. G.] The modern criticism attributes
this section to the .lehovistic enlargement, and finds
it necessary, therefore, to regard xix. 29, as an Elo-
histic interpolation, which, in the original writing
must have immediately followed ch. xvii. (Knobel, p.
166). But there are the same strong internal rea-
sons why the name Elohim should appear in ch.
xix. 29, as there are that ch. xvii. 1, should speak of
Jehovah, and afterwards of Elohim. In this section,
however, Jehovah appears in all other passages. The
complete theophany of God corresponds to the com-
pleted promise of Isaac, the bearer of the covenant ;
and in this completed form of revelation he is Jeho-
vah. But the announcement of the judgment upon
Sodom and Gomorrah is essentially connected with
the promise of the heir of blessing. The judgment
itself, also, is a judgment of Jehovah ; for, 1. The
overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, through a fiery
judgment, is an end of the world upon a small scale,
with which the necessity, for that constant revelation
of salvation, for the rescue of the world, whose founda-
tion was now being laid, is clearly apparent. 2. With
the firm confirmation of the father of the faithful in
the future of his believing race, his relations to the
world must also be actually and clearly defined, i. e.,
Abraham must prove his faith in his love, mercy,
and his intercessions for Sodom also. 3. In the
founding of this believing race, the overthrow of
Sodom and Gomorrah, as a judgment of Jehovah,
stands as a solemn warning for Abraham and his
children, and through them for the world in all ages.
The Dead sea could not remain without significance
for the dwellers in Canaan. 4. Even the issue of ihe
history of Lot belongs to the history of the com-
rleted promise ; not only the position of Lot, inter-
mediate between Abraham and Sodom, nor even his
exemption and safety, which he owes to Abraham's
intercession, and his once better conduct, nor, on the
other hand, the danger, terrors, losses, want, and
moral disgrace into which he was betrayed through
his worldly mind and his unbelief; but the issue of
the history of Lot, his full separation from the theo-
cratic obligations and privileges, and the descent

from him of the Moabites and Ammoo't^s, who were
related to the Jews, and yet alien to ihem, belong
also to the full presentation of the antithesis between
the house of Abraham and the people of Sodom.
5. The abominations of Sodom, moreover, not only
find a bright contrast in the consecrated marriage
of Abraham and Sarah, but even a contrast in the
incest with which the household of Lot was stained
(see Introduction). — Knobel finds contradictions here
which have no existence; e. g., between ch. xviii.
12 and xvii. 17 ; between the recapitulation, ch. xix.
29, and the whole narrative of the overthrow of
Sodom. He remarks upon the narrative, that the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is not, in his
view, a, natural event, but a divine judgment, Mke
the flood. He explains the narrative of the impure
origin of the Moabites and Ammonites by a reference
to the odious Jewish motives. In answer to this
Keil refers to Deut. ii. 9, 19, according to which
Israel should not possess the land of these two na-
tions on the ground of their descent from Lot, and
remarks, they were first excluded from a position
among the Lord's people, on account of their un-
brotherly conduct towards Israel (Deut. xxiii, 4 fl'.).
Knobel here fails to recollect, that so far as the race
of the chosen Judah is concerned, it was derived from
an impure connection of Judah with his daughter-in-
law, Thamar, just as in the remark, that the Jews
gloried in the beauty of their ancestress, he failed
to remember that Leah is especially described as not
beautiful. He holds, that this narrative has an his-
torical support, in the terrible fate of the vale of
Siddim ; but as to the rest, it is a pure mythical
statement. [Aside from the fact that this supposi-
tion of the mythological character of the narrative
overlooks the opposition referred to in the following
sentence, it overlooks, also, the historical basis for
this narrative in ch. xiii. 13, the close connection
with the subsequent history, and the whole moral
bearing and use of this history in both the Old and
New Testaments. — A. G.] Of the two sides or
aspects of the history, the prominent side, viz., the
opposition between the manifestation of God to
Abraham, and the judgment upon Sodom, is thus
not properly estimated.

2. This Section may be divided into the follow-
ing parts: 1. The appearance of Jehovah in the
oak-grove of Mamre, and the promise of the birth
of Isaac (ch. xviii. 1-16); 2. the revelation of the
approaching judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah
to Abraham, and Abraham's intercessory prajei
(vers. 16-33) ; 3. the entrance of the two angele into
Sodom, and the complete manifestation of the cor-
ruption of the Sodomites, in opposition to the better
conduct of Lot (oh. xix. 1-11); 4. the comparative
unfitness of Lot for salvation, his salvation with dlflB

CHAP. XVIII. 1.— XIX. 88.

433

eolty, and the entrance of the judgment (vers. 12-
29) ; 6. the departure of Lot, and hia descendants
(Ter. 80-38).

EXEGETICAI, AND OB.ITICAI/.

1. The completed manifestation and promise of
God in the oik-grove of Mamre (ch. xviii. 1-15).
— ^The Lord appeared unto him.* — Both the
reaUty of the manifestation, on the one hand, and
the seeing in vision on the other, appear in the clear-
est and most distinct form in the history. The ele-
ments which belong co the vision appear first at the
very beginning : he lifted up his eyes and
looked; then, further, in the departure of Jehovah
from Abraham (ch. xviii. 33) ; and in hia reappear-
ance to Lot (ch. yax. 17). The objective element is
seen especially in the threefold character of the
manifestation, in the transaction between Jehovah
and Sarah, and in the history of the two angels in
Sodom ; especially in the assaults of the Sodomites
upon them. But the peculiarities serving to in-
troiluce these wonderful objective facts, lie partly
in the peculiar character of the history, as the narra-
tive of a vision, partly in its symbolic statements,
and partly in its peculiar ghostly form. The de-
struction of Sodom and Gomorrah is near ; for them
the evening of the world has come. It is a prelude
of the last day, in which the angelic appearance is
entirely natural, and is introduced through an inner
and spiritual anticipation of the judgment itself, in
those who seek to resist its influence, by indulgence
in wicked, or, as in the case of the Sodomites, in
abominable, courses. Delitzsch thinks that Abra-
ham recognized the unity of the God of revelation,
in the appearance of the three men. As to this, see
the remarks upon the Angel of the Lord, ch. xii.
He adds : " One should compare the imitations of
this original history among the heathen. Jupiter,
Mercury, and Neptune, visit an old man, by name
Hyricus, in the Boeotian city Tanagra ; he prepares
them a feast, and, though childless hitherto, receives
a son in answer to his prayer (Ovid's ' Fast.,' v. 494,
etc.)." And then, further, the heathen accompani-
ment to ch. xix. : " Jupiter and Mercury are jour-
neying as men ; only Philemon and Baucis, an aged,
childless wedded pair, receive them, and these,
therefore, the gods rescue, bearing them away with
themselves, while they turn the inhospitable region
lymg around the hospitable hut into a pool of water,
and the hut itself into a temple (Ovid's Metam., viii.
611 ff.)." But the essential distinction between our
ideal facts and these myths, lies in this, that while
the first lie in the centre of history as causal facts or
forces, having the most sacred and real historical re-
sults, these latter lie simply on the border ground of
mythology. [How completely and thoroughly these
words dispose of the whole mythical supposition in
this as in other cases. — A. G.] — In the heat of the
day. — "The dinner hour, when they took their
principal meal (ch. xliii. 16, 25 ; 1 Kings, xx. 16) and
their accustomed rest (2 Sam. iv. 5). Volnet
(Ti'vels, I, p. 314) says the Arab, when he takes his
meal, sits at the door of his tent, in order to observe
» id invite those who are passing ; and Burkhaedt

• [The Lord appeared, but the appearance was in the
(orm of three men or angela. There may be, as Words-
fforth suggests, here a declaration of the divine unity, and
ua. intimation of the plurality of persons ; perhaps of the
doctrine of the Trinity.— A. G.l

28

(Arabian Proverbs, p. 331 f.), it is a custom in
the East to eat before the door and to invite to a
share in the meal every passing stranger of respect-
able appearance." Knobel. — And bowed himself
to the ground. — Abraham instantly recognizes
among the three the one whom he addresses as th«
Lord in a religious sense, who afterwards appears aa
Jehovah, and was clearly distinguished from the two
accompanying angels, ch. xix. 1. [The original He-
brew word is used to denote both civil and religious
homage. The word itself, therefore, cannot deteiN
mine whether Abraham intended by his bowing t«
express religious homage, though it is probable thai
he did. — A. G.] " They are three," Delitzsch says,
" because of the threefold object of their mission,
which had not only a promising, but also a punitive,
and saving character." Against this interpretation,
however, there is the fact that Jehovah not only
speaks the promise, but sends the judgment also
upon Sodom, and that not one, but both angels con-
ducted the rescue of Lot. " If there Ues," says De-
litzsch, further, " in the fact that God appears in the
three angels, a trinitarian reference, which the old
painters were accustomed to express, by giving to
each of the three the glory which is the characteris-
tic sign of the divine nature, still the idea that the
Trinity is represented in the three is in every point
of view untenable." The germ of the doctrine of
the Trinity lies, indeed, not in the three forms, but
truly in the opposition between the heavenly nature
of Jehovah and his form of manifestation upon the
earth in the midst of the two angels, i. e., in this
well-defined, dearly-appearing duality. — If now X
have found favor. — Knobel and Delitzsch diifer in
the explanation of the SJ'DS, etc. (Knobel: "If I
have still found favor," i. «., may it still be the case.)
We agree with the supposition that Abraham uses
the expression in his prayer, out of the consciousness
that he had already found favor, i. «., that his ex-
pression presupposes a covenant-relation between
himself and Jehovah. The cordial invitation is in
this case far more than oriental hospitality, but still
Abraham uses the human greeting, as the heavenly
forms wear the appearance of human travellers. —
And wash your feet. — This is the first concern
of the pilgrim in the East, when he enters the house
after treading the sandy, dusty ways, with nothing
but sandals. They were to rest themselves under
the tree, leaning upon the hand in the oriental man-
ner.*— A morsel of bread. — A modest description
of the sumptuous meal which he had prepared for
them. His humble and pressing invitation, his
modest description of the meal, his zeal in its prepa-
ration, his standing by to serve those who were eat-
ing, are picturesque traits of the life of faith as it
here reveals itself, in an exemplary hospitality.
" According to the custom still in use among the
Bedouin sheiks (comp. Lane, " Manners and Cus-
toms," II. p. 116), Abraham prepared, as soon as
possible, from the cakes made by his wife from three
seahs [About three pecks. A seah was about the
third part of an ephah ; the ephah was equal to ten
omers, and the omer about five pints. Murphy.—
A. G.] of fine meal, and baked under the ashes
(mJS, unleavened cakes, baked upon hot, rousd

* ["For therefore are ye come — to give me occasion to
offer you my hospitality." Kbil, p. 166. — A. (J.]

[" Their coming was of G-od. He recognized in it a di-
vine call upon his hospitality." Jacobus, " Notes," vol. L
p. 9.— A. G.]

434

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Btones), and a tender calf,* with butter and milk, or
curdled milk (Knobkl ; Cream), a very rich and
pleasant-tasting meal." Keil. — And he stood by
them. — [Wordsworth here calls attention to the
points of resemblance between this history and that
of Zaccheus, Luke, xix. 4, 6, 8, 9, and then says
with great beauty and force : " This seems to be one
of the countless instances where, in the tissue of the
Holy Scriptures, the golden threads of the Old Tes-
ta nr'nt are interwoven with those of the New, and
fo:Tn, as it were, one whole, p. 84. — A. G.] " This
is the custom stiU in the Eastern countries. The
Arab sheik, if he has respected guests, does not
fit in order to eat with them, but stands in order to
wait upon them." (Shaw, " Travels," p. 208 ; BtJCK-
tNGHAM, " Mesopotamia," p. 2S ; and Sketzen, " Trav-
els," I. p. 400, etc.) Knobel.— And they did eat,
— In Judges, xiii. 16. the Angel of Jehovah refuses
to eat. Knobel regards it as a mark of distinction
to Abraham, that these heavenly messengers should
eat. Since the two angels were entertained by Lot
in Sodom, it would appear that the peculiar reception
of the meal should be ascribed in a special sense to
them. This, however, does not remove the difficulty,
in the fact, that those coming from heaven should
eat earthly food. The supposition of Neumann, that
it is all a dream up to ver. 16, is refuted by the
whole tenor of the narrative, but especially by the
history of the entertainment of the two angels by
Lot. JosEPBUS, "Antiq.," i. 11, 2, Philo, the Tar-
gums, and the Talmud, explain the eating as a mere
appearance. Tertullijn, on the contrary (" Adv.
Marc," iii. 9), holds to a temporary incarnation.
Delitzsch and Keil [So also Jacobus, after Kurtz, re-
ferring to John i. 14; Phih ii. 7; Luke, xxiv. 44. —
A. G.] agree with him, and both refer to the eating
of the risen Saviour with his disciples. But the
idea of a temporary incarnation in a peculiar sense^
is an extremely anthropomorpliic, and not well-
grounded, assumption ; and the bodily nature of the
glorified Christ, of whom Augustin says : " that he
ate is a fruit of his power, not of his necessity,"
gv^d w.a9iducavity poiestatis fuit non egestatis^ is not
to be identified with the form of the manifestation
of the angels. But Dehtzsch gives still another
explanation. " The human form in which they ap-
peared, was a representation of their invisible nature,
and thus they ate, as we say of the fire, it consumes
(or eats) all (Justin, Dial, cum, Tryph., ch. 34)."
There may be here an intimation of the mysterious
fact, that the spiritual world is mighty in its mani-
festations, and overcomes the material, according to
the figurative expression of Augustin : The thirst-
ing earth absorbs the water in one way, the burning
rays of the sun in another ; that from want, this by
power. \^^ Aliier ab&orhet terra aquam siliens, aliter
soils radius candens: ilia indiffentia, iste potentia.^^
Thus Baumgaeten : That the angels could cat lies
in their pneumatic nature, for the spirit has power
over matter ; that they did eat here is the very high-
est act of this divine sojourn or rest in the home of
Abraham, p. 206. — A. G] — Which was behind
him. — The Angel of the Lord was placed with his
back towarils the door of the tent. But it greatly
strengthens the real objective character of the mani-
festation, that Sarah also hears, and indeed hears
ioubting, the promise of the Angel. — According

• rnesh-raeat was not ordinary fore. See Pict Bible,
ud Bu»B, Notes, vol. i. p. 286 A. G.J

to the time of life.* — " The time of returning Ut
Ufe," is the return of the same time in the next year.
Time returns to life again apparently in the similar
appearances of nature. Thu.a one form of time in
nature expires after another, and becomes living
again in the next year. — Wherefore did Sarah
laugh. — Although Sarah only laughed within herselij
and behind Jehovah and the tent door, yet Jehovah
observed it. Her later denial (although, indeed, she
had not laughed aloud) and her fear, prove that her
laugh proceeded from a bitter and doubting heart.
Keil, however, is too severe when he says " that her
laugh must be viewed as the laugh of unbelief," and
Delitzsch, when he describes it as the scoff oi' doubt.
It is sufficient that there is a distinction between her
laughing and that of Abraham. The Scripture saya
(Heb. xi. 11) that she was a believer in the promise,
and the fact of her conception is the evidence of her
faith. [It thus becomes evident that one object in
this manifestation, the drawing out and completing
the faith of Sarah, has been accomplished. The
question, Is anything too hard for the Lord? is the
same which the angel Gabriel used when announcing
to Mary the birth of Jesus. Mary bowed in faith,
while Sarah laughs in doubt. But the words here
used, with the reproof administered to her laugh,
seem to have called out and strengthened her faith.
See Wordsworth, p. 84; Baumgarten, p. 207. —
A. G.] [Delitzsch closes his exposition of this pas-
sage with the suggestive words: "This confidential
fellowship of Jehovah with the patriarch corresponds
to that of the risen Lord with his disciples. The
patriarchal time is more evangelic than the time of
the law. As the time before the law, it is the type
of the time after the law," p. 286.— A. G]

2. The announcement of the judgment upon
Sodom and Gomorrah, and A-brahani's intercessory
prayer (vers. 16-32). — And the men rose up
from thence. f — The travellers depart from Hebron
in the direction of Sodom, i. e., over the mountain to
the valley of the Jordan. Abraham accompanies
them. There is a wonderful union of the state oi
visions and of the actual outward hfe. We do not
forget that this condition was habitual in the life of
our Lord, and that it is reflected in the history of
Peter (Acts, xii. 11, 12) as it is also in that of Paul.
According to tradition, Abraham accompanied them
as far as " the place Caphar-Barucha, from whence
Paula looked through a deep ravine to the Dead
Sea," " the solitude and lands of Sodom." Robin-
son thinks this is probably the present village Bni
Na'im, about one and a half hours easterly from
Hebron [" Bib. Researches," vol. ii. p. 189. — A. G.]
(VoN Ratimee, "Palestine," p. 183).— Shall I hide
from Abraham. — The reason why God would an-
nounce to Abraham, beforehand, the judgment upon
Sodom, is given in the following words. There is at
first great regard to the excellence of Abraham, but
connected with this, however, a reference to his
destination as the father of the people of promise ;
he must understand the judgments of God in th»

* [Literally, living time. Murphy : *' Seemingly thf
time of birth when the child romes to manifest life," p.
316. -A. G.]

t [Jacobus has a strt. ..(Jg note here upon the connection
of what follows with what precedes. " Tbese are only the
right and left hand movements. The records are in their
proper antithesis, as setting forth the divine character ami
counsel. The right and left hand of the Judge are for tht
opposite parties. Life eternal is for the one, and everlast-
ing punishment for the olher. " Matt. xxv. 46. All history
is full of tins antithesis. — A. G.]

CHAP. xvm. 1— xrx. ss.

43S

world, because he must understand the redemption.
[All the principles of the divine providence in its
ielations to the sins of men appear here ; his for-
bearance and patience, his constant notice, the
deciding test, and the strictness and righteousness
of the judgment, and henee Abraham is told here,
that these same principles might operate upon the
minds of the people of God in all ages. — A. G.]
For the judgment cannot be understood without the
redemption, nor the redemption without the judg-
ment. The " natural event " of Knobel thus be-
comes to Abraham and his children, a divinely-com-
prehended event, and cannot remain a dark mystery ;
it presupposes his spiritual and moral significance.
But on this account especially, the event, as a judg-
ment, is of peculiar importance, in order that, like
every following judgment, it may prove a monitory
example to the house of Abraham — the people of
God. — For I have knotm him. — Luther, follow-
ing the Vulgate, / know thai he, etc. Thus the
good behavior of Abraham is (in an Arminian way)
made the cause of the divine knowledge. But the
^sab is opposed to this. The knowledge of Jeho-
vah is fore-determined, like TrpuyiviiaKeii/, Rom. viii.
29, and thus one with the ixxi-yicrSiai, Ep. i. 4.
Keil: "In preventing love he sees (5'^"'), as in
Amos, iii. 2 ; Hosea, xiii. 5," which, however, can-
not be included in the mere acknowledgment of
Abraham. [The word includes knowledge and love.
?ee Ps. i. 6 ; xxxi. 8 ; 1 Cor. viii. 3 ; xiii. 12. Baum-
9ARTEN, p. 208. — A. G,] Kurtz explains this pas-
sage strangely. God has given the possession of the
and to Abraham, therefore he would be sure of his
lousent in this arrangement as to a part of the land.
iEiL : " The destruction of Sodom and the neigh-
boring cities should serve as an enduring monument
of the divine punitive righteousness, in which Israel
ehonld have constantly before its eyes the destruc-
tion of the godless. Finally, Jehovah unveils to
Abraham, in the clearest manner, the cause of this
destruction, that he might not only have a clear and
perfect conviction of the justice of the divine pro-
cedure, but also the clear view that when the meas-
ure of iniquity was full, no intercession could avert
the judgment. It is both for the instruction and
warning of his descendants." But still more cer-
tainly, also, at first, to give occasion to the prayer
of Abraham, and thus show to his children what
position they must take in regard to all the threaten-
ing judgments of God upon the world. — The cry
of Sodom. — It is right to refer to ch. iv. 10 for the
explanation of these words, and hence the cry which
is meant is the cry of sins for vengeance or punish-
ment. Outbreaking offences against the moral na-
ture, as murder and lusts, especially unnatural lusts,
abuse and pain nature, and so to speak, force from
it a cry of necessity, which sounds throughout the
world and ascends to heaven.* The infamy of
Podom and Gomorrah in the world, is not excluded
from this tendency and result, but forms only the
reflex, or one element of the cry. The ^S gives the
strongest emphasis to the utterance. [Baumgarten
and Keil render it indeed. The cry of Sodom, in-
deed it is great — their sin, indeed it is very grievous.
But the usual force of the "^S , for, because, gives a
good sense. It is for or because the cry is such,
that the Lord comes down to test and punish. — A. G.]

* rifc is the moral demand which sin makes for puiush-
tent. UtsH : " Kates," vol. i. p. 297.— A. G. 1

— I 'Will go down now.— The anthropomorphi*
expression includes also a divine 'bought or purpose,
Jehovah could not be uncertain whether the cry ot
Sodom and Gomorrah contained the truth, but it
was still a question whether Sodom, by its conduct
against the last deciding visitation of G-cd, woula
show that its corruption placed it beyond any help
or salvation. The translation of Luther, ''whclhei
it has done according to the cry," does not meet th(
demands of the text. It must become eviden,
through its last trial, whether it has reached the
limit of the long-suffering patience of God Thus it
is not specially to convince himself, but to introduce
the final decision. According to Delitzaoh and Keil,
the libs must be taken as a noun, as in Isa. x. 23,
not as an adverb, as Exod. xi. 1, " ilba nbS , to
bring to an end, here to denote the most extreme
corruption, in other passages used to express tha
utmost severity of punishment (Nah. i. 8 f. ; Jer
iv. 27 ; V. 10)." KeiL — I will know. — A sublime,
fearful expression of the fact, that Jehovah will at
last introduce for the godless a decisive test, which
according to their situation is a temptation, the
judgment which in their case hardens, and the judg-
ment for the hardening. It will issue at the last, as
they themselves have decided. Patience and anger
both have definite, sharp limits. — And the men. —
The two angels who accompanied Jehovah in tlie
form of men. It is observable that here it is the
men simply, and then in cb. xix. 1 it is the two an-
gels. This order presupposes a very clear conscious-
ness as to the distinction between the one chief
person and his two companions ; a distinction which
Delitzsch misses, according to his view of the Angel
of the Lord. Here, also (ver. 22), the two angels
disappear, as they go farther, while Jehovah remains
at the place, in the Angel of the Lord ; in (ch. xix.
17) on the contrary, the two angels receive an in-
crease through an undefined, but evident, new
appearance of Jehovah. It is with reference to the
later assault of the Sodomites, that the angels are
here described as men. Their departure to Sodom
is in fulfilment of the word of Jehovah : I will know.
They depart to introduce the final decision. They
depart, but Abraham remains standing before Jeho-
vah, upon that height whence the vale of Sodom
could be seen (ch. xix. 17), and addresses himself
to prayer. The Jewish conjecture, that Jehovah
remains standing before Abraham, is a wretched
way of bettering the connection, which presupposes
the distinction between the one Jehovah and the two
angels before Jehovah, — And Abraham drew
near. — The 111 5^ designates especially the nearness
to Jehovah, and more especially the venturesome
[Rather the bold. Heb. iv. 16 ; x. 22.— A. G.], me-
diating nearness in the priestly and believing dispo-
sition which the prayer implies and contains (Jer.
XXX. 21). That Abraham in his prayer thought
especially of Lot, is evident, but that he interceded
for Lot only, is an assumption which wrongs not
only the divine thought of this prayer but the text
itself. Abraham would not then have ceased with
the number ten, and his prayer also would havf
taken the form of an ambiguous circumlocution.
Keil is correct in his remark against Kurtz, A bra
ham appeals in his prayer, not to the grace of the
covenant, but to the righteousness of Jehovah. But
he is incorrect when he rejects the position of Cal-
vin : "Common mercy towards the fve rations"
impels Abraham to his prayer, and on the contrarj

436

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OP MOSES.

brings into prominence tlie love springing from
faith ; for the one of these does not exclude the
other. Luther admirably explains his heartfelt de-
sire : " He asks six times, and with so great ardor
and affection, so urgently, that in the very great and
bftiithless interest with which he pleads for the
miserable cities, he seems as if speaking foolishly."
In the transactions of Abraham with God, the press-
ing earnesiTiess on the part of Abraham, and the
fcrhearmice on the part of Jehovah, stand out in
clear relief. Abraham goes on from step to step,
Jehovah grants him step by step, without once going
before his requests. He thus draws out from Abra^
ham the measure and intensity of his priestly spirit,
while Abraham, on his side, ever wins a clearer
insight as to the judgment of God upon Sodom, and
as to the condition of Sodom itself. — The first prayer
or petition. Foolish, apparently presuming in form,
sacred as to its matter ! God, as he has known him
as the righteous one, must remain the same in his
righteousness, and cannot, in any exercise of his
punitive providence, separate his almighty power
from his righteousness. The prayer is a pious syllo-
gism. Major proposition : Jehovah cannot sweep
away the righteous with the wicked. (The emphasis
lies upon the sweeping away. The prayer itself
proves that the righteous suffer through the wicked,
indeed, with him and for him.) The minor premise :
there might be fifty righteous ones in Sodom, i. e.,
righteous, guiltless in reference to this destructive
judgment. Innocent children are indeed not intend-
ed here, but guiltless adults, who might form some
proportionate counterpoise to the rest. The coTiclic-
tion : If it should be thus, the judge of the world
could n/)t destroy the cities, for righteousness is not
the n07i plus ultra of strength, but powpr conditions
and limits itself through right. Fifty righteous, five
[twice five?] in each city (the singular is used here
because Sodom represents all the five cities, or the
pentapolis appears as one city, whose character and
destiny is decided in the conduct of Sodom) of the
pentapolis, would be sufficient salt to save the city.
Five is the number of freedom, of moral develop-
ment.— Second petition. The lowly, humble form of
the second prayer, corresponds with the bold form
of the first, for Abraham has now heard that Jeho-
vah will spare it for the sake of fifty. — I have
taken upon me (ventured) to speak unto the
Iiord. — This is not merely to pray unto the Lord.
He has ventured the undertaking, to exert a definite
influence upon Jehovah, i.e., on the supposition of a
moral and free relation, boldly he has ventured to
speak to him, although uncalled. — Which am but
dust and ashes. — Delitzsch : " In his origin dust,
and ashes at the end." Notwithstanding this crea-
ture nature, he has still ventured to place himself in
his personality over against the personality of Jeho-
vah. He has taken the step of faith across the
Rubicon, from the blind, crcaturely subjection to
Jehovah, into the free kingdom of his love. — Per-
adventure there shall lack five. — He does not
sayrPeradveuture there are five and forty righteous,
but clings to the divine concession. If it is as thou
bast said, then the want of five cannot be decisive.
The forty-five will compensate for the want of five.
— T/iird petition. Since he knew now that Jehovah
would not insist upon the five, he descends at once
to the forty, and urges still that the righteous ven-
geance should be restrained for their sakes until
perhaps they might be found. Still from this point
ot be ventures only to make the supposition, per-

adventure there are so many righteous there, with
out expressly joining to it the inference wilt thoo
not spare, etc. ? — Fourth petition. But now, afteV
the number forty is allowed, Abraham feels that he
can take a bolder step, before which, however, ht
prays that Jehovah would not be angry. Jehovah
had twice yielded the five ; he now comes to thirty,
and prays that he would at once yield the ten.—
Fifth petition. The compliance of Jehovah with
his requests emboldens him. Thus he excuses his
boldness this time by the mere consistency of his
words, as he comes down to twenty. — Sixth petitiim.
He would venture only one more request, and that
not without the deprecatory prayer: Oh, let not
the Lord be angry. — He ceases with the ten, since
less than two men to each city coiild not avail to
turn away the destructive judgment. But great a?
the interceding Abraham appears in his bold, pet
sistent progress in his petitions, he appears equally
great in ceasing when he did, although the human
motive to bring into the account Lot, his wife, his
two daughters, and his sons-in-law, and thus to go
on to the number five, was obvious and strong.
And thus there is still a distinction between the mer(
begging^ which knows no limit, and the prayer whicL
is conscious that it is limited through the moral
nature or spirit, and, indeed, by the Holy Spirit.
When Delitzsch says " that apparent commercial
kind of entreaty is the essence of true prayer — is
the sacred avalSaa of which our Lord speaks, Luke
xi. 8, the importunity (shamelessness) of faith, etc.,'
we would underscore and emphasize the apparent,
and appeal rather to the repeated asking than to the
bargaining nature, and recollect that the importu-
nity, Luke xi. 8, has its fuU authorization only in
the figure, but cannot be identified without explana-
tion, with what is analogous to it, the full joyfulness
of prayer. — And the Lord went his way : not
to avoid (as Delitzsch conjectures) further entreaties
on the part of Abraham, for Jehovah's remaining
where he was, and the joyfulness of Abraham's
prayer, stand in a harmonious relation. " The judg-
ment, which now follows, upon the five cities, shows
that not ten D^p^'ns , i. e., not sinless, holy persons,
but upright, who, through the fear of God and the
power of conscience, . id kept themselves free from
the prevailing sins and crimes of those cities, could
be found in Sodom." Keil. Delitzsch : " His
prayer, however, has not fallen to the ground." He
refers to the rescuing of Lot and his family.

3. The entrance and sojourn of the two angels in
Sodom, and the completed manifestation of its cor-
ruption in opposition to the better conduct of Lot (ch.
xLx. 1-11). — And there came two angels. —
Stier: n''Dt<ba without the article; the peculiai
personal angels who here first appear definitely in
the history of the kingdom of God, although the
idea of the angel, in its wider sense, had been in
existence since eh. iii. They arrive at Sodom at
evening, having left Hebron after midday The idea
of an actual human journey from place to place if
thus complete ; but the inmost central points of the
narrative are the two great manifestations, of which
the first was given to Abraham about midday, and
now Lot shares the second at evening. But here
the objective character of the manifestation is far
more prominent than the possession and extent of
the power to perceive the vision, for Lot did not
recognize them at first ai angels, and they appear to
have been seen by the Sodomites, unless we pi efe>

CHAP. XTm. 1— XIX. 38.

437

Ihe supposition that they had learned from Lot's
household of the two sUiiing youthful forma who
had turned in there for the night. [The term which
Lot uses in his address, ''Jns , shows that he regard-
ed them as men. — A. G.] — And Lot sat in the
gate of Sodom. — Knobel well says : " Jehovah, as
the most holy, will not enter the unholy city," while
Dehtzsch asserts " that Jehovah came in them to
Sodom." That Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, is
mentioned rather to his reproach than to praise his
hospitality. [It is a reproach to him that he is in
Sodom at all, but his sitting in the gate is not men-
tioned here as his reproach. — A. G.] He sits at the
gate in order to invite approaching travellers to a
lodging for the night, and is thus hospitable like his
uncle. Knobel remarks, ch. six. 1 : " This polite
hospitality is still practised among the Arabians ;
they count it an honor to entertain the approaching
stranger, and often contend with each other who
shall have the honor. Ta vernier, ' Travels,' i. p.
126; BuKCKHARDT, ' Bedouins,' p. 280, and 'Trav-
els in Syria,' p. 641 ff. ; Buckingham, ' Syria,' i. p.
285 ; Seetzen, ' Travels,' i. p. 400." " The gate in
the East is usually an arched entrance, with deep
recesses upon both sides, which furnish an undis-
turbed seat for the observer ; here below and at the
gate they gather, to transact business, as there are
usually also stands for merchandise in these re-
cesses, and to address narrower or wider circles upon
the affairs of the city (ch. xxxiv. 20 ; Deut. xii. 19)."
Relitzsch. — Behold noT/r, my lords (■'31N). — He
does not recognize them immediately as angels,
which is the less remarkable since the doctrine of
angels must first make its way into the world
through such experiences, and which is not excluded
by the disposition or fitness to perceive visions
(comp. Heb. xiii. 2). — Nay, but -we will abide in
the street [i. e., the open, wide place in the gate. — -
A. G.] (comp. Luke xxiv. 29). — It appears to have
been the object of the angels to ascertain the state
of the city from the street ; but Lot's hospitable
conduct seems, on the other hand, to them a favor-
able sign for the city, which they will follow. — But
before they lay down. — The wickedness of the
city immediately develops itself in all its greatness.
That the old and young should come ; that they
should come from every quarter of the city [literal-
ly the end; see Jer. H. 31. Kkil: "As we say, to
the very last man." — A. G.] ; that they assault the
house, notwithstanding the sacred rights of guests ;
that they so shamelessly avow their pederastic pur-
pose ; that they wiU not even be appeased by Lot,
to whom they once owed their salvation (ch. xiv.),
and (as one may say, preferred their demonic,
raging, unnatural lusts, to natural offences) that they
did not cease to grope for the door, after they were
stricken with blindness ; this is the complete por-
traiture of a people ripe for the fiery judgment. —
That we may know them. — A well-known eu-
phemism, but, therefore, here an expression of shame-
less effrontery. It is the mark of their depravity
that they seek pleasure in the violation of nature,
and have their vile passions excited by the look or
thought of heavenly beauty (see Gothe's " Faust,"
ii division, at the close). "The lustful abomina-
tion, according to Rom. i. 27 the curse of heathen-
ism, according to Judg. vii. a copy of demonic er-
ror, according to the Mosaic law (Lev. xviii. 22 ; xx.
13) an abomination punishable with death, here
had no mask, not even the aesthetic glory with which

it was surrounded in Greece." Delitzsch. The vic<
of pederasty was reckoned among the abominationl
of Canaan, and even the Israelites were sometimei
stained with it (Judg. xix. 22). — Behold now, 1
have two daughters. — " The Arab holds his
guest who lodges with him as sacred and inviolable,
and if necessary defends him with his life (see Ros
SEL, 'Natural History of Aleppo,' i. p. 334, etc.).'
Elnobel. " He commits sin, seeking to prevent sis
through sin." Delitzsch. Keil remarks, " his duty
as a father should have been held more sacred.'
But it may be questioned whether there is not to bo
brought into account in Lot an element of cunning
— a kind of irony — since he could reckon with cer-
tainty upon the taste for unnatural lust in ths
Sodomites (he so speaks because he knew his peo-
ple) ; or whether, rather, the important thing is not
found in the supposition that he acted in the confu
sion of the greatest amazement and anxiety.
[Which would naturally be increased if he had dis-
covered by this time that they were heavenly visitors.
— A. G.] We must take into account, in this whole
history, that a premonitory feeling of the destruction
of Sodom rested upon their minds, which had re-
leased in Lot the spiritually awakened disposition or
preparedness for desperate acts of virtue, as it had
in the Sodomites the demonic rage in wickedness ;
as the same influence has elsewhere appeared during
earthquakes and similar events. In any case Lot
could not liave miscalculated in the thought of a
stratagem in which he relied not only upon the op-
position of his sons-in-law, but much more upon the
unnatural lusts of the Sodomites.* — He will needs
be a Judge (Judge and Judge). — See the orig-
inal text. " We may thus see that there is a sting
in the words of Lot, because he would now reprove
their unnatural passions, as he had indeed done before
(see 2 Pet. ii. V)-! — We will deal worse Tvith

thee than with them " They would smite and

kiU him, but abuse his guests." Knobel. In the
words, they pressed sore upon the man, the narrator
intimates more than hes upon the face of the words.
They at the same time attempt to break through the
door. The angels interfered, and the Sodomites
were stricken with blindness. It is not natural
blindness which is meant, but the blinding in which
the spiritual power of the angels works together
with the demonic fury of the Sodomites. [ci"il:0 ,
a blindness produced by dazzling hght, probably
combining total privation of sight and a confusion
or wandering of mind. — -A. G.] It marks the excess
of their wickedness, the continuance of their abom-
ination untU the very midat of the judgment, that
they do not, even in this condition, cease from seek-
ing the door.

4. LoVs comparative unfitness for salvaiioii, hii
salvation with diffi<yulty, and the entrance of the
judgment (vers. 12-29). — And the men said unto
Lot. — They reveal themselves now as heavenly
messengers ; and no less distinctly their calling to
destroy the city and their mission to save him and
his household (any one related by marriage — son-in-

* [Only to these men do nothing. The form of the pro-
noun used, bxn , is archaic, and is used also in ver. Z5
ch. xxvi. 3, 4 ; Lev. xviii. 27 ; Deut. iv. 42 ; vii. 22 ; xii. 11.
Keil, p. 163. Therefore came they uudermyrocf; viz., foi
the purpose of security. — A. G.J

t [Baumgartenurgesthat iixbn ^233 should be renderej
" come hither," instead of "stand back," on the ground thai
this is the usual meaning of the verb, and that it gives an
equally good sense, p. 211 — A. G.]

138

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

law). We regiird the usual construction, hast thou
here any besides 7 son-in-law and thy sons,
and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast,

Ktc, as incorrect. 1. Because then son-in-law would
precede the sons and daughters, and is used in the
singular. 2. Because in the words "whatsoever
thou hast," sons-in-law, as well as sons and daugh-
ters arc included. [The probable reference is to
those in the city and not in the house — any one re-
lated to him. — A. G.] — And the Lord hath sent
us. — The Angel of the Lord never speaks in this
way. — And Lot went out and spake, etc. — There
are two explanations : 1, Tliose taking his daugh-
ters, i. e., who had taken his daughters to wife. Thus
the Septuagint, the Targums, Jonathan, Jewish in-
terpreters, Schumann, Kuobel, DeMtzsch. Accord-
ing to this explanation, Lot had, besides his married
daughters in the city, two unmarried daughters. 2.
0"'rip 5 , those about to accept ' or take, bridegrooms.
Thus Josephus, the Vulgate, Clericus, Ewald, Keil,
and others. Knobel quotes (nttsasn) ver. 15 in
favor of the first explanation; but Keil remarks
that this does not designate an opposition between
the unmarried and married daughters, but between
these and the sons-in-law who remained behind.
We may add, moreover, that there is no intimation
that Lot had warned married daughters to rise up.
— The angels hastened Lot.* — Since they were
sent to execute the destruction, there does not seem
any occasion for the haste, as if it proceeded from
some fate — from an agency beyond themselves.
But there is a threefold reason for their haste : 1.
The zeal of the righteousness of God, since the
measure of the iniquity of Sodom was fuU ; 2, their
own holy affection ; S. the connection of their mis-
sion with the preparation of the judgment in the
natural relations of Sodom. — And while he lin-
gered.— It is clear in every way that Lot, from bis
spiritless, half-hearted nature, which made it difficult
to part from his location and possessions, was res-
cued with the greatest difficulty. [The Lord being
merciful to him, literally, by the mercy of Jehovah
upon him, i. e., which was exercised towards him. —
A. G.] — And set him down. — This completes the
work of the two angels in saving Lot, and their work
of destruction now begins. — That he said (see the
remarks upon the Angel of the Lord, ch. xii.) — It
is " Jehovah speaking through the angel," says De-
litzsch. But why then does this form occur first
here? Before, the angels had said, Jehovah has
sent us. Because the approach of Jehovah is not
expressly mentioned, Keil also admits here "that
the angel speaking, speaks, as the messenger of Je-
hovah, in the name of God." Upon the gromid of
the miraculous help given to him, Jehofah calls him
now to personal activity in his own salvation. But
Lot, on the contrary, clings to the receding forms of
the two angels, and it cannot surprise us, that in his
agitation he should confound their appearance and
the voice of Jehovah — For thy Ufe.— Life and
Boul are here one, not merely according to the verbal
expression, but in the very idea of the situation ; it
includes the thought : " Save thy soul." — Look not
behind thee. — The cause is given in Lot's wife.
It is the religious expression for the desire to return,
the hesitation, the lingering, as if one could easily
hasten from the divine judgment (see Luke ix. 62).
Knobel draws analogies from the sphere of heathen

* [At the mnrving. The dawn, since the sun rose as Lot
sntc- ;d Zoar. Jacobcb : " Notes," vol. ii. p. 23.— A. G.]

religions. "In order not to see the divine provi-
dence, or working, which is not permitted the eye
of mortals. For similar reasons the ancients in
completing certain religious usages did not look
around them (p. 173)." Certainly the Lord might
take into account the holy horror in Lot at the
spectacle of the fiery judgment. Still the first word
is explained by the second : Neither stay thru in
all the plain ; and the second by the third : Es-
cape to the mountain. — It is the mountains of
Moab, on the other side of the Dead Sea, which are
intended. — And Lot said unto them: Oh, not
so, my Lord. — He could not distinguish the mi-
raculous vision of the appearance of the angels and
the miraculous report of the voice of Jehovah
which now came to him. He pleads in excuse for
his want of energy that fear presses heavily upon
him ; and fear weighs upon him because, while he
was free from the abominations of Sodom., he was
not free from its worldly mind. [?%« evil, i, e., the
destruction which was to come upon Sodom. He
feared that he could not reach the mountain.— A. G.]
Lot also now becomes, in his own interest, an inter-
cessor for others. He points to the Uttle Bela, the
smallest of the cities of the pentapolis, and thinks
it is a small matter for the Lord to grant him this as
a place of refuge, because it is so small, and there-
fore exempt it from destruction. The name Zoar
was derived from these events. " Zoar is not to be
sought in the Ghor el Mezraah, i. e., upon the penin-
sula which here stretches into the Dead Sea (see Is.
XV. 5), but rather in the Ghor el Szaphia, at the
south-eastern end of the Sea, in the outlet of the
Wady el Ahhsa. This locality is well watered and
covered with shrubs and trees at the present time,
but is unhealthy. It is inhabited and well cultivated
by the Bedouins, who have here a permanent settle-
ment; and in the winter it is the gathering place for
more than ten tribes. Thus Seetzen, Burckhardt,
Robinson." Knobel. For further references to
Zoar, see in Knobel, p. 174 ; Keil, p. 165; and the
Bible-Dictionaries. [Robinson, " Researches," ii. p.
480, 648, 661. — A. G.] — The sun was risen upon
the earth. — According to Keil, Lot was now just on
the way, but the text says expressly, that he had
entered Zoar. For the distances in the vale of Sid-
dim see Knobel, p. 176. — Then the Lord rained
[Heb. caused it to rain. — A. G.] fire from the Lord.
— The antithesis which lies in this expression, be-
tween the manifestation of Jehovah upon the earth,
and the being and providence of Jehovah in heaven,
is opposed by Keil. The iTifTi DNffl is according
to Calvin an emphatic repetition. This does not agree
with KeU's explanation of the Angel of the Lord.
Dehtzsch remarks here : There is certainly in all
such passages a distinction between the historically
revealed, and the concealed, or unrevealed God
(comp. Hos. i. 7), and thus a support to the position
of the Council of Sirmium : " the Son ol God rains
it down from God the Father." The decisive execu.
tion of the judgment proceeds from the manifesta-
tion of Jehovah upon the earth, in company with
the two angels; but the source of the decree of
judgment lies in Jehovah in heaven. The moral
stages of the development of the kmgdom of God
upon the earth, correspond with the providence of
the Almighty In the heavens, and from the heavens
reaching down into the depths of cosmical nature. —
Brimstone and fire. — Keil, in the interest of the
literal interpretation, misses here the reUgious and
symbolical expression. " The rain of brimstonf

CHAP. XTIII. 1.— SIX. 3!>.

43£

■nd fire was no mere thunder-storm, which kindled
nto a fire the ground already saturated with naphtha.
[Whatever may be the explanation of this catastro-
phe, whether we suppose, as seems most probable,
that God used natural agencies, or make more prom-
inent and exclusive the storm from heaven, it is clear
on either supposition that the event was miraculous,
the result of the direct interposition of God. Upon
the Dead Sea, the ' Notes ' of Bush and Jacobus ;
the ' Dictionaries ' of Smith and Kitto ; Robinson :
'Researches'; Stanley on 'Palestine'; and the
numerous books of travels may be consulted. — A. G.]
For it cannot be proved from such passages as Ps.
ji. 6 and Ezek. xxxviii. 22 that lightning is ever
called in the Scriptures brimstone and fire, since
these passages evidently refer to the event narrated
here. The words must be understood in an entirely
peculiar sense, that brimstone with fire, i. e., the
burning brimstone, fell from heaven, etc." But
the words thus literally understood are not brim-
stone with fire, i. e., burning brimstone, but brim-
stone and fire. Brimstone cannot mix with fire, in
the air, without becoming fire. We might, indeed,
think of burning meteors, which stood in reciprocal
relations and efiiciency with the burning gnound.
Knobel adopts the explanation of Josephus: "An-
tiq." i. 11, 4; "Bell Jud." iv. 8, 4; and Tacit..-
"History," V. 1. Fire and brimstone appear also
elsewhere as the instruments of divine punishment
(Ps. xi. 6 ; Ezek. xxxviii. 22). The author does not
point out more fuUy what was the concern of the
two angels in the destruction. But in analogous
cases, when God was about to send evil diseases or
pestilences, he used the angels as his instruments (2
Sam. xxiv. 16; Is. xxxvii. 36). Delitzsoh : "Not
only Sodom and Gomorrah, but, with the exception
of Zoar, the other cities of the pentapohs (ch. xiv.
2), as is stated Deut. xxix. 2S (comp. Hos. xi. 8), or
ds it is here, the whole circle, aU the plain, was sub-
merged in fire and brimstone ; a catastrophe which
alsoStrabo, Tacitus, and Solinus Polyhistor, fuUy
attest, and which is constantly referred to in the
later literature, e. g., Ps. xi. 6 (see Hupfield upon
this passage), even down to the Revelation." — But
his wife looked back from behind him.* —
Some conclude from this expression, that she went
behind Lot, and thus looked back. But the looking
back is plainly not more to be understood in a strict
literal sense than the account that she became a
pillar of salt. Female curiosity, and the longing for
her home at Sodom, led her to remain behind Lot,
and delay, so that she was overtaken in the destruc-
tion (see Luke xvii. 31, 32). Keil even departs
from the literal interpretation in the term, pUlar of
salt, when he explains : she was encrusted with salt ;
resembled a pillar of salt, just as now objects in the
neighborhood of the Dead Sea, are soon encrusted
from its salty evaporations. This salt-pillar is men-
tioned as still existing in the " Book of Wisdom," xi.
1, and in Clemens of Rome to the " Cor." 1 1 ; Jo-
BEPHDs: "Antiq." i. 11, 4, as that which they had
«een. The biblical tradition has here passed into a
mere legend, which points out a pillar-like salt-cone,
about forty feet high, at the lower end of the Dead

* [The word here used for look implies a deliberate con-
templation, steady regard, consideratioii, and desire ; see
Is. briii. 5. The Sept. has en-e^Aei^eF, looked wistfuU}'.
WoEBSWofiTH, p. 89. Site became, lit., she was a pillar of
tali. "The dashing spray of the salt, sulphureous rain,
leemi) to have suffocated her, and then encrusted t^r whole
lody." Murphy,— A. G.]

Sea, as this pillar of salt (see Knobel, p. ltd
Sektzen: " Travels," ii. p. 240; Lynch: "Report,"
p. 183 flf.). This salt-cone is connected with th«
salt-mountain of Usdum (Sodom). Robinson : " R&
searches," ii. p. 481-485. [Also Grove's article on
the "Salt Sea," in Smith's Dictionary.— A. G.]—
And Abraham gat up early in the morning,
[That is, the morning of the destruction. — A. G.] —
The catastrophe of the judgment was soon com-
pleted. The destruction, viewed from its universal
aspect and relations, is ascribed to Elohim. But il
is God, as Elohim also, who saves Lot, for Abra-
ham's sake (see the remarks upon his intercession).
— Out of the midst of the destruction. — A vivid
description of the salvation of Lot from the ex
tremest peril, in a place which itself lay in the skirts
of the overthrow, — a statement which Knobel, with-
out the least ground, attempts to prove differs from
the earlier account.

The destination of this judgment, whose precon-
ditions lay in the terrestrial volcanic character of the
vale of Siddim (see ch. xiv. 10), for an eternal warn-
ing to the descendants of Abraham, i. e., all the mem-
bers of the kingdom of God. appears clearly in the
constant quotation in the Holy Scriptures. Sodom
is alone named, as the most important city (Is. lit 9 ;
Lam. iv. 6 ; Ezek. xvi. 48 ; Matt. xi. 23), Sodom and
Gomorrah as the two greatest (Is. i. 9, 13, 19, and
in other passages), Admah and Zeboim (Hos. xi. 8),
and in the " Book of Wisdom " the five cities are
named in a vague and general way.

The catastrophe, conditioned through the nature
of the ground, corresponds with the divine decree
of judgment. The fundamental idea is the burning
of the earth, through the fire from heaven ; but that
an earthquake, which are frequent in Palestine, may
have been in action, and that volcanic eruptions
might have wrought together with this, is intimated
in the expression : All the plain was overthrovm.
The Dead Sea was formed through the flowing in
of the Jordan, in connection with the sinking of the
ground.

But there are two views concerning the Dead
Sea. According to one (Leake, Hoff, and others),
the Jordan before this flowed through the vale of
Siddim to the Ailanitic gulf of the Red Sea. In the
other view (Robinson and others), there was an in-
land sea, before the catastrophe of Sodom, which
forms part of the Dead Sea. For the reasons in
favor of the latter view, see Knobel, p. I'J^. A
principal reason is found in the fact that the northern
part of the Dead Sea has a depth throughout of
nearly 1300 feet, while the southern is only 13 feet
deep, is rich in asphaltum, has hot places, and is hot
at the bottom. Bunsen: " That northern basin, ac-
cording to Ritter's statement (xv. "jeV, 778), is due
to the falling in of the ground ; the local elevation
of the southern part, to the peculiar character of the
ground." Upon the Dead Sea, see Knobel, p. 177;
Kejl, p. 165 ; Delitzsoh, p. 398 ; and the Diction-
aries, especially the article " Salt Sea," in the " Bible
Dictionary for Christian People." ["The earlier view
is now abandoned, and it has no decisive ground in
the sacred history." Delitzsoh, p. 289. See also
Gkove, in S. D. p. 1339.— A. G.]

5. Lofs departure^ and his descendants (vers. SO-
BS).— And Lot went out of Zoar. — ["Lot's res-
cue is ascribed to Elohim, as the judge of the whole
earth, not to the covenant God, Jehovah, because
Lot in his separation from Abraham was removed
from the special leading ind providence of Jeho-

140

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

vail." Keil, p. 166. — A. G.] After he had recov-
ered from the paralyzing terrors which fettered him
in Zoar, a, calculating fear took possession of him
and drove him from Zoar further into the mountains
of Moab, in the east. It was an unbelieving fear,
for the Lord had granted Zoar to hiui as an asylum ;
he could not trust that divine promise further. The
result is, that, poor and lonely, he must dwell with
his two daughters in a cave in those cavernous chalk
Diountains. Lot is thus now a poor troglodyte.
" There are in that region now those who dwell in
caves and grottoes (Buckingham and Lynch)." Kno-
BEL, p. 178.— And the first-bom said to the
younger. — [Our father is old. This confirms the
assertion of St. Stephen, in which it is implied that
Abraham was not the oldest sou of Terah ; for Lot
was now old, and he was the son of Haran, and
Haran was Abraham's brother. Thus one part of
Scripture confirms another, when perhaps we least
expect it. Wordsworth, p. 89. — A. G.] The de-
sire for posterity led her to the iniquitous thought
of incest, which she believes excusable because there
is not a man in the earth, etc. According to Keil
and Knobel, they did not think that the human race
had perished, but only that there was do man who
would unite himself with them, the remnant of a
region stricken with the curse. Their idea of the
world, according to the terms of the narrative, ap-
pears to have been sad and gloomy. What did
they know of the world, in their mountain soUtude ?
This deed was worthy of Sodom, says Keil. But
there is a distinction and a wide difference between
incest and pederasty (see introduction). Knobel
thinks that they were represented by the writer as
moulded by the mother, who was probably a Sodom-
ite ; and, on the other hand, that Lot, as the nephew
of Abraham, was more favorably (i. e., partially)
represented. Every one of these points is fiction !
The narrative, Knobel remarks, lacks probability.
It assumes that Lot was so intoxicated both times
that he should know nothing of what took place,
and still, an old man should, with all this, be capa-
ble of begetting seed. Keil, on the contrary, saya
it does not follow from the text that Lot was in an
unconscious state during the whole interval, as the
Rabbins have, according to Jerome, described this
as an incredible thing, taken in connection with the
issue of the event. Indeed, the narrative says only
that Lot was in an unconscious state, both when his
daughters lay down, and when they rose up ; in the
evening perhaps through intoxication, in the morn-
ing through profound, heavy sleep. In any view, a
certain measure of voluntariness must be assumed,
according to the degree in which he was conscious
and therefore his intoxication can only be urged as
an excuse, and this a wretched excuse, since the in-
toxication was, like the deed itself, immediately
repeated. Psychologically, the reaction from great
mental effort and tension is to be taken into account
in pronouncing upon the pleasures of rest in an
Indolent and sensual nature. — Moab. — There are
two derivations: as B, /com the father, or VQ , water
(as the aemen virile is euphemistically called in
Arabic), for semen and :s< . Keil decides in favor
of the first derivation, from a reference to the ex-
planatory expressions (vers. 32, 34, 86). [And also

the analogy of the •'as-Ja . — A. G.] — Ammon

■'a?"^?, son of my people. ' According to DeUtzsch,
the form •fin's designates simply the descendants of
Wif people. For the character of the Moabites and

Ammonites, especially in r.(ference to their origin,
see Knobel, p. 178, who, however, in his usu^
method, draws the inference as above remarked, thai
this narrative has its origin in Jewish animosity.
Besides the reply of Keil [See Deut. ii. 9, 19, and
xxiii. 4. Lot here disappears from the histoiy
and, as Kurtz remarks, it is the design of this narra-
tive to give a support for the later records of th«
relation of these tribes with the Israelites. — A. G.l
Delitzsch also may be consulted (p. 401). Knobel
himself recognizes the fact of the descent of both of
these peoples from Lot. The nomadic hordes of
Lot gradually extended themselves east and north
east, and partly subdued and destroyed, and partly
incorporated among themselves, the original tribes
of the Emim and Susim.

DOCTEINAI, AHD ETHICAI,.

See the preliminary and Exegetical remarks.

1. Upon the manifestation in the oak grove of
Mamre compare ch. xii. We observe, however, that
the manifestation which was given to Abraham, was
complex, because it had reference in part to him and
the birth of Isaac, and in part to Lot and Sodom.
Hence it resolves itself, in the course of the history,
into two manifestations.

2. The connection of the promise of redemption
and the announcement of judgment, which is pecuHar
to this section, runs througbout the whole sacred
Scripture.

3. The oriental virtue of hospitality appears here
in the light of the theocratic faith, and so likewise its
blessing, which is proclaimed throughout the whole
Scripture, down even to the epistle to the Hebrews
(Heb. xiii. 2.) It is a contradiction in the natura
custom of the Arabs, that they will rob the pilgrim
in the desert before he enters their tents, but receive
him with the greatest hospitaUty, as it is generally true
that the natural virtues of people are tainted by con-
tradictions. Hospitality, however, is the specific vir-
tue of the Arab, his inheritance from his father
Abraham. But in Abraham himself this virtue ia
consecrated to be the spiritual fruit of faith.

4. The feast of God with Abraham. [How true
it is that Abraham has now become the friend of
God, James ii. 23. And what light this history casts
upon the meaning of that term. — A. G.] A New
Testament and heavenly sign, whose later reflection
is the table of shew-bread in the temple, the Lord's
Supper in the New Covenant, and the Marriage Sup-
per of the Lamb in the new world.

5. The distinction between the laughing of Abra-
ham and Sarah (see above). In ch. xxi. 6 there
appears still another, a third laugh, in order to deter-
mine the name Isaac (comp. v. 9). The laughter
of a joyful faith, the laughter of a doubting little
faith, and the laughter of astonishment or eved of
the animosity of the world, appear and participate in
the name of the son of promise, as indeed at that of
every child of the promise.

6. The initiation of Abraham into the purposes
of God. In ch. xviii. 17, "the Septus, has the ad
dition of toC ttoiSos iiov (^T3i') to b.ich "A/SpnttyU, fo.
which Philo reads toC (piKuv p.ov (comp. James, ii.
23). There is scarcely any passage in which tliis
■"nay or ■'anx (Isa. xli. 8 ; 2 Chron. xx. 7), would be
more fitting than in this. Abraham is the friend at
Jehovah (among the Moslems it has become a su^
name ; chalil Allah, or merely el-chalil, from whick

CHAP. XVm— XK. 1-8&

44

llebron a also called Beit-el-chalil, or simply El-
lOalJl), and we have no Beerets from a friend." De-
litzseh (eolnp. John xv. 15 ff). The first reason is,
that God has chosen Abraham, and that he, as the
chosen, has the destmation to found in his race for
all time, a tradition and school of the revelation of
God, of righteousness and judgment. The doctrine
of the election first appears here in its more definite
form. [God says, I know him, but also that he will
command, &c. We ought not to overlook how early
family relatione, iastructions and discipline, assume
sn unportant place in the progress of the kingdom
of God ; and what a blessing descends upon those
who are faithful as parents. "Family religion is
God's method for propagating his church. This
would lead him to exercise a careful parental au-
thority for controlling his house in the name of God."
Jacobus. — A. G.]

1. A further and more peculiar reason, why God
reveals to Abraham the impending judgment upon
Sodom, lies in this, that not only the history of So-
dom, but also the Dead Sea, should be for all time a
constituent part of the sacred history, a solemn warn-
ing for the people of God, and for all the world. At
the same time this history should make illustrious
the justice of God, according to which a people are
ripe for judgment, when a cry of its iniquity ascends
to heaven.

8. Abraham's intercession, in its strength and in
its self-limitation, is an eternal example of the true
position of the beUever to the corruption of the
world. Upon the self-limitation of intercession see
1 John V. 16. Intercession even falls away from
faith and becomes mere fanaticism or frenzy, when it
oversteps the limits of truth. Abraham's excuses in
his intercession, his pi'udent progress in his petitions,
his final silence, prove that even the boldest inter-
3e88ion is morally conditioned. On the other hand, the
whole power ef intercession and the full certainty that
prayer will be answered, appear here most clearly.
[See the 29th verse, which makes it clear that Ara-
bam's intercession was not fruitless. — A. G.]

9. It is evident from the intercession of Abraham,
that the father of the faithful had a very different
idea of righteousness from that which regards it as
consisting only in the non plus ultra of punishment.
See upon the idea of Sixato!, Matt. i. 19. Moreover,
in the reflection, the prudence, and the constancy of
the intercession, the Abrahamic or even the Israel-
itish character appears here in its true worth and in
its sanctified form, as it enters afterward in the life
of Jacob at first less sanctified, but at the same fitted
for sanctification. But in regard to the thought of
Abraham's intercession, we would make the follow-
ing remarks: 1. His intercession takes more and
more the form of a question. 2. He does not pray
that the godless should be freed from punishment,
but for the sparing of the righteous, and the turning
away of the destructive judgment from all, in case
there should be found a sufficient salt of the right-
eous among them. 3. His prayer includes the thought
that God would not destroy any single righteous one
with the wicked, although the number of the right-
eous should be too small to preserve the whole. [The
righteous, of course, are not destroyed, although they
ue often involved in the punishment of the wicked.
—A. G.l

1 0. This history makes the truth conspicuous for
ill time, that the whole depraved world is preserved
through a seed of believing and pious men, and that
indeed, not acc( rding to a numerical, but according

to their dynamic majority. Ten righteous woul«
have saved Sodom. But when even the salt of th«
earth (Matt. v. 13) does not avail to save a people oi
a community, then still God cares for the sah ation
of his chosen, as is seen in the history of Noah, the
history of Lot, and the history of the destruction ol
Jerusalem. But the relative mediators who ara
given to the world in the " salt of the earth," poinl
to the absolute mediator, Christ, who is the centra
saving point in the history of the world. [We stand
here on the verge of a most striking type of the judg-
ment. We know that the storm is gathering and
ready to burst, but in the awful silence which pre-
cedes it we hear the voice of the intercessor. Thus
while the final judgment is preparing, the voice of
the true intercessor is heard. — A. G.]

11. The Angels in Sodom. In all such cases
there must come a last final decision. See above.

12. The manifestation which was given to Lot,
corresponds with that which was given to Abraham, in
a way similar to that in which the vision of the cen-
turion, Cornelius, at Csesarea, corresponds to the vision
of Peter, at Joppa (Acts x.). The precondition for
this connection of the revelations was, doubtless, in
both cases, the mysterious bond of a common premo-
nition or presentiment of great events.

13. The sin of Sodom runs, as a general charac-
teristic, through the heathen world (see Rom. i. 24) ;
still, in this aspect some nations are far more inno-
cent or guilty than others. Church history also, ii
this connection, preserves sad remembrances. Among
the causes of the ruin of the Osmanic kingdom, this
sin stands prominent whose analogue is found in
the sin of Onan (ch. xxxviii. 8.).

14. The description of the night scene in Sodom
is a night piece of terrible aspect and impressiveness.
It is plain (from the little prospect of the mass for
the gratification of personal lusts, and from the prob-
ability that the inhabitants of the city only knew
indirectly of Lot's mysterious guests), that the uproar
of the Sodomites was more than half an uprising
against the judgment of Lot which they had already
experienced, and a tumultuous manifestation that
their abominable immorality must be held as a public
custom, of which we have a purely analogous event
in the uproar of the heathen at Ephesus (Acts xix.
28 £f). All the spirits of villainy, wantonness, and
scoffing unbeUef are to be regarded as unfettered.
The ripeness of the city for destruction, however, is
not to be viewed directly as a ripeness of the Sodon.
ites for damnation (see Matt. xi. 23).

15. The demonic and bestial nature of sin ap-
pears in this history in frightful, full life, or rather
death size. [So, also, its corrupting power. Lot fell
its influence, even though he resisted and condemned
their vile practices. The offer which he makes to
save his guests, although made under great confusion,
anxiety and terror, shows its influence. — A. G.]

16. Lot's salvation is an image of salvation with
the utmost difiieulty. But the delay of his faint
heartedness is raised to its highest power of double
heartedness in the history of his wife. She is thv
example of a worldly mind, which turns back from
the way of salvation, and through its seeking iftei
the world falls into the fire of juugE-dLt.* In this
sense the Lord has set Lot's wife as a warning example

* [The looking back shows, on the one hand, her doubl
and unbelief of the divine warning, and on the other, that
her heart was still clinging to the luats of Sodom, and tha
she was an unwilling follower of the resGUing angtls
KoETZ, p. 195.— A. Q.]

442

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

(Luke xTii. 82). We may perceire that even Lot was
sensibly depressed as to the earnestness of his faith,
through the ridicule of his sons-in-law, who regarded
him as a jester.

17. The Dead Sea serves to complete the sym-
bolic meaning which is peculiar to the whole land of
Canaan. The whole laud is an illustration of the
divine word, and of sacred history, and thus the Dead
Sea in particular, is the glass of the divine judgment.
As a monument of the miraculous judgment it stands
opposed to the Red Sea, which is the monument of
the miraculous deUverance. So, likewise, as the sea
of the old covenant, it stands opposed to Geuessaret,
the sea of the new covenant. In the description of
the Dead Sea, however, we must guard against those
ancient assumptions, of the apples of Sodom, etc., al-
though some one-sided apologies for these traditions
of the Dead Sea have appeared again in recent times.
[It is interesting to note how often this event is
referred to in the New Testament, not only directly
but incidentally. The phrases flee from the wrath to
come, unquenchable fire, the description of the sud-
denness and completeness of the judgment, and its
eternal duration in tlie smoke of their torment, which
ascendeth for ever and ever, all have a more or
less direct reference to this event. — A. G.]

18. The early rising of Abraham, his hastening to
the place where he stood before Jehovah, and his silent
look to the smoking vale of Siddim, is a sublime and
impressive picture. There stands the mourning priest,
lonely and silent in the morning light, as Jeremiah
sat upon the ruins of Jerusalem. Now he saw that
there were not ten righteous in Sodom, but knew
from the rescue of Noah from the flood, and felt con-
fident indeed that his intercession had not been in
vain.

19. In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as
in the punitive miracles in Egypt, and in the biblical
miracles generally, the correspondence between the
miraculous divine providence and the intellectual and
natural conditions upon the earth must not be mis-
taken.

20. Lot and bis daughters. It is a psychological
fact that, in human nature, especially in beginners in
the age of faith or those whose sensuous nature is
strong, after a great tension of the life of faith, of
spiritual elevation, great and dangerous reactions oc-
cur, during which temptation may easily prove cor-
rupting to the maiL

21. Moab and Amman. See the Bible Dictiona-
ries. " De Wette, Tuch, Knobel, explain the narra-
tive as a fiction of Israelitish national auimosity, &c.
(See above.) When, however, later debauchery (Num.
ii. 25) and impiety (e. g. 2 Kings iii. 26 ff ) appear as
fundamental traits in the character and cultus of both
people, we can at least hold with equal justice, that
these inherited sins came with them from their origin,
as that the tradition of their origin has moulded their
character."

22. LoCs disappearance. The chastising hand
of God is seen in the gravest form, in the fact that
Lot is lost io the darkness of the mountains of Moab,
as a dweller in the caves. But it may be questioned
whether one is justified by this, in saying that he came
to a bad end, as Delitzsoh does in a detailed descrip-
Son, after a characteristic outline by F. C. V. Mosees
(p. 400, comp. Kiel, p. 167). His not returning
poor and shipwrecked can be explained upon better
grounds. In any case the testhnony for him, 2 Pet.
ii. 7, 8, must not be overlooked. There remains one
.Ight point in his life, since he sustained the assaults

of all Sodom upon his house, in the most extreme
danger of his life. [It may be said, moreover, that hij
leaving home and property at the divine warning,
and when there were yet no visible signs of the judg-
ment, and his flight without looking back, indicate
the reality and genuineness of his faith. — A. G.]
His two-fold intoxication certainly has greater guill
than the one intoxication of Noah. His two-fold sin
with his daughters may involve greater difficulty than
the act of Judah. Both analogies show, however,
that in judging so ancient a character we may easilj
place them too strictly in modern points of view.
True, he appears, in comparison with Abraham, with
whom he once entered upon the path of the faith of
the promise, in a light similar to that in which Esau
appears in relation to Jacob. He might have suffi-
cient piety to save his soul, but he was no man of the
future, who could found a line of blessing ; he was
too much like the mass, too much under the senses,
and too much uivolved in respect to worldly things
for such a calling. " With the history of Lot," De-
LiTzscH remarks, " the side line from Haran is com-
pleted, and the origin of two people who are inter-
woven in the history of Israel is related."

23. The destruction of Sodom an example of the
later destruction of the Canaanites.

24. The prudence which, in the life of Abraham, ap
pears as a sinful prudence, and yet susceptible of bein^
sanctified, appears in the lives of his kindred as a family
trait of the children of Therah, in Lot and his daugh-
ters, as well as in Laban. But it takes on in them
the expression of refined cunning, and thus becomes
manifoldly and positively ungodly. Thus Lot himself
chose the region of Sodom ; thus he flatteringly ad-
dressed the Sodomites as brethren; thus he offers
them his daughters as a substitute, probably from an
ironical expression of a prudent foresight that they,
controlled by their demonic and unnatural lusts,
would reject his proposal : but his daughters us(
criminal cunning to obtain offspring. This incest
however, appears in a milder light when set in con
trast with the sin of Sodom.

26. Passavant. These cities are representei
throughout the old covenant as types of the most
severe judgments of God (Jer. xli. 11 ; 1. 40, etc.)
And there is again another word in the old cove-
nant, a wonderful, mysterious promise, spoken con-
cerning these places, which, at the very least, alle-
viates the eternity of the pain, and for the sake
of Jesus Christ, the only redeemer of all mankind,
abbreviates the endurance of the heavy judgments
of the poor heathen (see Ezek. xxxix. 25 ; Jer. xxix.
14; xlviii. 47; Ezek. xvi.). [The passages quoted
by no means sustain the inference which is here
drawn from them ; and the inference lies in the
face of the general and constant testimony of the
Scriptures. The words of our Lord, Matt. xl. 24,
place the destiny of these places and of the heathen
in its true light. — A. G.] That farther prophetic
vision of the seer appears to cast new light upon the
farther fate of Sodom, when he says: This water
flows out towards the east and down into the plain,
and goes into the sea (salt sea), and when it comes
into the sea its waters shall become healthful (ch.
xlvii. 8 ff'. ; 1 Pet. Ui. 19 f ; iv. 6). [The foUowing
learned and impressive note on the destruction of
Sodom, kindly furnished me by its author, -yill be
read with the deepest interest. — A. G.J

Note on the Destruction op Sodom — lis Sro
DENNESS — The Deep Impression it made on the As

CHAP. XVm.— XIX. 1-38.

44a

CIENT Mind — Its Frequent Mention in the Scrip-
fURES — Tacitds — The Ababiau Tradition. — "As
the subversion by God of Sodom and Gomorrah."
Such is the constant style of reference in the Bible.
See Deut. xxix. 22 ; Is. xiii. 19; Jcr. xlix. 18 ; Jer. 1.
40 ; Lam. iv. 6 ; Ainos iv. 11. Its ever occurring in
the same form of words, shows that it was a prover-
bial or traditional saying ; and this reveals to us how
vividly the awful event had stamped itself upon the
human memory. It is always described in language
of its own. The peculiar Hebrew word is used in
the same way of no other catastrophe. The word
riDBilia denotes utter subversion or reversal, — the
bringing of a thing, and all that belongs to it, in the
direct opposite of its former condition. Land has
become water, fertility barrenness and salt, beauty
deformity, fragrance and freshness a vile and loath-
some putridity. It is not simply decay and ruin,
but an overthrone total and remediless.

These cities are thus referred to a.s a standing warn-
ing— a judgment of God visible from generation to
generation. It is a region euraed by the Almighty, —
doomed ever to bear the marks of its dreadful visita-
tion, to which Peter refers, 2 Pet. ii. 6, koX iroAei j 'Z0S6-
fiup Kal rofL6^pas Tecppdtaas KATASTPO^H KtniKpt-
iiiv, uiro5ei7/ia reAfiKcis: "the cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah he condemned with an overthrow, when he
reduced them to ashes and set them forth as an ex-
ample." The Greek word katastrophe is the exact
counterpart of the Hebrew JlDsna, having the same
pecuUar intensity of meaning as used in this connec-
tion. In Jude 7. the language is still stronger —
irpoKeivTat Se^y/xa irvphs aiwfiov: " they are set forth
as an example, undergoing (^utrexovfrai) the sentence
of eternal fire." This eternal fire does not mean the
punishment of the inhabitants in another world (though
the event itself may be regarded as the first type of
Hell, the first suggestive glimpse to the human mind
of that awful doctrine), but has primary reference to
their long earthly desolation. The language most
graphically expresses the condition of those doomed
plains, as showing the signs of their fearful burning,
age after age, a7r* alwi'O^ ets aXwva,

These regions were very near to Jerusalem, al-
most if not quite visible from the highest places ; and
this accounts for the prophet's frequent appeal to
them, eis Sely^a, et in terrorem. How fearful is the
allusion to it made by Ezekiel, xvi. 46 ; where the
adulterous Judah is told to remember the startling
proximity of this her younger or smaller sister, so early
buried in volcanic fires : " Thine elder sister, Samaria,
that dwelleth on thy left (the N. W.), and thy smaller*
Bister, Sodom, and her daughters (the other cities of
the plain), that lie upon thy right." How awful the
reminiscence of this lost sister Sodom lying for so
many ages under the sulphurous waters of the Dead
Sea, with all the burnt district a short distance to the
right of Jerusalem, and ever presenting that terrific
warning, the Seiy^o nvphs aiaviov, to the oft rebel-
lious city.

We find elsewhere evidence of the deep impression
this early divine judgment made upon the ancient
aiind. The language of Tacitus, Hist. v. 1, could
only have come from some vivid tradition prevailing
k the East and brought thence to Rome ; Haudpro-
cal iade campi, gitos fenmt olim uberea, magmU que

* naopn nmnx . The term generally denotes
juniority, and it may be so literally taken here, since the
origin of Jerusalem may have been historically older than
Ibat of Sodom.— I. Ul

urbihut habitatos, fulminpm jactu arsisse, et manert
vestigia terramque ipsam specie torridam vim frugi
feram perdidisse ; nam cuncta atra et inania nelut in
CINEREM vaTiescuTit. Ego, sicvt inelitas quondam ttrbea
IGNE CGELESTi Jlagrosse eoncesserim, etc. There \i
something in the language strikingly resembling that
of Peter and Jude. Compare lAdtasi' fulminumjactu
arsisse — igTie coslesti jiagrasse — manere vestigia^ with
the hiiyfia -nvphs aiuviov, and in cinerem with Topp^
aas. They appear to be the set terms in all descrip-
tions. Nothing but an early, most vivid impression
could have produced such fixedness and vividness in
the language of the tradition.

The same feature of constancy in terms for which
no others could be an adequate substitute, appears
remarkably in the notices of the Koran, which strong
internal evidence shows must have come from tradi-
tion independent of the 0. T. scriptures. It mani-
fests itself especially in one word ever found in con

nection. It is the Arabic t:ijLxiJ'.^Jt, which is

etymologically, the same with the Hebrew ^ssna ,
and used in a similar manner as a participial noun.
The peciiliarity, however, is, that in the Arabic the
primary sense which belongs to it in this connection
had long ceased, so that no traces of it are anywhere
else found, even in the remains which we have of
ante-Mohammedan writing. Both the form and the
pecuUar sense have become obsolete in all other ap-
plications of the root. In this recurring phrase, aa
used of these ancient cities, it has acquired something
like the force of a proper name as a well known ap-
pellative, taking its place along with Midian, Egypt,
Hud, Thamud, and other names of places that tra-
dition gives as having been specially visited with the
divine vengeance. Thus Sodom and Gomorrah are
ever called Al-mow-ta-fe-kat, " the overturned." As
in Koran Surat, liii. 51-55, where it occurs with
others given as proper names: "And that he de-
stroyed Ad, and Thamud, and left no remainder;
and also the people of Noah before them, and the
Mow-ta-fe-kat (the overturned) he cast down, and
that which covered tbem covered them." The last
clause of this passage is meant to be intense in its
repetition : that is, there is no conceiving the horrors
under which they lay ; " that which covered them
covered them,"— no tongue can tell it. So, also,
Koran Mx. 9 : " thus went on Pharoah and those
who were before him, the Mow-ta^fe-kat (the over-
turned), in their sin." Thamud and Ad, as usual, had
been mentioned just before. The constant introduc-
ing of the Mow-ta-fe-kat along with these, which are
peculiar Arabic traditions, shows that the story of the
" overturned " cities had a common origin with them,
and was not derived from the Hebrew scriptures.

The usage appears still more clearly, Koran ix.
Tl, where the term in question occurs in connection
with the people of Ad, and the wicked in the daya
of Abraham, who is the peculiar Mohammedan patri-
arch; "Did there not come to them the story of
those who were before them — the people of Noah
and of Ad, and of the people of Abraham, and of
the inhabitants of Midian, and of ' the Overturned
(the Mow-ta-fe-kat), whose messengers came unto
them with their prophecies ? " Now what makes
this the more striking is the fact (as before indicated)
that although the Arabic root, a5ot) <"■ tiSiAJB,
is, in all other cases (and these are quite frequent),
used solely in its secondary meaning of falsehood
(coming from the primary sense of subversion, ttim

444

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSER

iry iipsile down, through the intermediate ideas of
contrariness or opposition, ab invertendo, perverten-
do), in these special usages from the Koran, and
oihers like them, the word ever goes back to its
primitive Hebrew sense, being taken precisely as
"[Bn and riDSnia in the Bible. If the Hebrew verb
had had a hoth-pa-hel form, its participle, "2^!^"' i
moth-hap-pek = motaffek, would be almost identical
with the Arabic word so constantly used for this
purpose (in this sense) and for no other. Evidently
it was au archaism in the days of Mohammed, and
this accounts for its being used as a proper name, in
which form it had become fixed against change and
substitution. The root is used in the same manner
throughout the Syriac version, but in this branch of
the Shemitic it had, in all its appMcations, kept
nearer to its old primary sense preserved in the
Hebrew.

What shows that it was an antique phrase in
Arabic, or that (^Jot (or "jsn) had lost the sense
of subversion in all other appUcations, and that its
employment as a proper name in this particular con-
nection came from traditional preservation, is the fact
that even in translating ttie Old Testament, the Jew-
ish Arabic interpreters never use it, — not even in
those places where the Hebrew ^sn and nssna
would have immediately suggested it as the more
fitting word ; and this, too, notwithstanding that
they frequentlv give to an Arabic term a rarer He-
brew sense. Thus Rabbi Saad does not employ it
in this very passage, Isaiah xili. 19, but uses, instead,
the more common Arabic verb, v_>»Ls, to express
the sense of overturning which is given by JiDsnia ;
'i\y^^ *.tX-wu «JJI wi-^' U^- Now in the
Arabic verb ij5sst , the letter n (or iO) of the He-
orew has been softened into X , but there can be no
doubt of the two words being etymologically identi-
cal. So, too, in the Koran, sometimes, the Hebrew

sense of the antique Arabic SXaJ'«^I, is clearly
given in different and more common Arabic words.
As In Surat xv. 73, 74, where, speaking again of
this very judgment, and the manner of it, it says ;
"And a sudden storm took them at sunrise, and
•we made the highest parts of it to be the lowest,
Lg.LiLwu LajJLc- LlAjl^ (that is, we turned it
apside down), and we rained upon them stones of
ouming marl " — a volcanic earthquake and a lava
ehower.

This standing epithet occurs, Lam. iv. 6, in the
same connection and in the same way ; that is, in
the nature of a proper name, though there it has
the form of the participle perfect of ^a"l. It is
flSIDnn dSd , " Sodom the overturned." Our
English translation of the whole passage is far from
being clear : " Greater than the punishment of the
sin of Sodom which was overthrown as in a moment,
and no hands stayed on her": 0"T^ B3 >;bn Kb .
In this passage there is an uncertainty as to the ety-
mology and meaning of the word ilbn, but that
Interpretation is to be preferred which is most in
keeping with the ideas of suddenness, or quick
tlarm, th.U make st graphic a feature in all allusions
to the event, whether Hebrew or Arabic Gesenius
makes ibn from b^n (torquere), and gives it the
lense : non immisste sunt mantis, " no hands were

sent upon, or against her " — mea;ung, hands of tht
enemy. Rabbi Tanchum's Arabic commentary is to
the same effect ; " Of Sodom it is said here, that
there did not come upon her the hand of man, but
she was overturned, at one blow, by the divine com-
mand ; the word being the same as that in Jer. xxiii.
19, ' on the head of the wicked shall rush (blH^)
a rushing tempest, bbinra "ISO (a whirlwind slun^
or hurled), and also as found Eccles. v. 12, 16
flbin tlV~i SJ|^, there is a sore evil (an impend-
ing or threatening evU) that I have seen under the
sun."

It may be a question here, however, whether
D^li refers to the hands of the enemy, or to the
hands of the inhabitants of the doomed city. If we
place the accent on the ultimate, ibn may be from
nbn , and this would give us the rendering, " when
no hands were weak in her" — that is, suddenly,
when they were in their full strength and security.
Or the same general idea mav be obtained from
bin , if we advert to its primary sense, which wo
find very clearly in the Arabic ij\jSf . It is a curv-
ing motion combined with the spiral or oblique
Hence the sense of pain as expressed by twisting,
wringing (torquere). It is used to denote the most
intense anguish, the wringing of the hands in de-
spair; which is the language "mployed by the
Peschito Syriac ver.''ion to render furopla (distress or
perplexity), Luke xxi. 25. No bauds were wrung
in her. So sudden was the storm that there was no
time for lamenting over their doom.

All this, too, is expressed by the way in which

the frequent Koranic word, »^ . .^ , is used when
sudden judgments are described, and especially this
particular event. It is rendered sometimes, punish-
ment, or pain. It is also used of the crash of the
thunder, fragor tonitru ; but in its most literal
sense it denotes one sharp cry or shriek. Or it may
be rendered, a shock. Thus in the passage before
quoted, Surat xv. 73 : "a sudden storm or shock
took them at sunrise " (comp. Gen. xix. 23). The
same, verse 83 of the same Surat, " took them early
in the morning." Though literally denoting one
sudden scream of terror, it is taken for the cause,
the thunderstorm or earthquake that produces it.
Thus is it most impressively employed to represeut the
suddenness and surprise of the judgment that came
upon those people of Lot, as the Sodomites are styled,

^1^ ^ LgJ U stX&.|^ JLsVuya ^1 Lo,

" only one shock ; there was in it no waiting," no
recovery. Or it may be rendered, " only one cry,
and all was over." The remedilessness, as well as
the suddenness, is still more graphically set forth in
the use of similar language, Surat xxxvi. 25 : "Lo,
one cry, and they are all still " — literally, iwrni out,
..j.JooLi*-, extinguished, dead. So, again, Surat

liv. 31 : " Lo, we sent upon them one shock (one
shriek) and they are all burnt stubble." In the same
manner is it used of the day of judgment, xxxvi.
53 : " One shock, or one cry, and they (the risen
dead) are all before us." For other similar passages
with similar applications, see Koran, xi. 70, 97 ;
xxiii. 43 ; xxix. 39 ; 1. 41 ; xv. 78, 83 ; Ixiii. 3.

In the most express terms do the Scriptures
assign this catastrophe of Sodom and Gomorrah to
the judicial action of God, the Lord of nature. Nc

CHAP. XVHI.— XIX 1-88.

445

language can be clearer: "Jehovah rained upon
them fire from Jehovah out of heaven," Gen. xix. 24.
And yet, in perfect consistency with this, may we
regard it as brought about by natural causes, though
belonging to those great movements in nature which
marked the primitive period of our present earth,
or before its constitution became settled in that
comparative calm which leads the scoifer to say that
" aU things continue as they were from the begin-
ning." This fearful nsBflO , or overthrow, has im-
pressed indelible " vestigia " (to use the language
of Tacitus) on the region in which it took place ; but
no less sharp and incisive are the marks it has left
in the Oriental traditions, and the peculiar language
to which it has given rise in them all. It sent one
sharp cry through the ancient Eastern world, and
that cry has echoed down to us through other chan-
nels than the Hebrew Scriptures. On this account
has the peculiar language employed been so minutely
traced, as furnishing evidence of the rjinute credi-
bility of aa event so ancient, and of the strong
impression it must have made at the time. It was a
divine judgment, a divine revelation in the earth,
too awful and too unmistakable to allow much
diversity of language in describing it, and it is this
constant manner of telling the fearful story which
separates it widely from the shadowy and changing
mythical, with which some would compare it. —
T. L.]

HOMTLETICAIi AND PEACTICAIi.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs.

The xviiith ch. Abraham, the xixth Lot. Promi-
nent points in Abraham's liife: 1. the great vision;
2. the feast of the angels ; 3. the faith in the promise ;
4. the intercession for Sodom. Prominent points in
the life of Lot : 1. the entertaining of the angels ; 2.
the moral resistance of the assault of the whole city
of Sodom ; 3. his faith, and his mission to his two
sons-in-law; 4. his emigration with his family in dis-
tress, before the judgment. The revelation of grace
and of wrath. — The connection of the announcement
of salvation with the announcement of judgment. —
The oak grove of Mamre, and the burning Sodom. —
As Abraham saved Lot the first time through war,
BO the second time through his intercessory prayer. —
Abraham and Lot in their different positions. — In
their last position with respect to each other (Abra-
ham the friend of God, Lot the fugitive from Sodom,
etc.). — The connection of the manifestation to Abra-
ham and Lot. — The great manifestation of God, in the
life of Abraham, in its great significance : 1. A reve-
lation of the incarnation of God, of the future Christ,
and at the same time of the angelic world ; 2. a reve-
lation of the great sign of the coming redemption,
and of the coming judgment.

1. Section, The appearance of Jehovah in the
oak grove of Mamre, and the promise of the birth of
haac (ch. xviii. 1-16). The great manifestation of
God, in the life of Abraham, is the most striking sign
in the old covenant of the incarnation of God. — The
feast in the oak grove of Mamre ; a sign of the incar-
nation of God. — Abraham in the oak grove of Mamre ;
great in his power of intuition, and great in his activ-
ity — Herein, also, a type of Christ. — As in all great
characters, the contrasts of nature are here reconciled
and removed. — Abraham's hospitality as to its pecu-
liar traits. — The real method and spirit of hospitaUty
lonsists alone in this, that in or with the stranger we

receive the Lord himself. — How well love and hu.
mility qualify Abraham to be the giver of the feast,
the one who makes ready the meal and then stands
and serves. — Sarah as the housewife. — Sarah's doubt-
ing laughter, and believing astonishment. — Ver. Id.
The promLse of Isaac : 1. a promise; 2. an endless hil
ness and succession of promises. — Sacred oak grove :
sign of the sacred temples, especially of the Gothic
Cathedral, — the sacred feast, sign of the most sacred
meals. — Abraham's friendship with God as hospital-
ity: 1. God as the guest of Abraham in this world ; 2.
Abraham as the guest of God in the other world (to sit
down with Abraham, Abraham's bosom). — Starke:
Ver. 1 (The manifestation of the Son of God, at first,
is not through a natural nor even through a personal
union, but through a voluntary and casual union,
since he took from his free love a body, or rather the
form of a body, for u time). — To this person are
ascribed divine works, omnipotence (vers. 10, 14),
omniscience (ver. 13), the power to execute judg-
ment (ver. 25). — The virtue of hospitaUty is becoming
to Christians, and should be practised especially by
believers and the pious (Heb. xiii. 2 ; Is. Iviii. 7 ; 1
Pet. iv. 9 ; Job xxxi. 32 ; Rom. xii. 13 ; Gal. vi. 10);
but still they must use circumspection here also. — We
should not permit strangers to rest in the streets, but
receive them and show them kindness and help (Eom.
xii. 13), to which now innkeepers are in a peculiar
sense obliged (Luke x. 34, 35). — Ver. 15. From the
fact that Sarah makes no further reply, but receives
her rebuke patiently, we may see that she recognizes
her fault, and that God had rebuked it, hence she
also is graciously preserved, that she should be at
the same time the type of the free New Testament
Church (Gal. iv. 22, 27, 31) and the mother of believers
(1 Pet. iii. 6). How severely, on the other hand, Zach-
arias was chastised for his unbelief (see Luke i. 20.) —
A Christian must never measure the promises of God
by what seems good to him, but give to the powei
of God the preference over his reason (Zech. viii. 6 ;
Luke i. 37 ; 1 Pet. iii. 6). — Gerlaoh : In regard to
Sarah. Even her unbelief which lay concealed within
her, must be brought out into the light, since it was
now designed to confirm her confidence in the prom-
ise, which should not be fulfilled without her faith. —
ScHEonER, (Luther) : Now there is hospitality in aU
places where the church is. She has always a com-
mon purse and storehouse, according to Matt. v. 42,
and we should all so serve her, and furnish her, not
only with doctrine but also with kindness, so that
the spirit and the flesh may here at the same time find
refreshment and consolation (Matt. xxv. 35, 40). —
Rambach: Ver. 8. As Abraham's tent is here the
house in which the Son of God and his angels are
entertained, so is his bosom the common place of
rest for the blessed in the other world (Luke xvi. 22).
— The power and susceptibiUty for intuition, and
the absorbing and even careful attention to busi-
ness, which were separated in Mary and Martha (Luke
X. 39), are here seen united in the same person. —
That they must necessarily eat, would be in opposition
to their spiritual nature, but the power to eat was given
with the human form. — Ver. 9. Now follows, as
Luther says, the table talk, that nothing might be
wanting in this description, and that the whole world
might know that this feast was not so passed as
among the monks, who must keep silence at th»
table.

2. Section. The revelation of God concerning
Sodom, and Abrahamh intercessory prayer (vers. 16-
33). — 1 The communing of God with himself befor<

44ti

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

the revelation (ver. 18), or the revelation of God
throughout the fruit of the highest divine purpose, as
the creation of man ; 2. the reason for this revela-
tion (ver. 19); 3. its contents (vers. 20, 21); 4. its
results : a. the departure of the men to the judgment
(ver. 22) ; b. the intercession of Abraham (vers. 23-
30). — Abraham the friend of God (child of God, ser-
vant of God, the intimate confidant of God). — The cry
of the sin of Sodom. — The intercession of Abraham for
Bodom as the first long prayer and intercession com-
municated to us : 1. awakened or animated by the
consciousness of salvation which was given to him ;
2, as a pattern for all intercessory prayers, — The
great importance of intercession. — Its features: 1.
The boldness of faith ; 2. caution in the fear of God ; 3.
truthfulness of love. — Even the apparently unavailing
intercessions are not in vain. — Starke : Ver. 20.
They (the Sodomites) went so far that the greatness
of their sin had become a proverb (Is. 1. 9 ff.), and
therefore they were destroyed 400 years earlier than
the Canaanites. — The sins crying to heaven are espe-
cially, in the Holy Scriptures: 1. the shedding of
innocent blood (ch. iv. 10 ; Job xvi. 18) ; 2. the
sin of Sodom ; 3. the oppression of the people of
God (Ex. iii. 7), especially of widows and orphans.
(Ex. XX. 22, 27; Sirach. xxxv. 19); 4. the withhold-
ing of the hire of the laborer (James v. 4). — There-
fore he could not understand by the righteous little
children; for, although they are not righteous in
their natural state, they could not have committed
sins crying to the heavens. — They were, however,
included with those destroyed, without, it may be
hoped, any injury to their blessedness, or (so will it
be added by some in an uncertain way) because God
saw that they would tread in the footpaths of their
fathers. [But the Scriptures never allude to this
knowledge of God as the ground of his acts, either
saving or destructive. — The same event bears a very
different aspect and meaning as sent to the wicked
and the good, e. g., death. So with these judgments.
— A. G.] The nearer Abraham comes to God in
his prayers and intercession, the more clearly he
recognizes his nothingness and entire unworthi-
ness. A glorious fruit of faith. — ^The people of So-
dom, indeed, could not think what was determined
in the purpose of the watchers concerning them, and
how Abraham stood in the breach. — Ver. 32. This
/ will is here repeated six times, to intimate the truth
of God, his earnest will, that he does not will the
death of the sinner, but rather that he should turn
unto him and Uve (Ezek. xviii. 11, 32). — Bib. Tub. :
Intercession for a brother hehever, even for the god-
less, a Christian duty. — Mark this, ye godless, that ye
and the world stand only for the sake of the righteous.
— We must come before God with the greatest rever-
ence, and in the deepest humility of heart how our-
selves before his sacred majesty. — The righteous are
highly esteemed in the sight of God. — Gerlach:
Ver. 19: Abraham, I have known him, i. c, chosen
in my love. As Amos iii. 2 ; John xvii. 3. Ver. 23.
The righteous who dwell together with the godless
in any place, restrain the judgments of God. — ZiN-
ZENnoRF : I cannot tell in terms strong enough the
blessed privilege of speaking with our Lord. — Cal-
WER HANnBOOH: But in this prayer lie concealed
deep mysteries, which render conspicuous to us the
worth and importance, in the sight of God, of the
righteous in the world, and on the other hand helps
to explain the wonderful patience and long suffering
of God towards the evil, and even towards heaven
crying sinners. — Schroder : Calvin : If, therefore,

oftentimes temptations contend in our hearts, and
things meet us, in the providence of God, which seem
to involve a contradiction, let the conviction tf his
righteousness still be unshaken in us. We must
pour into his bosom the cares which give us pain
and anxiety, that he may solve for us the difiicultiei
which we cannot solve.— Passavant : When I othe"
wise can do nothing, when I am without any influ
ence, and free access, without any means or an)
power, then still I may do something through the in
tercessory prayer.

3. Section. The entraTice and !tojourn of the
angels in Sodom, and the final manifestation of Us
depravity, in contrast with the better conduct of Lot
(ch. xix. 1-11). There are parts of this section
which do Tiot seem fitted for pubUc reading and
homiletical treatment. But the examination of the
whole history may be joined, by practical and homi-
letical wisdom, to the section, vers. 1-3. — How ain
is radically a beginning of the most extreme corrup-
tion : 1. it is against nature, and tends to the most
unnatural abominations ; 2. a delusion, which tends
to fury and madness ; 3. an act of disobedience,
which issues in rebellion against God ; 4. an impu-
dence and falsehood, tending even to blasphemy. —
Hellish night-scenes in the earUest antiquity. — The
blinding of the godless that they could not find what
they sought. — Starke : (It is incredible that Lot, as
the Rabbins think, sat in the gate to judge (Deut.
xvi. 18) and had been a judge in Sodom.) — A Chris-
tian must behave towards every one, especially
towards the pious, with humility and reverence
(Rom. xii. 10). — The holy angels dwell cheerfully
with the pious. — Ver. 5. (Lev. xviii. 22, 24; xx. 13.)
Has not experience shown, that if here and there
songs and prayers have been offered in a home at
evening by devout persons, there have been those
who have run together before the windows and
made them the matter of sport ancl ridicule, while
on the other hand, in other homes every kind of
night revel has been endured and approved. — Ver.
8. The offer of Lot did not spring from evil, but
from the greatest confusion and alarm ; still he did
wrong (Rom. iii. 8 fif). We see from this : 1. that
Lot is not to be praised as some have thought (Am-
brose, Chrysostom) ; 2. that he was not guilty of a
sin which removes him beyond the grace of God. —
Ver. 9. An unreasonable reproach. Had there
been now ten such strangers in Sodom, they would
not yet have been destroyed. — The gracious requital.
Lot ventured all to preserve his guests ; now he ex-
periences how he is saved by them.* It belongs to
no man to prevent a greater sin by a lesser. —
Whoever will judge and punish the rough world,
must be a disturber and excite an uproar. — Godless
people are only hardened the more, through kind and
gracious warnmgs. — Woe to him whom God strikes
with spiritual blindness. j- — Gerlach : The very na-
ture of the trial which God adopts consists in this,
that he honors to the very last the Uberty lent by
him to the creature, and does not punish to destruc-
tion until the most extreme abuse of freedom has
been made evident. — Calwer Handbuch: Sins and
shameful vices appear in their fullest disgracefulness
in the night. — Lot appears, also, to have before
rebuked their sinful movements, wherefore they
reproach him, the stranger, with a lust of power —

* [God's people are safe when angela stand sentn£S at
the doors. Bush.— A. G.]

t [It is the use of God, to hlind and besot thofle whom hi
means to destroy. Bp. Hall ; Bush. — A. G.]

OHAV. xvm.— xrs. i-ss.

447

T.ie nearer the judgments of God, the greater the
Bccurity of sinners. [The scriptural signs that the
judgment is near are : 1. that God abandons men or
communities to out-breaking and presumptuous
"ins ; 2. that warnings and chastisements fail to
produce their effect, and especially when the person
grows harder under them ; 3. that God remOTes the
good from any community — so before the flood, so
before the destruction of Jerusalem ; and, 4. the
deep, undisturbed security of those over whom it is
suspended. — A, G.]

4. Section. LoVs salvation. Sodom's desfritction
(vers. 12-29). Lot's rescue from Sodom: 1. his
obedience. The first message of deliverance (rers.
12-14). 2. Then, even, scarcely saved, on account
of his delay and fears (vers. 15-22). — The test of
Lot in the judgment of Sodom: 1. Saved, indeed,
but, 2. scarcely saved, and that with difficulty.
Urged, importuned by the angels. Paralyzed by
his terror in the way. His wife lost. [Almost saved,
and yet lost. — A. G.] His daughters. — In the his-
tory of Lot, also, the unity of the family is again
illustrated; 1. In its great importance; 2. in its final
extent. — Ver. 15. The danger in delaying the flight
out of Sodom, i. e., of conversion, or also of separa-
tion from the society of the wicked. — Starke: (Ver.
12, It may be what belongs to thee, and conld there-
fore relate to his possessions, especially his herds.
Still, some doubt, and think that he bore away as a
gain or spoil only his own life and the lives of his
family, while he must have left the herds behind in
his haste.) — ^Ver. 14. Acts xvii. 18. — Sodom a type
of the spuritual Babylon (Rev. xi. 8). — Whoever will
aot be borne away and crushed with the godless, he
must early and cheprfuUy separate himself from
them, while he has time and leisure * (Rev. xviii. 4).
— Ver. 16. God shows his goodness not only to the
pious, but to those who belong to them. — Upon ver.
21. How God excuses the weakness of the believer.
If he walks with God in uprightness. f — As Zoar was
spared at the intercession of Lot, so afterwards the
house of Laban was blessed for Jacob's sake, and
Potiphar for the sake of Joseph, the widow's meal-
chest and cruse of oil for the sake of Ehjah. — That
Zoar was made better by the recollection of the ter-
rible overthrow of the cities may be inferred from the
fact that it was still standing at the time of Isaiah (Is.
XV. 5). — ( A comparison between Sodom and Rome in
eight particulars : beautiful region ; security ; iniqui-
ties crying to the heavens ; the true faith persecuted ;
announcement of its judgment (Rev.) ; the rescuing
if the pious; punishment by fire; the rising of the
sun ; the enlightening of the Jews, etc. H. 0. Ram-
bach.) — (The Dead Sea: Troilo and others say: I
could compare it only with the jaws of hell.) — The
fearful judgment upon Lot's wife : 1 . She died imme-
diately ; 2. in her sins ; 3. an unusual death ; 4.
remained unburied, an example of the vengeance
of God.— Luke vii. 32, 33 ; ix. 62.— Ver. 28. It is
ca.m, pleasant weather with the children of God,
Hhen it storms with the godless (Exod. x. 22, 23 ;
Pa. xxxii. 10). — Gerlaoh: A living type of those
wliom the messenger of the Lord warns before the
future punishment (Luke xvii. 28, 29). — The word :
Itute and escape for thy life ; this is the deep imder-

• [" The man wtio will not consnltfor his own safety, and
who, even being warned to beware, yet esjposes himself by
his sloth to ruin, deserves to perish." Calvin. — A. G.]

t [It is no new thing for the Lord to grant sometimes,
aE an indulgence, what he does not approve. Calvin. See
Jacobus —A. (J.l

tone of love, which is heard through all preaching of
the gospel. — Calw. Hand. : The mercy of the Lord
saves Lot and his family, as a brand plucked from
the burning. Until Lot is saved the Lord himself
restrains his hand. — Schwenke: Ver. 15. The deep
impression which the declaration of the near judg
ment made upon him was greatly weakened by tha
mocking words of his sons-in-law ; he delays, waits,
puts off. "Flesh and blood, and the clinging to the
beautiful city, struggle with oViedience to the revela-
tion from God. — Schroder : The entrance of Lot
into the vale of Siddim corresponds to his exodus
(Baumgarten).* — How the first universal judgment
of the flood, like the partial judgment upon Sodom
and Gomorrah, serves in the Scriptures as an exam-
ple and type of all the divine judgments, and espe-
cially of the last judgment (Luke xvii. 28 ff. ; 2 Pet.
ii. 6, etc.). — Heuser: Destruction of Sodom: 1. A
judgment from heaven ; 2. a sign for the earth. —
Taube : The eternal righteousness of God in the
judgment upon Sodom and Lot's wife. The free
mercy of God in saving Lot and his family,

5. Section. Lo^s disappearance and his descend-
ants (vers. 30-38). The 30th verse is alone fitted
for public use. But from this a faint light may be
thrown upon the whole night-scene. Lot's disap-
pearance as a dweller in caves. — Lot's history illus-
trates the truth, that whoever will build a house,
must count the cost; 1. His inspired exodus from
Haran with Abraliam, and journey through Canaan
to Egypt,-with ever-increasing wealth ; 2. his settle-
ment in the valley of Sodom ; 3. his a-sylum in
Zoar; 4. his disappearance from the scene in the
eaves of the mountains. — How should the pious feat
temptations when the mind is unbent after extreme
spiritual tension. — Man falls easily into the sins of
the flesh when the ideals of his intellectual life are
dissolved and lose their power. f — Ruth a Moabitess.
— Starke : Lot's daughters. The reason which
moved them was rather a groundless prejudice than
wantonness of the flesh. (Anxiety lest the human race
should perish. It may be, also, that they were only
Lot's step-daughters, if he had married in Sodom a
widow who was the mother of two daughters). —
Cramer : Loneliness in retired places aUures not
only to good, but also, and much more, to great sins
(Eccles. iv. 10). — Whoever will avoid sin must avoid
the occasions which lead to it. — [Strong drink the
fruitful source of untold degradation and sins. — A.
G.] — Gregory I. : There was a moral sense in Lot,
but it was confused and disturbed. Intoxication de-
ceived Lot, who was not deceived in Sodom ; the
flames of lust burn him, whom the flames of sulphur
did not burn. — Luther : Some think that Lot died
soon after, from distress and sorrow, before hia
daughters were delivered, because otherwise he
would not have consented that names should be given
the children constantly reminding him of his in
cest. — He who was not deceived in Sodom, drunken-
ness deceived ; who in Sodom, the very school of
unchastity, had Uved chastely, in the cave was guilty
of incest ; suffered shipwreck in the harbor. — Ruth
a Moabitess. We may infer from Is. xi. 14 ; Jer.
xWii. 47 ; Dan. xi. 41, that there will be, besides,

* [The beauty and fruitfulness of nature attracted Mm,
and he chose it without thinking whether it would work
injury to his soul. The same power now prevents hin. from
earnestly heeding the salvation of his soul. Baumgabtzn,
p. 213.— A. G.]

t [" Those who have been wondrously preserved froze
temporal destruction, may shamefully fall into sin." Ja
cobus. — A. G '

448

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

some conversions from the Moabites to Christ. — The
children of Ammon were characterized by similar
Bins with those of their brother Moab, and therefore
have a similar future. — Drunkenness is the way to
all bestial lusts and acts. — (Holy descendants from
polluted beds. Judg. xi. 1 ; Heb. xi. 32.)— Scheodee :
The thought that they should remain alone in case
of their father's early death was one to them very
hard to bear. Then, indeed, they would be entirely
helpless and without protection in the wide world.
If no husband was granted to them, they would at
least have children, sons, who could give protection
and help. — i^Berl. Bibel. : The following riddle has
been constructed from the history: My father, thy

father, our children's grandfather ; my husband, tby
husband, the husband of our mother, and ye(
one and the same man.) — Baumgakten : This is th«
crime of Lot's daughters, that to secure descend-
ants, and those of pure blood, they thought incest a
small offence. — Herbergeb • For one evil hour, one
must bea: the sword at his side a whole year.—
The same : Still even such children (illegitimate and
spri ging from incest) should not despair. God can
do great things even through the illegitimate Jephtha
(Judg. xi, 1 ff). True repentance makes all well.
[But true repentance is never separated from tmt
faith. Faith in Christ and repentance make all well.
—A. G.]

EIGHTH SECTION.

Abraham and Abimelech of Oerar. His and Sarah's renewed exposure through his human, caleu-

lating prudence, as formerly in Egypt before Pharaoh. The Divine preservation.

Abraham's intercession for Abimelech.

Chapter XX. 1-18.

1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south' country [themid-day], and
dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned [as a stranger even] in Gerar [iodging-pia«e,

2 pilgrim's reet]. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister ; and Abimelech

3 [lather ofthe king, or father-kirg] king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God [Elohim] came
to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art hut a dead man

Ethou diest, art dead], for the woman which thou hast taken ; for she is a man's wife
is married]. But Abimelech had not come near her : and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay

5 also a righteous nation? Said he not unto me. She is my sister? and she, even she
herself said, He is my brother : in the integrity of my heart, and the innocency of my

6 hands have I done this. And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst
this in the integrity of thy heart ; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me :

V therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. Now therefore restore the man his wife ;
for he is a prophet," and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live : and if thou restore

8 her not, know thou that thou slialt surely die, thou and all that are thine. Therefore
Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these

9 things in their ears : and the men were sore afraid. Then Abimelech called Abraham,
and said unto him. What hast thou done unto us? and what have I oifended thee, that
thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin ? thou hast done deeds unto

10 me that ought not to be done. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What sawest thou

11 [evil], that thou hast done this thing? And Abraham said, Because I thought [said],
Surely the fear of God [Eiohim] is not in this place ; and they will slay me for my wife a

12 sake. And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the

13 daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. And it came to pass when God

[Elohim] caused me to wander [to go on pilgrimages j a striking plural.' The manifestations of God here and
there, caused me to go here and there, pilgrimages] from my father's house, that I said untO her,

This is thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me ; at every place whither we shall

14 come, say of me. He is my brother. And Abimelech took sheep and oxen [small and
large cattle], and menservants, and womenservants, and gave them to Abraham, an! re-

15 stored him Sarah his wife. And Abimelech said, Behold, my land is before thee
!6 [stands open to thee] : dwell where it pleaseth thee [is good in thine eyes]. And unto Sarah he

said. Behold, Idiave given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver : behold he is to thee

CHAP. XX. 1-18.

449

[for] a covering of the eyes unto all that are with thee, and with all other : thus she

was reproved * [set right, proved to be a wife, not unmarried].

17 So Abraham prayed unto God [Eiohim] : and God [Eiohim] healed Abimelech, and

18 his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare children. For the Lord' had fast closed
up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham'f. wife.

[' Ver. 1.— ajifl . The region BOuth of what was afterwards called Judah. — A. G.l

[' Ver. 7.— X^aj , from SOJ , to cause to bubble up as a fountam. Keil, Delitzsch, and others derive It from a root
K3 and KB, to breathe, and thus make uabi to mean one Inspired— who speaks that which is inbreathed of God.— A.. Q. .

(» Ver. 13.— !|Snil is nlural in punctuation, agreeing grammaOcally with Din'bx . Vav, however, nmy be regardei
u the third radical, and the verb may then really be singular. Mokeht, p. 325.— A.'G.]

(4 Ver. 16.— nnDD , 2 pers. fem. sing. Niphal, an unusual form. See the Exegetical note. — A. G.]

(» Ver. 18.— Jehovah.— A. G.]

GBNEEAIi PBELIMINABY REMAEKS.

1. The present chapter and the following ap-
pear to favor strongly the documentary hypothesis.
The oases in which the name Jehovah appears (chap.
XX. 18 and xxi. 1), have, according to Delitzsch, all
the traits of explanatory additions of the completer.
But Knobel accepts, aside from the text of the original
writing (chap. xxi. 2-5), a twofold enlargement,
which should be ascribed to the Jehovistic writer,
but which he must have derived in great part from
Elohistic records designed to complete the original
record, and only in part from a completing Jeho-
vistic record (p. 180, 181). We leave the hypothesis
of different records to rest upon its own basis, but
shall enquire how far the choice in the names of God
may be explained from the text itself, and this with-
out regara to the hypothesis in question.

2. The repetition of the fact that Abraham pro-
claims his wife to be his sister has been noticed
already. In Knobel's view, the Jehovistic writer has
recorded the occurrence with Sarah already (ch. lii.
11-20), because he was there an independent narra-
tor, which is not the case here. " This conjecture,"
remarks Delitzsch, " is certainly plausible if one
ascribes the Elohistic portions to a peculiar source,
but it is equally probable that the same event might
occur twice in the life of Abraham." Keil, on the
other hand, justly brings into prominence the great
distinction between the two histories. The first dif-
ficulty, viz. that Abraham, after having experienced in
Egypt the reproach of this deed, should here repeat
it once more, cannot be removed, if, as Delitzsch
holds, Abraham in Egypt had condemned himself to
penitence after the reproof of Pharoah ; if even he
walked under a general sense that he had done wrong,
as Delitzsch and Baumgarten state the case. [It is
not insupposible, surely, in the light of experience,
that even such a believer as Abraham should have
fallen again into the same sin ; that he should have
repeated the act even when he was walking under the
sense of his wrong-doing in the first instance. — A. G.]
Our history gives us the key (v. 13) why this act was
repeated. Abraham could not make an explanation
to Pharoah, concerning the determination to pro-
ciaun his wife his sister while among strangers, but
Abimelech has instilled the necessary confidence in
aim, for this confidential explanation. But if this
is the case once with the maxim, the event miglit,
under possible circumstances, have often occurred
unless Jehovah had interfered to prevent this ven-
ture of an unfounded and exaggerated confidence ;
which we have already above distinguished from a
mere exposure of Sarah. It must be taken into

29

account, moreover, that Abraham had recently re-
ceived fearful impressions of the wickedness in the
world, which naturally filled him with suspicion.
The second difficulty consists in this : that Abimelech
should have found delight in taking Sarah, who was
ninety years old, into his harem. According to
Kurtz, the motive lay iu her still blooming or now re-
juvenated beauty ; according to Delitzsch, he would
relate himself by marriage with the rich nomadic
prince, Abraham. Beauty and the consideration of
rank do not exclude each other ; spiritual excellence
and greatness have often an almost magical effect.
But it is to be observed that here it is not said that
the beauty of Sarah was reported to Abimilech. He
knew only, it may be, that there was a sister of
Abraham in his tent, and brought her to himself.

3. We are here told again that Abraham broke
up his tent, and journeyed thence towards the south —
the land towards the mid-day (ch. xii. 9 ; xiii. 1).
According toch. xiii. 18, he had a permanent abode
at Hebron ; but here he removes from Hebron to the
south. Tbis is to be explained upon the ground that,
for the northern parts of Canaan, the south designates
preeminently the land of Judah ; but for the land of
Judah, thus for Hebron itself, it denotes the parts
towards Arabia Petrea, Egypt, and the western shore
upon the Mediterranean. The southern section of
Canaan (which was assigned to the tribes of Judah,
Simeon, and Benjamin) falls into four distinct parts,
through the character of the country. The mountains
(nnn) or highlands form the central part, upon
whose westerly slopes lies a hilly country which
gradually sinks to the plain (nbsffi), while towards
the east the desert (la'ia) falls off into the valley
of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, but towards the
south, the mid-day land (333 , Josh. xv. 21 ; com-
pare above ch. xii.9; xiii. 1) forms, in several distinctly
marked terraces, a kind of first step to the mountains,
from the Petrean peninsula. (See Gross, in Stud.
undKrit. 1843, p. 1080.) Here Abraham descends to
the stretch of country between Kadesh and Shur,
and remained a long time about Gerar, whose ruins
have been recently discovered by Rowland, under the
name Khirbet-el-Gerar, about three hours south-
easterly from Gaza, in the neighborhood of a deep
and broad wady, which takes the name Dschurf-el-
Gerar." Delitzsch. Robinson sought Gerar in vain,
see Schroder, p. 382. " Eusebius and Jerome locita
the place about twenty-five Roman miles south from
Eleutheropolis, and Sozomen relates that there stood
here, very near by a winter stream, a great and re-
nowned convent. The name of Marcian, bishop of
Gerar (perhaps in the convent), appears among the

t50

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Bubsoribers in the Council of Chalcedon in the year
451." "Gerar, upon the way from Gaza to Elusa,
removed about three hours from the first-named
place." Bunsen. The most southerly of the five
cities of the Philistines was not far from Beersheba.
The king of Gerar, Abimelech, had his territory in
the lands of the Philistines, according to ch. xxi. 33.
[n ch. xxvi. 1, he is named directly as a king of the
Philistines. According to Bertheau, the reference to
the Philistines is an anticipation, and Delitzsch also
finds in ch. xxvi. traces of a later hand, though not
recognizing therein an actual anticipation. If n05B
denotes the land of wanderers, or of strangers (Ge-
senius), the name denotes those who came from the
coasts into the interior, in distinctio« from the earUer
Canaanites, and the mquiry whether the later Philis-
tines, of the times of the Judges and Kings, are here
meant, is a matter by itself; in any case, the text
here intimates that the later confederate cities of the
Philistines did not yet exist. Hitzig and Ewald also
concede Philistine emigrations into Canaan, or tradi-
tions of them, before Moses. Knobel's view, that
Abraham may have left Hebron from a similar
anxiety with that which led Lot (to leave Zoar), is
arbitrary in the highest degree, since Abraham was
in covenant with the mightier men in Hebron. Ac-
cording to Keil, he went probably to find better
pastures. In any case the pasture-ground must be
changed from time to time, but this could be done
through a wider range, as we learn from the history
of Joseph and Moses. The neighborhood of the
scene of the terrible judgment upon Sodom, in con-
nection with other unknown motives, may have
determined him to change his residence. The birth
of Isaac (ch. xxi.) and the offering of Isaac (ch. xxii.)
occur during his residence in the further south : but
then he dwelt (ch. xxiii. 1) again in Hebron, although
his return thitlier from Beersheba, where he had last
dwelt (ch. xxi. 33), is not recorded.

4. Since, from the promise which was given to
Abraham in the oak-grove of Mamre, to the birth of
Isaac, we must reckon, according to ch. xviii., about
a year, Abraham must have drawn southwards very
soon after the overthrow of Sodom, and the meeting
with Abimelech must also have taken place at an
early date. But if vers. 17, 18 seem to point to a
longer time, this creates no real difilculty, since the
sickness of the house of Abimelech may have
lasted a long time after Sarah was restored. More-
over, our history illustrates, in two respects, what
may introduce the further history of the birth
of Isaac. First, we see that Sarah was not faded in
her appearance, although according to the usual sup-
position her body was dead. Then we see how her
usual relation to Abraham could be animated and
strengthened by a new affection resulting directly
through the exposure and disturbance to which it
had been subjected.

EXEGETIOAI, AND CMTICAI/.

1. Abraham's settlement in the South, especially
n Oerar. Abijnelech's error, aTid Ike admonition
of ffod (vers. 1-7). — Betvreen Kadesh and Shur.
— Kadesh, see cla. xiv. 7 ; Shur, ch. xvi. 7. We
must distinguish between tins dwelUng-place and the
peculiar sojourn in Gerar. Sohkodeb : " Leaving his
herds and servants behind him in this region, he
himself repairs to Gerar." — Abimelech (Father

King, or my Father King). A standing title for th«
kings of Gerar, as Pharoah was in Egypt and Mel-
chizedec, or Adonizedec, in Salem (see Ps. xxxiv. 1 )
the king the father of the land. — God (Elohiml
came to Abimelech. — It is presupposed that Abime-
lech had the knowledge of the true God ; he could not
have known him as Jehovah. — In a dream by
night. — Knobel finds in this feature, as in similar
cases, that these communications are not in accord
ance with the Elohistic writer. But the supposition
is entirely arbitrary. The prophetic dream of the
night is generally closely connected with the moral
reflections and longings of the day. It is in full
agreement with the nature of dreams, that the com-
munication shoidd be made in several, not in one
single act (see Gen. xxxvii. and xli. ; Matt, il).—
She is a man's wife (married). — Literally, ruled
by a ruler, or her lord. His sin was thus marked as
an infringement of the married rights of a stranger.
The anxious dream appears to have been introduced
through the sickness impending over him (see v. 17).*
— Wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? —
Delitzsch refers the CS directly to the adjective right-
eous. A nation however righteous, i.e., although it
is righteous. But why then does he use the term
people or nation ? Knobel thinks that the fate of the
Sodomites was floating in his mind. In this way this
chapter is, through a delicate psychological feature,
connected with the preceding. Abimelech is conscious
of innocence as to his subjective state. He assumes
the right to possess a harem or to live in polygamy,
and the right of princes to bring into their harem
any unmarried persons of their territory. He is con-
scious of a pure heart, and asserts that his hands are
pure, since Abraham and Sarah, through their own
declarations, had rendered it impossible tliat he should
have any intention to interfere with the rights of
another. She is my sister. [These incidents show
the truth and the need of Scripture ; — its triith, be-
cause it does not represent the patriarchs as exempt
from human infirmities ; the need of it, because the
best of men were not able to make for themselves
even a correct standard of moral duty (and how
much less of faith) without Scripture. Wordsworth,
p. 91. — A. G.] — And God said unto him in a
dream. — The transaction continues in a new and
more quiet dream. God recognizes the apology as
essentially vaUd, and reveals to him how and why he
had kept him from touching the wife of a prophet.
With this he points out to him the cause of his sick-
ness. The command to restore the woman was en-
forced by a threatening. Although he was guiltless
as to his subjective state, it is a reproach to Wm that
he acted blindly, and betrayed himself into the danger,
either of depriving a prophet of his wife, or rather
of being punished by God with death. [That Abim-
elech thought himself innocent, did this, as he says,
in the ^gls'cn integrity of his heart, may be ex-
plained from his moral and rehgious standpoint
But that God recognizes his deed as such, and stil
says to him that he can only live through the inter-
cession of Abraham, thus that his sin was one worthy
of death, proves that God regards him as one who
was fitted to have, and ought to have, deeper moral
views and piety. This is intimated in the change of
the names of God in the narrative, and noticed in tha

• [The term, however, may mean, dead an ii» j»r jgeny
whica is rendered probable by ver. 17. God healed Abimo
lech. Jacobus. — A. G.l

CHAP. XX 1-18.

453

text Keil, p. 1B8. — A.G.] That is to say, the
Bpirit of a higher moral standpoint comes to him in
his dream, and opens to him not only the cause of
his sickness, but also that divine preservation secured
by the sickness, as well as his duty and the danger
of death in which he was still moving. With this he
receives an enlargement of his reUgious knowledge.
" At first DTibs (without the article) the Godhead in
a general sense appears to him (ver. 3) : but Abime-
lech recognizes in the appearance the Lord ''5"i!<. ,
upon which the narrator introduces c^rfixn the
personal and true God, as speaking to him (ver. 6.)
— For he is a prophet. — The spirit of prophecy
had been present from the beginning in the Sciiptuue,
but here the name prophet occurs for the first time.
How could this aggravate the error of Abimelech,
that Abraham, whose rights he ignorantly had vio-
lated, was a prophet ? Knobel explains that the sin
of violating the rights of the chosen of God, which
he had in idea committed, was u, sin against God
himself. Since every sin is a sin against God himself,
it must still be asked, how far this shows the danger
of greater guilt ? for the text cannot be explained
under the idea of a pariiality of God for Abraham.
But Abimelech held Abraham and S.^rah as the ordi-
nary nomads of his time, and thought therefore that
he could blindly lay his hands upon them : he thus
resisted the dim impression, which they must have
made upon him, of a higher caUing and aim. A
prophet should be i eceived in the name of a prophet ;
the sin against the divine in the prophet was a sin
igainst the divine in his own conscience, and thus in
1 special sense a sin against God. — And he shall
pray for thee.— Abraham had already appeared as
1 royal warlike hero, in his conflict with the Eastern
iings. We have learned to recognize him as a priest,
sspecially in his intercessory prayer for Sodom :
here he appears preeminently as a prophet. But
here intercession appears as the most obvious func-
tion of the prophet.* The attributes of the prophet
and the priest are thus still inwardly united in one,
as this indeed is evident from the altars he erected.
2. 'ITie atonement of Abimelech (vers. 8-lC). —
And called all his servants (courtiers). — It
marks the frank, open character of this God-fearing
king, that he humbles himself by communicating the
events of the night, before his courtiers. It was
humbling in the first place to confess that, in spirit-
ual blindness, he had made a dangerous mistake,
and secondly that he must restore to the stranger his
wife. It speaks well also for his household and his
court, that the effect of his reverence communicates
itself to his servants. — Then Abimelech called

Abr2ihajn He addresses him before his people, for

Abraham had not only brought him into danger, but
also his household and kingdom. He had reason to
complain of the conduct of Abraham, as Pharaoh
before him (ch. xii.). He it thus also evidently a
bold, heroic character, who does not shrink from
declaring against Abraham his injured sense of truth
and justice, although he must have regarded him
as under the special protection of God. He does
hot belong to tlie kings who oppose the priests in
slavish bigotry. — What hast thou done to us ? —
Done to us. Thus he values the unity in which he
feels that he is bound with his household and people.
But he reproaches him especially with this : that he
ttld brought him into danger of bringing guilt

* rSee Jer. xxvii. 18, referred to by Bush.— A. G.]

upon himself and his ptople. This, he says, is im
moral. But since he takes up again the wordsL
What have I offended thee ? aud asks, What
hast thou seen? he utters in a discreet form,
which concedes the possibility that he might havs
ignorantlv occasioned the wrong of Abraham, hia
consciousness that he had himself indeed given no
occasion for this deceitful course. Keil and Knobel
explain the words what hast thou seen? wlial
hast thou in thy eye, what purpose ? Delitzsch
(with a reference to Ps. xxxvii. 37: Ixvi. 18): "It
is preferable to take the word in its usual sense
through all time : what evil hast thou seen in me
or in us, that thou believest us capable of greater
evil ?'' — Abraham said, because I thought (said).
— He assumes the antecedent ; I acted thus, because
he is ashamed. The two grounds of apology follow.
The first runs : Because I spake (thought or con-
sidered it with myself and with Sarah). [This use of
the word ^nia.x is fully illustrated by Bush, who
refers to Ex. ii. 14 ; 1 Kings v, 5 ; Ps. xiv. 1. — A. G.]
— Surely the fear of God is not in this place. —
This special motive has its explanation in the fact
that he had so recently seen the destruction of
Sodom. The fear of men which had determined him
so to act in Egypt, was awakened afresh by this de-
struction. But he palliates the offence of this declara-
tion by his second excuse. He explains at first that
what he had said was not untrue, since Sarah, as his
half-sister, was his sister ; and then why, in bis mi-
gration from Haran, he had arranged with Sarah that
she should journey with him from place to place under
the name of his sister. [Some suppose that Sarah ie
the same with Iscah, xi. 29. Bush holds that Terah
had two wives: the one the mother of Haran, the
father of Sarah and Lot ; the other the mother of
Abraham. — A. G.] The suppressed feeling of an end-
less, difiicult pilgrimage, and of a very dangerou?
situation, reveals itself clearly in the expressions of
vers. 13, 14. He cannot yet speak to Abimelech of
Jehovah, his covenant God. StiU less was it neces-
sary that he should reveal to him that Jehovah had
promised Canaan to him. Thus he says : at the
command of God X entered upon my wanderings.
He speaks of his theocratic journeys as wanderings,
says Elohim instead of Haelohim, uses this noun
with the plural of the verbs, that he may make him-
self understood by Abimelech. "This use of the
substantive with the plural verbs is found (in the
Pentateuch only in this author, ch. xxxv. 7 ; Ex. xxil
8 ; XXX. 4, 8 ; Josh. xxiv. 19. Gesenius, § 146, 2;
EwALD, § 318 a.)" Knobel. Keil finds in the words
of Abraham, especially in the plural of the verb, a
certain accommodation to the polytheistic standpoint
of the Philistine king. Delitzsch, on the other hand,
remarks, that the plural connection of Elohim is
found in passages which exclude any idea of accommo-
dation, OP of any polytheistic reference ; by which
he refutes at the same time the explanation of Schel-
hng, that the Gods of the house of Terah are to
be understood by Elohim. Under the expression
ISnri C^ri'SS* [The verb here is not necessarily
plural. But if it be, it is only an instance of the
literal meaning of Elohim, the eternal, supernatural
powers, coming into view. Mukphy, p. 328. — A. G.]
we understand the fact, expressed with some reser
vation, that Haelohim, through a plurality of speciai
manifestations of God, which he received here and
there, had caused him to move from place to plac'.
and thus, although in the extremest danger which hit

452

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

wanderings could occasion, extended his providence
uver him still. When, on the contrary, Abimeleeh
(ch. xxvi. 28) calls God Jehovah, Delitzsch supposes
(p. 103), but without certainty, that it is the same
person, and besides overlooks the difference of time,
in which a longer intercourse may have made the
Philistines familiar with the Abrahamic ideas. — And
Abimeleeh took sheep and oxen. — He is satis-
fied, and acts analogously to the conduct of Pharaoh
(ch. sii.), in that he makes Abraham rich presents
of the ancient nomadic goods. The departure of
Abraham from Egypt also seems to find its echo
here. He appears to utter a modest wish that Abra-
ham would leave Gerar. [This seems a forced inter-
pretation of the words. — A.G.] Still he may dwell
in his territory where it pleases him. — And to Sarah
he said. — " The thousand pieces of silver, i. e., the
thousand shekels of silver, are not a peculiar present
made to Sarah, but the estimated worth of the pres-
ent (ver. 14), and designate it as something impor-
tant." Knobel. So also Keil. Delitzsch, with others,
distinguishes a special present in money, " a truly
royal present, since thirty shekels was the price of a
slave (Ex. xxi. 32)." (A thousand shekels of silver
after the shekel of the sauctuary would be about 650
dollars ; according to the ordinary shekel, less. It
is not certain which is intended here.) The first
interpretation is preferable, as otherwise the second
present must have been made to Sarah. — Behold,
be is to thee (or that shall be to thee) a cover-
mg of the eyes. — This difficult place admits of
different explanations. Vitringa : " If the words are
referred to Abraham, the idea seems to be : Abraham,
if he professes to be the husband of Sarah, would be in-
stead of a veil to those who, looking upon Sarah more
intensely, may be inflamed with love for her. (Thus
Ewald; so Delitzsch, p. 404.) We prefer, however,
to refer the words to the money received by Abra-
ham. As if he says, let this money, paid as a fine
to Abraham, prevent any from desiring thee as I
have done. He alludes to the veil usually worn by
women. See eh. xxiv. 65." Gesenius; "This is
an expiatory present to thee, for all that has happened
to thee, and to Abram, and she was convinced (of
her fault)." Knobel similarly, but still with less fit-
ness, and at the conclusion, " thou ai-t adjudged, i. e.,
justice is done to ihee." Delitzsch and Keil : "This
is to thee an atoning present, for all who are with
thee (since the whole family is disgraced in the mis-
tress, etc.)" "It is to be explained," says Knobel,
" after ""JD IBS to cover one's face, so that he may
forget the wrong done (ch.xxxii. 21), D-'asili ■'3S n&3
to cover the face of the judge, so that he shall not
Bee the right." Michaelis, Baumgarten, and others,
explain the words to mean a present for the purchase
of a veil which she should wear in the future.
[Murphy urges against this that the proper word for
veil is Ti^'SS. "The covering of the eyes is a figura-
tive phrase for a recompense or pacificatory offering,
in consideration of which an offence is overlooked."
And so also Jacobus. — A. G.] Since Sarah wore no
veU in Egypt, but the custom of veiling the face
quickly .with the mantle soon after appears in the
history of Rebekah (ch. xxiv. 65), this thought seems
quite probable. But one would then expect a special
present to Sarah, besides the one to Abraham. De-
litzsch remarks, " this would be bitter irony." But
the irony in the expression, I have given thy brother,
cannot, however, be denied. The bbTN". also
agrees well with this thought. Besides, it must be

considered that Abimeleeh had to relieve himself ol
his displeasure as well against Sarah as against
Abraham. And what then could this mean, "thai
shall be to thee an atoning present, and for all with
thee," leaving out of view that here the conjunctivs
1 is wanting ? As a covering of the eyes, designed
to make good his error in her eyes, the great present
would excite rather only contempt. The atonement
belongs truly to the violated rights of the husband ;
Sarah, who bad constantly declared that he was her
brother, even when prudent calculation became impru-
dent temerity, had well deserved that she also should
sufler a reproof Still Abimeleeh appears to define
it as a covering of the eyes only in a figurative sense ;
in the sense of the Vulgate : hoc erit tibi in t/e/omex
oculoruTYi ad omnes qui tecum sint^ et guocungue perp-
exeris ; mementoque ie deprehetisam,^ Since Sarah
wore no veil, which designated her as the wife of a
husband (see ch. xxiv. 6 ; 1 Cor. xi. 10), so the pres-
ent of Abimeleeh, wherewith he expiates his fault,
has the effect of such a veil ; it should for all, and
everywhere, be a testimony that she is a married
woman. As such should she now be held every-
where, in consequence of his present. With Clericus,
therefore, we find here a designed double sense or
meaning ; a covering of the eyes as an atonement^
which should^ at the same time, have the effect of a
veil. " nnDiai can only. b« the second person
feminine perf. Niph., although the daghesh lene is
wanting in n (Gesenius, § 28, 4, and § 65, 2), for to
hold this form for a participle is scarcely possible,"
etc.f Keil ; Since this word may be rendered ad-
judged as well as justified., we take it in a middle sense,
and as designedly having a twofold meaning: con-
vinced, placed right. This last word does not belong
to the writer, but to Abimeleeh himself With the
pride of injured magnanimity, he declares that he,
through his atoning present, would provide her with
a veil, and designate her as a married woman. For
the veil, see Winer,

3. Abraham's intercession {vers. I'l^lH). "After
this compensation Abraham intercedes (ver. l"?), and
God removes the sickness from Abimeleeh and his
women. The author does not define the sickness
more closely (as in ch. xii. 17) ; according to ver. 6 it
was such a sickness as suppressed desire Compare
the plague of the Philistines (1 Sam. v. 6-9 ; xii. 6, 4,
etc.)" Knobel. — And God healed Abuuelecb,

and his wife, and his maidservants Thus

Abimeleeh was not only afilioted with some sexual
disease, but indirectly, through his inability, his wife
also, i. e., his wife in a peculiar sense, the queen ; and
his maid-servants, that is, his concubines (see Keil).
[^Tliey bare means that they were again capable of
procreating children. The verb is mascuUne, because
both males and females were involved in this judicial
malady. Mdrpht, p. 329. — A. G.] [This is clear also,
since the malady was sent to preserve the purity of
Sarah. Abimeleeh was not suffered to touch her,
see ver. 6. — A. G.] Ver. 18 contains the explana-
tion— For the Lord (Jehovah) had fast closed
up. — [It is Jehovah who delivers Abraham, and pre-

* ["Wordsworth suggests all three senses — that of •» rru
pitiation ; of a provision for the purchase of a veil ; aad ol
an allusion to the usage of covering a bride witli a veil, p.
92. -A. G.]

t [If, with Baumgarten, and accordiag to the accents, W4
connect the 33*nX1 with the last word, the sense can only
be : and all this has been done or given that thou mayeuc
be righted or redressed, p. 220. So also Murphy. — A. G.J

CHAP. XX. 1-18

45»

lerves the purity of Sarah, the mother of Isaac the
promised seed. Wordsworth, p. 93. Who urges
also the use of the names of God in the chapter,
against the fragmentary hypothesis, with great foice.
— A. G.] Here the providence of Elohim is traced to
the motives of Jehovah, the Covenant God of Abra-
ham, who would protect his chosen. They were
closed up ; i. e., not as Enobel thinks, they could
could not bring to the birth, but the whole house-
hold of Abimelech was unfruitful in consequence of
his sickness. [The term here used for maid-servants,
niniax, denotes those held as concubines, and is to
be distinguished from rinslU, servants. See 1 Sam.
XXV. 41. Keil, p. 170.— A.' G.] This fearful fact for
an ancient household was remarkable here, because
the state remained after the free return of Sarah, until
Abraham enters with his intercession. But this in-
troduces the circumstance that he had interceded for
Sarah also.

DOCTHrSTAL AND ETHICAL.

1. See the preliminary remarks and the exi-
getical paragraphs. The preceding history is the
history of sins " crying to heaven." The history
of Abraham in Gerar is a history of unconscious sins,
concealed faults in the life of most excellent men, of
the father of the faithful, and of a noble heathen king.

2. The first meeting between the house of Abra-
ham and the Philistines. It serves to illustrate the
fact, that the knowledge of God among the Philis-
tines has sunken lower and lower in the lapse of time,
while it has been more and more completely developed
among the theocratic peopla

3. Abraham in Gerar, in a certain measure, a
counterpart to Lot in the caves. Lot fears the pres-
ence of men; Abraham appears to have sought a
wider intercourse. Both fall into folly and sin, after
the experience of the great judgment upon Sodom.
The reaction from a state of great spiritual excite-
ment reveals itself even in Abraham.

4. The repetition of the old saying of Abraham,
is a proof that he, in his faith, thought himself justi-
fied in using it. We must take uito account also,
that Sarah also was his sister in the faith, and that
she had accustomed herself, in her painful sense of
her unfruitfulness, to style themselves brother and
Bister.

5. Abimelech's dream. In the night sleep, the
spirit of revelation comes nearer to the heathen, as is
shown also in the dreams of Pharaoh and Nebuchad-
nezzar. It is a medium of revelation also for children
(Joseph, in the old covenant), and for laborers with
the hand (Joseph, in the new covenant) ; and the
prophetic disposition, enduring into the night or
extending itself through its hours (Isaac, Jacob,
Paul). Moreover, Pharaoh's butler and baker (ch.
xl. 8); the Midianites (Judges vii. 13-15); the wife
of Pilate (Matt, xxvii. 19, compare Wisdom xviii. 17
-19), had significant dreams.

6. Abimelech's innocence and guilt. The moral
standpoint of tradition, in its relation to the higher
standpoint. Traditional morality and the morality of
conscience. The religious susceptibility of Abimelech.

7. Abraham a prophet. There are different views
•s to the derivation of this word. A derivation from
the Arabic, analogous form, explains the word to
bean the bringer of knowledge, the foreteller or pre-
iirtoT (see Delitzsch, p. 634 ; a communication of

Fleischer). The derivation from the Hebrew 6*33,
ebuUire, appears to us nearer at hand, and corre-
sponds better with the idea of the prophet. In th»
reference of the word to the Niph., Redslob explaing
it in a passive sense, what is poured forth ; W. NeW'
mann and Holemann, actively pouring forth, speaking.
If we regard the Niph. as both passive and reflexive,
then the prophet is a man who, because he has received
communications poured into himself, pours forth
One who is a fountain. But the pouring forth desig
nates more than the simple speaking. It is the
utterance of that which is new, in the inspired, out;-
pouring form ; analogous to the out-pouring of a
fountain, which is ever pouring out new, fresh water.
The prophet pours forth that which is new, both in
words and deeds ; the miraculous words of prophecy
and the miraculous deeds of typical import. The de-
rivation which Dehtzsch proposes from S2 = fiB , riB ,
to breathe, the inspired, appears to be sought from
dogmatic motives. Abraham was a prophet in the
most general sense ; the organ of the divine revela-
tion, seer of the future. He was a prophet, priest,
and king in one person, but preeminently a prophet.
And here God brings out distinctly his prophetic
dignity, because he is in this especially commended
as the fi lend of God, the object of his protecting care,
with whose injuryAbimelech's sickness was connected,
and by whose intercession he could be healed. The
peculiar order of the prophets, introduced through
the prophetic schools of Samuel, was formed after
the order of priests, and then the order of kings were
severed from the general class or order of prophets.

8. Abimelech's character and his atonement.
Through his noble and pious conduct he wins a
friend in Abraham (ch. xxi. 22 ff.)

9. Abraham's intercession, a claim of his faith in
the promise. His intercession for Abimelech and
Gerar, a counterpart to his intercession for Sodom.
The intercession of Abraham for Abimelech, his
house, and kingdom, in comparison with his inter-
cession for Sodom.

10. Abraham has, through his fear, and the pru-
dential means which his fear bade him to use, twice
directly brought about the very thing which he feared,
the taking away of his wife, and perhaps would have
incurred his death, either the first or second time,
if God had not interfered. How fear first truly makes
that actual which it seeks to hinder in ungodly ways,
the history of Joseph's brethren, who sold him that
he might not rise above them ; the conduct of Pha-
raoh towards Israel, which brings him and his hosts
to destruction in the Red Sea ; Saul's determination
against David ; but above all, the history of the
crucifixion of Christ on the part of the Jewish San-
hedrim prove still more perfectly. How this same
fact appears in proverbs, under various forms, e. g.,
in the saying of CEdipus, is well known.

11. The Philistines (see the Bible Dictionaries)^
Their first appearance in sacred history makes a
favourable impression ; Abimelech knows, or learns
to know, the only true God. I;ater, the PhiUstines
appear sunken in idolatry.

HOMILETICAL ANT PEACTIOAL.

Any homiletic use of this chapter presupposea
homiletic wisdom. Themes : Abraham in the repe-
tition of his fall. — Abraham and Abimelech. — Abra-
ham's character: reverent humility, moral pride. —

454

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Abraham, the believer, in his weakness, exalted
ibove the man of the world, in his strength. [The
exaltation, however, a matter of pure grace. — A.G.]

First Section. — Abraham's and Abimelech's error
(vers. 1-7) Abraham's reaction after hia high spiritnal
experiences. — The repetition of his old fault. 1.
"auses : Recent experience of the corruption of the
world, false prudence, exaggerated confidence, the
brotherly relation to Sarah, the tolerable issue of the
case in Egypt. 2. Natural results : Anxiety and
danger, shame before a heathen's princely court,
3. Gracious issue through the interference of God.'—
now self-will rushes into the danger which, with false
plans, it seeks to avoid. — How the behever endangers
the promise of God, and how it is wonderfully guard-
ed through the grace of God. — Abimelech's integrity
the point of union for the gracious providence of God.
— The author of sacred marriage is also its protector.
— The care of God for Sarah a care for the world.

Starke : Now Abraham, in his human weakness,
tempts God in hia providence anew. — (Ver. 4.
The Holy Spirit marks this doubtless, lest any one
should say that Isaac was the son of Abimelech.)
(Although God is a lover of life, yet still, according
to his punitive righteousness, there may be ascribed
to him, as here, a destruction, consumption, etc.) —
God suffers his saints to fall into folly and sin, that
it may be clear how little they are able to do right
by themselves. — Cramek ; God preserves the sacred
marriage state. — Osiander : Subjects are often pun-
ished on account of the transgressions of their rulers.
— Ver. 6. A simple and not evilly intended plan, even
in a bad cause, if it proceeds from inconsideration,
or from ignorant zeal, is described by this word
simplicity, in Holy Scripture (2 Sam. xv. 11, etc.}^
Ver. 6. God hinders men from committing sin in
many ways. — God searches the heart, and knows
what is done in integrity and what in pretence. —
Calwer, Handbuch : Ver. 2. As there (in Egypt)
so here, Abraham reaches the directly opposite
point from that which he intended. Sarah was
taken away, just because he said, she is my sister. —
Schroder: (V. Herberger.) Ver. 1. Abraham will
avoid the cross, (?) but he passes from the smoke
into the flame, from the mud into the mire. There
are in foreign lands misfortunes and adversities as
well as where he has lived hitherto. Ah ! Lord, help
us, that we may sit quietly in our little space ; the
dear cross dwells yet nowhere, as everywhere, i. e.,
wherever we are. — His sin appears greater here
than at the first offence ; he stands no longer aa then
(in Egypt), at the beginning of the divine leadings.
After so many and such great experiences of God's
faithfulness, still such unfaithfulness to him. (?) —
(Calvin.) All those who will not, as is becoming,
trust themselves to the providence of God, shall win
like fruits of unbelief — Ver. 2. It is to be considered
that an extraordinary beauty is ascribed to Sarah ;
then also, that notwithstanding her ninety years, she
is in the first half of human life at that period of the
world. — Lother: Ver. 3. It is impossible that a
man who believes in the promises of God, should be
forsaken. — God would suffer the heavens to fall,
rather than forsake his believing people. — Thus God
shows how displeasing adultery ia to him. — Ver. 6.
Abimelech has sinned nevertheless, therefore- God
by no means concedes to him " purity of hands," as
the " integrity of heart." — Passatant : An old oak
wliioh loses a bough or twig, has not, therefore,

• [How tbankful ibr the interference of God, — A. G.]

lost its crown. — Pharaoh and AbimeletJi. Ver. 4,
Many a king who is called christian, has done what
these two kings did, and even worse, and his peopl«
have necessarily suffered for it in various ways befor€
his crumbling throne ; in a thousand offences, sins,
sorrows, etc. Kings may learn what the sins of
princes are before jGod, and the people also may learn
to hate and deplore the evil which descends from the
upper ranks. — The prosperity of the family dependii
upon the marriage state, and the welfare of society
upon that of the family, and upon the society turnj
the good of the state. — Ver. 6. It is a great grace
when God guards any one from sinning, either againsi
their fellows or against God. — Thou knowestnothow
often God has kept thee and me (Ps. cv. 14, 16 •
Zach. ii. 8). — Schwenke: The Scriptures do not de-
scribe a saint in Abraham, but a man, who, although
so good, is yet a sinner like ourselves, but who through
faith was justified before God, and what he did as he
went from step to step in the narrow path of faith
stands recorded, that we with him might enter the
school of faith.

Second Section. — Abraham's confusion and shame,
and Abimelech's atonement. — (Vers. 8-16). The
eastigatory speech of the heathen to the father of
the faithful. — Ver. 11. The judgment of faith con-
cerning the world ought not to be a prejudice. — The
danger of life in Abraham's pilgrimage an apology
for his swerving to his own way. — Ver. 8. The zeal
of Abimelech in the removing and expiating of his
fault. — His noble and pious integrity : 1. In the ex-
pression of his fear of God ; 2. of his injured moral
feeling ; 3. his readiness to make his error good. —
Ver. 9. Abimelech knew that his royal sins fell upon
his household and kingdom, as a burden and as guilt.

Starke : ver. 9. It is to the praise of this heathen
king, who, however, was not without some fear and
knowledge of God, that he held a breach of the mar-
riage law to be so great a sin that the whole land
could be punislied. — Ver. 10. Osiander : It is well
with a pious ruler and a pious father of the household,
since th(;y warn and keep their own in the fear of
God. — The praise of mildnesa and gentleness. —
Luther: The saints were gently punished and for
their good. — Bibl. Tab. Ver. 9. We should amend
our past faults without delay. — Schroder: (Luther)
He who was before a king (Abimelech) is now a
bishop who spreads among his subjects the fear and
knowledge of God, so that they also should learn to
fear God and honor his word. Here indeed the
Sodomites, and those who dwelt in Gerar, are held
in broad contrast. — Ver. 12. (Musculus: Concerning
Sarah as the sister of Abraham : recognize here the
type of Christ and the Church. The Church is the
sister and the bride of Christ; sister through God
the Father, bride through the mystery of the incar-
nation, and the truth of his espousal, etc.) — Ver. 15.
While the Egyptian invites Abraham in a compliment-
ary way out of his land, the Philistine says. Behold
my land is before thee. — (Calvin) : This distinction ia
due to the fact that the severely punished Pharoah
experienced only fear, so that the presence of Abra-
ham was intolerable. Abimelech, on the other hand,
was, with the terror, at the same time comforted.—
Passavant: Ver. 11. Christians' excuses are oflen-
fimea worse than their faults. — But Abraham ia the
father of the faithful ; God sees in him Isaac, the son
of promise, conceived, bom, reared in faith, etc. ; ha
sees in him Jacob his servant, etc., Moses, Aaron,
Joshua, but above all that one of the seed of David,
Gal. iiL 16. — The forefather bore already in himself,

CHAP. XXI. 1-84.

45!

that seed of fiiith upon the Son of God from which
should bloom the new hosts of saints and righteous
of the old and new covenant, as the dew drops from
the womb of the morning (Ps. ex.). — Sohwenke :
Thus the Lord knows how to make good what has
been complicated, and endangered through human
prudence.

Third Section. — Abraham's intercession, the
healing of Abimelech and his household. (Vers. 17,
18). Abraham believes still in the eflScacy of inter-
cession, although Sodom was destroyed notwith-
standing his intercessory prayer. — The connection
of intercession, with the receptivity of those to whom
it relates. — Abraham as an intercessor for Sodom and
for Gerar. — The healing of Abimelech an illustration
of salvation, and leading to it. — Stakke : A beautiful
exchange between the worldly and spiritual state.

That bestows gold and possessions, this-recompensa
■with the knowledge of God and prayer. — Osiandee
If God punishes this king with such serious earnest
ness and severity, who ignorantly had taken anothei
man's wife, how will they escape who knowingly and
deliberately defame and dishonor other men's wivea
and daughters? — Schroder: (Calvin.) Abraham
arms and disarms the hand of God at the same time.
— (Roos): Thus God does not forsake his own in
their need, although there are not wanting faults on
their side. — (Val. Hebberoer ; We know how to
make what is good evil, since we are masters there,
but how to make good again what is evil, that is the
work of God.) — Because Abraham and Sarah should
laugh, they must first weep sound repentance. The
martyr-week ever precedes the Easter-week with
Christians.

NINTH SECTION.

TO« birth of Isaac. lahmaeTa aepuhion. The Covenant of peace with Abimelech at Beer-sMba,

Chapter XXI. 1-34.

1 And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he

2 had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set

3 time of which God [Eiohira] had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his
son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac [Jitzhak; ho or one will laugh].

4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old [at the eighth day], as God

5 [Eiohim] had commanded him. And Abraham was an hundred years old when his sou
Isaac was born unto him.

6 And Sarah said, God [Eiohim] hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh

7 with me. And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have
S given children suck ? for I have borne him a son in his old age. And the cliild grew

and was weaned : and Abraham made a great feast the sarne day that Isaac was weaned.
9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had borne unto Abraham,

10 mocking. "Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son.

1 1 for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. And
the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight, because of his son.

12 And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight, because of the
lad, and because of thy bondwoman ; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken

13 unto her voice ; for in Isaac shall thy seed [thy descendants] be called.' And also of the

14 son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. And Abraham
rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto
Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and [took with her] the child, and sent her away : and
she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba [seven wells; well of the oath].

15 And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.

16 And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way ofEJ as it were a bow-
shot [distant] : for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over

17 against him, and lifted up her voice and wept. And God [Eiohim] heard the voice of
the lad ; and the angel of God '^ [Eiohim] called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto
her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God [Eiohim] hath heard the voice of the

18 lad vrhere he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make

19 him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she

20 went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with th«

21 lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an [mighty] archer. And

456

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran [Oeaenius: prob. a region abounding in caverns] : and hi.1
mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.

22 And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phichol [moutbofaU; i.e., com-
manding all] the cliief Captain of his host [general] spake unto Abraham, saying, God

23 [Eiobim] is with thee in all that thou doest : Now therefore swear unto me here by God

Eiohim that thou wilt not deal falsely [injure deceitfully] with me, nor with my son, nor
with ray son's son ; hut [ratber] according to the kindness [tmtb] that I have done unta

24 thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned. And Abraham
26 said, I will swear. And Abraham reproved Abimelech [brougbt a charge against him] bfa-

cause [in the case] of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently takeu

26 away. And Abimelech said, I wot not [have not known] who hath done this thing ;

27 neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it but to-day. And Abraham took
sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech ; and both of them made a covenant

28 29 And Abraham set [still] seven ewe-lambs of the flock by themselves. And Abime
lech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe-lambs, which thou hast set by

30 themselves ? And he said. For these seven ewe-lambs shalt thou take of my hand,

31 that they may be a witness unto me that I have digged this well. Wherefore he

32 called that place Beer-sheba ; because there they sware both of them. Thus they made
a covenant at Beer-sheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief captain of hia
host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines. •

33 And Abraham planted a grove [Tamarisk, tree] in Beer-sheba, and called there on the

34 name of the Lord, the everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines'
land many days.

[* Ver. 12.— In Isaac shall seed be called to thee.— A. G.]
[» Ver. 17.— Not nini T^N^a , as in cb. xri. 7.— A. G.)

GEN-EEAL PHELIMINAEr EEMAEKS.

1. Delitzsch holds (" not led astray by ch. xxi. 1 ")
that ch. xxi. 1-21, forms the fourth Elohistic
part of the third section of the Ufe of Abraham.
The first part (vers. 1-8, of ch. xxi.) goes back to ch.
XTii., unfolds itself with a clear reference to it, and
forms one whole with it. The second verse here refers
toch. xvii. 21. According to Knobe! on the contrary,
only ch. xxi. 2-5, belong to the original writing ; the
rest consists of Jehovistic enlargements, out of records
which, at the must, may possibly be Elohistic. Since
Dehtzsch describes ch. xx. also as Elohistic, it is
plain that he must assume different Elohistic sources.
But out of this assumption the whole arbitrary
and artificial hypothesis may be developed. There
must certainly be some internal reason for the change
of the names in the first and second verses. That
the name Eiohim should be used in the history of
the expulsion of Ishmael, and of the covenant of
Abraham with Abimelech requires no explanation :
Abimelech does not know Jehovah ; Ishmael walks
under the general providence of God. The reason
lies in the fact that in ver. 2 there is' a reference
to eh. xvii. 21, while ver. 1 refers to ch. xviii.
14. So likewise it is with the circumcision of Isaac,
which Eiohim commanded (ver. 4) ; it embraces
in Isaac both Esau and Jacob. Sarah also (ver. 6),
refers the name of Isaac to the arrangement of
Eiohim ; since every one in the world (existing under
Eiohim), would recognize Is;iac as a miraculously
giT3n child — awakening laughter and joy.*

* ["The birth of Isaac is the first result of the covenant,
iind the first step toward its goal. As it is the germ of the
future development, and looks to (ho gi-eater than Isaac— the
New Testament Son of Promise— so it is the practical and
persona] pledge on God's part, that the salvation of the world
ihall he accomplished." Jacobus. — A. G.]

2. It i.s questionable whether we should refer ver.
8 to what precedes, or what follows. Delitzsch fa-
vors the first connection, Knobel and Keil the last.
They suppose that the feast at the weaning of Isaac
gave occasion for the expulsion of Ishmael. But
thLs is not certain, and were it even certain, ver. 8
could, notwithstanding, belong to the conclusion of
the history of the childhood of Isaac.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.

1. Isaac's birth, circumcision, and the feast at hit
weaning. — (Vers. 1-8). — And the Lord (Jehovah)
visited ["The Sept. has eVso-Kc'i/zaTo, a word
adopted by St. Luke in two places in the song of
Zacharias (Luke i. 68-78), who thus intimates the
connection between the birth of Isaac and the birth
of the promised seed." Wordsworth p. 93. He
refers also to the connection of the song of the bles
sed virgin with these exultant and thankful words of
Sarah. See also Gen. xvii. 1*7-19 ; Luke ii, 21 ; John
viii. 56 ; and Luke i. 44-47. — A. G.] Sarah. — ipB
to come to, to visit, to visit with the purpose of aiding^
of saving, or with the design to punish, marking the
great transitions in the providence of God ; an idea
running throughout the Scriptures (ch. L 24 ; Ex. iii.
16), to express which, according to Knobel, the
Elohist uses "ST (ch. viii. 1 ; xix. 29 ; xxx. 20) ;
where, however, in the two first case?, the ideas are
widely different. The pregnancy of Sarah is traced
back to Jehovah, since the' conception of Isaac is a
fruit of faith, i. e., of that connection of the sexes,
on the pan of both parents, animated and sanctified
through faith. — As he had said (ch. xviii. 14). — As
God had said to him (ch. xvii. 21). — [These ex-
pressions have an exegetical value, not only at

CHAP. XXI. 1-84.

451

ghowing the divine faithfulness, and the develop-
ment of hla plan, but as showing also how the
different parts of this book are inwoven together,
and thus prove its unity. — A. G.] — As God had
commanded him (eh. xvii. 12). — It is assumed,
according to the announcements previously made,
that the son should here receive the name Isaac.
God had given him this name already, before his
birth (ch. xvii. 19 ; comp. xix. 11). The special cause
of this name lies in the laughing of Abraham (ch.
xvii.) whose darker echo is heard in the laugh of
Sarah (oh. xviii.), and the laughter of the people at
this singular birth, of which Sarah speaks further
here. The one thread running through all these
various laughs is the apparently incredible nature
of the event. Knobel, therefore, holds, without suf-
ficient ground, that these are " different attempts to
explain the origin of the name." — An hundred
years old (see ch. xvii. 24). — And Sarah said,
God hath made me to laugh. — Delitzsch signal-
izes the poetical form of the two sentences of Sarah.
" They are joyful cries, the first a distich, the second
in three lines. Hence also the term bfea instead of
nafl. Sarah, without doubt, goes back to the divine
giving of the name, which the laughing of Abraham
had occasioned. But then also, she glances at her
own laughing, which is now followed by another and
better laugh, even the joyful cry of a thankful faith.
That laugh arose from her unbelief, this Jehovah has
given to her as the fruit of her faith. But she must
explain stiU further, and that not without a certain
feeling of shame." (Delitzsch, comp. ch. XYiii. 12.)
— All that hear will laugh with me. — ["'a with
the perfect has the sense of the conjunctive. Keil,
p. 172. — ^A. G.] — i. e., with astonishment at the mi-
raculously given child. — A great feast. — Starke :
"The Hebrews, and other eastern nations, named
their feasts from the drinks (nnca), as if more
regard was paid to the drinks than to the food."
But as the joy over Isaac, in respect to the promise
given in him, was directed more to the spiritual than
the bodily, so also without doubt this feast was
arranged with reference to the same thing. — And
the child grew. — Knobel and Keil refer the eighth
verse to the following section. "Ishmael," Keil
remarks, " mocked at the feast held at the weaning
of Isaac." * Knobel : he had made sport. But it
is hardly probable that Ishmael had thus made sport
or mocked on one occasion only. " The weaning of
the child was often delayed, sometimes after three
(2 Macc.vii. 27; Mungo Park's " Travels," p. 237), and
even after four years, (Eussel : "Natural History of
Aleppo," I. p. 427). [" The weaning from the mother's
breast was the first step to the independent existence
of the child" (Baumgarten), and hence gave occasion
for the profane wit and mocking oi Ishmael, in which
there was, as Keil remarks, unbeliel, envy, and
pride. — A. G.] It was observed b> Abraham, as
also to day in the lands of the east, as a family feast.
Schroder : " The Koran fixes two vears, at least,
as the period of nursing children.'

2. The expxdsion of Ishmael (vers. »-21). — And
Sarah saw the son of Hagar. — It is not said that
this happened at the feast upon the weaning of Isaac.
The different explanations of pnsa . The first ex-
planation : The word describes one making sport, as

* 'Kurtz says that Ishmael laughed at the contrast be-
tween the promises and corresponding hopes centring in
iBaac, and the weak nursling, p. 201,— A G.]

ch. xix. 14 ; Ishmael appears as a playful lad, leap
ing and dancing around, who thus excited the euvj
of Sarah. Thus Knobel, after Aben Ezra, Ilgen
Geseniua, Tuch. The Septuagint and Vulgate intro
duce so much into the text : "playing with Isaac."
Since Ishmael was fourteen years of age at the birth
of Isaac, and now about sixteen to seventeen, Sarah
must certainly have seen him playing with Isaai
much earlier, with jealousy, if his playfulness gener
ally could indeed have excited her jealousy. But if
Ishmael, at the feast-day of Isaac, was extravagantly
joyful, he thus gave an assurance of his good-will
towards her son, the heir of the house. Hence the
second explanation; The word describes the act of
scoflSng, mockery. Keil and others, after Kimchi,
Vatabl, Piscat, Grot, against which Knobel objects
that the word in question was never used of mock-
ing. "StiU leas," he adds, "are we to think of r
persecution of Isaac (Gal. iv. 29 ; Rosenm. ; Del)
or of a controversy about the inheritance (the olt
Jewish inierpret.), or of an idolatrous service (Jona-
than, Jarchi)." Delitzsch explains : " Ishmael, at
the feast of the weaning of the child, made sport of
the son of his father instead of sharing the joy of
the household." But the text certainly says only
that Sarah made the observation that he was a jest-
ing, mocking youth. But since the pnso follows sc
directly upon PHIS'; , so we may certainly conjecture
that the word is here used to denote that he mim-
icked Isaac, jeered at him, or he ridiculed Isaac.
[He does not laugh, but makes himself sportive,
derides. This little feeble Isaac a father of nations !
Hengstenbeeg : Beitrdc/e, ii. p. 276. Kurtz urges
well in favor of the stronger meaning of the word,
the force of the Pihel and the fact that the conduct
of Ishmael so described was made the reason by
Sarah for her demand that the son of the bondwoman
should be driven out, p. 202.— A. G.] Leaving this
out of view, the observation of Sarah was certainly
the observation of a development of character. Ish-
mael developed a characteristic trait of jealousy, and
such persons pass easily, even without any inclina-
tion, to mockery. It is probable that this reviUng
conduct appeared in some striking way at the feast
of the weaning of Isaac, although this cannot be in-
ferred with certainty from the text. " The Rabbins
feign here a controversy between the children, about
the descent of Isaac from Abimelech, about the inher-
itance, and the Uke." SchrSder. Sarah does not regard
him directly as a pretender, claiming the rights of
primogeniture, but as one unworthy to be heir with
her son. Even later, the moral earnestness and the
sense and love of truth in the heir of the promise,
are wanting in the talking and fiction-loving Arab.
But tradition has added to this feature, his hand is
against every man, and thus has formed the explana-
tion, that he persecuted Isaac with his jests and
scoffs, a tradition which Paul could use in his alle-
gorical explanation. [The apostle does far more
than merely use a Jewish tradition. He appears to
allude to the use made of this history by the prophet
Isaiah (ch. liv.), and in his explanation of the alle
gory states that the conduct of Ishmael towards
Isaac was a type of the conduct of the self-righteoua
Jews towards those who were trusting in Christ alone
for righteousness, or who were believers. This
mocking, therefore, was the persecution of him who
was bom Kara trdpita against him who was bom icarci
irveDfta. In this view, the word can only mean the
UD leheving, envious sport and derision of this youth,

458

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

proud of his more fleshly preeminence, as Keil and
Hengstenberg hold. He was thug, obviously, in
heart separated from the household of faith. — A, G.]
The passages, however, wliich Delitzsch quotes (ch.
xxxix. 14 and Ezek. xxiii. 32) for the meaning of
pns , to scoff, must not be overlooked. In her es-
timate of character, Sarah was far superior to Abra-
ham, as Rebekah was also superior to Isaac in judg-
ment in reference to her two sons. — Cast out * this
bondwoman and her son. — Knobel thinks that
according to ch. xxv. 6 the Elohist has not admitted
into the record any such expulsion. The unmerciful
severity towards his own son and his mother, does
not agree well with the character of Abraham, and
it is doubtful, therefore, whether we are dealing here
with a literal fact. But this is a mere human arbi-
trariness, in which the lofty, pure motive, remains
miappreciated. [There is underlying all these ob-
jections of Knobel and others who sympathize with
him, a false hermeneutical principle, viz., that we
must interpret and explain the word by what we
conceive to have been the moral state and feelings
of these historical personages. — A. G.] The word
of Sarah was displeasing to Abraham also. It is
not the Angel of the Lord, but God as Elohim, who
confirms the judgment of Sarah. For the exclusion
of Ishmael was requisite not only to the prosperity
of Isaac and the line of the promise, but to the wel-
fare of Ishmael himself — For in Isaac shall thy
seed be called (see ch. xvii. 19). — There are three
explanations of these words : 1. After Isaac shall thy
seed be named (Hofmann). But Delitzsch reminds
us that the people of the promise are only once called
Isaac (Amos vii. 9). 2. In Isaac shall thy seed be
caUed into existence (Drechsler) ; better, 3. In Isaac
shall the people which is, and is called (Is. xli. 8)
the pecuhar seed of Abraham, have its point of de-
parture (Bleek, Delitzsch). — And also of the son
of the bondwoman (oomp. ch. xvii. 20 ; xvi. 12).
—And Abraham rose up early in the morning.
— He did not yield to the wiU of Sarah, but indeed
to the command of God which, as it seems, came to
him in a revelation by night. This decided, perfect,
prompt cheerfulness, proves that he would, at the
command of God, sacrifice Isaac also (ch. xxii. 3). —
And took bread and a bottle of water. — The
narrative passes over the provision of Hagar with
the simple requisites for her journey ; with the bread
it may be thought (ch. xxv. 6) that there was in-
cluded a provision with money for a longer time.
He had doubtless made known to his household the
revelation of the niglit, so that Sarah might not be
elated nor Hagar depressed. — And the child. —
[He was now about sixteen or seventeen — a youth.
"Boys were often married at this age." Ishmael
was soon after married. This must be borne in mind
in our estimate of the command given to Abraham.
— A, G.] According to the Septuagint, Tuch, and
others, the author places the burden upon the boy
also J [The "i conjunctive makes it necessary that the
"■■J'n '^'J^ should be connected with the principal
verb np"!. Keil, p. 172. — A. G.] but this does not
follow from the text. Knobel correctly recalls to
new that Ishmael was at this time at least sixteen
vears md. Delitzsch, on the contrary, understands
the passage in the first instance thus : Abraham

* [Bush suggestB that it is Bome legal divorce wliich is
intended. The Heb. word has that meaning, see Lev. xxi.
1, 11; xxii 13; Is. Ivii. 20.— A. G.]

placed Isaac [Ishmael ? — A. G.] also upon the bad
of Hagar ; and speaks of inconsistencies and contra,
dictions in the context ; but then, he himself destroy!
this interpretation in a casual side remark. Th«
Vulgate also here corrects the Septuagint.— She de-
parted and urandered. — In the first case she found
the way easily, for her flight was voluntary, but in
this case she is quickly lost, no doubt because of the
extreme agitation of her mind on account of hur
sudden dismissal. Luther has admirably shown
these inward causes for her wandering. — In the wil«
demess of Beersheba. — Southerly from Beersheba
(see ver. 33), bordering upon the desert El Tih.^
And the ■water was spent In the bottle. — This
was the special necessary of Ufe for those passing
through the desert. The boy began to faint from
thirst. — And she cast the child. — The words here
have certainly the appearance as if spoken of a little
child. But a wearied boy of sixteen years, unac-
quainted with the straits of the desert, would natu-
rally be to the anxious mother like a little child.
The expression, she cast him, is an expression that,
with a feeling of despair, or of renunciation, she
suddenly laid down the wearied one, whom she had
supported and drawn along with her, as if she had
prayed that he might die, and then hastened away
with the feehng that she had sacrificed her child.
A whole group of the beautiful traits of a mother's
love appear here ; she lays her child under the pro-
tecting shadow of a bush ; she hastens away ; she
seats herself over against him at the distance of a
bowshot, because she will not see him die, and yet
cannot leave him, and there weeps aloud. Thus also
Ishmael must be offered up, as Isaac was somewhat
later. But through this necessity he was conse-
crated, with his future race, to be the son and king
of the desert. And now Hagar must discover the
oasis, which is also a condition of Ufe for the sons
of the desert. — As it Tvere a bowshot. — Just as
the stone's throw in Luke xxi. 41. — And God
heard the voice of the lad. — The weeping of th«
mother and the child forms one voice, which tho
narrative assumes. It is a groundless particularism
when it is said Ishmael was heard because he was
the son of Abraham. — And the Angel of God.*—
As Jehovah himself is Elohim for Ishmael, so thf
Angel of the Lord (Jehovah) also is for him the
Angel of God. There is no word here of a peculiai
angelic appearance, for Hagar only kearn tJie call of
the Angel frmn heuven. But the call of the Ang'^l
was then completed by the work of God when he
opened her eyes. Since she suffers on account of
the p-ople of revelation, the angel of revelation here
also, as in her flight, eli. xvi., protects and rescues
her. — What aileth thee, Hagar ? Pear not- - •
Her heart grows firm and strong iigain under tho
revelation from above. — And hold him in Vuinu
hand. — Jerome infers admirably from this cxpres
sion as to the sense of the former passage, " from
which it is manifest that he who is held could not
have been a burden upon his mother, but her com-
panion."— For I will make him a groat nation.
— A repetition of the earlier promise in rb . j.A. He
therefore cannot die. — I will make iJin. — It is
only the Angel of Elohim, who is Eloh'ci, who can
thus speak. — And she saw a well of water. — A

* [The angel of Elohim, not Jehovah, bf ;auBe Ishmael,
since the divinely ordained removal from thk. house of Abra-
ham, passes from under the protection of the covenant God.
to that of the leading and providence of God, the ru'er of al
nations. Keil, p. 173.— A. G.]

CHAP. XXI. 1-3*.

45S

liTing fountain, not merely a cistern. The cisterns
were covered, and only discoverable by signs which
were known only to those who were entrusted with
the secret. Some have conjectured that Hagar now
discovered these marks of a cistern. But it is a
well in the peculiar sense which is here spoken of. —
And gave the lad drink. — Ishmael is saved, and
now grows up as the consecrated son of the desert.
— And became an archer. — The bow was the
means of his livelihood in the desert. " Some of the
Tshmaelitish tribes, e. g., the Kedarenes and Itureaus
(ch. XXV. 13-15), distinguish themselves through this
weapon." Kuobel. For the twofold signification
nan , see Delitzsoh, p. 410.* — And he dwelt in
the wilderness of Paran. — Ishmael is already in
the way from Palestine to Arabia. The wilderness
of Paran is the present great desert El Tih. It runs
from the southern border of Palestine, especially
from the desert of Beersheba, begmning with the
desert of Sin, between Palestine and Egypt, south-
easterly down to the northern part of the Sinaitic
peninsula, where it is limited by the mountains of
Paran [Robinson and Coleman think it embraces the
whole great desert, and this supposition best meets
the various notices of this desert in the Scriptures. —
A. G.] (See the article in the " Bible Dictionary for
Christian People.") — A wife out of the land of
Egypt. — Hagar takes a wife for her sou from her
own home. Thus the heathen element at once re-
ceives additional strength. The Ishmaelite Arabs
are thus, as to their natural origin, sprung from a
twofold mingling of Hebrew and Egyptian blood ; of
an ideal and contented disposition, inwoven with a
recluse, dream-like, and gloomy view of the world.

3. The covenant between Abraham and Abiinelech
(vers. 22-34). — And Abimelech spake unto Abra-
ham,— Abimelech, i. e., father of the king, or father-
king, the king my father, the title of the kings at
Gerar; Pliiohol, i. e., the mouth of all, probably
also a title of the highest officer of the kings at
Gerar. The proposition of Abimelech to Abraham
to make a covenant with him rests upon a deep feel-
ing of the blessing which Abraham had in commun-
ion with God, and upon a strong presentiment that
in the future he would be a dangerous power to the
inhabitants of Canaan. It is to this man's praise
that he does not seek in a criminal way to free him-
self from his anxiety, as Pharaoh in his hostility to
the IsraeUtes in Egypt, or as Saul in his hostility to
David, but in the direct, frank, honest way of a cove-
nant. Abimelech has indeed no presentiment how
far the hopes of Abraham for the future go beyond
his anxieties. The willingness, however, of Abra-
ham to enter into the covenant, is a proof that he
had no hopes for the personal possession of Canaan.
As a prudent prince, Abimelech meets him in the
company of his chief captain, who might make an
impression of his power upon Abraham, although he
addresses his appeal chiefly to his generosity and
gratitude. He appeals to the faithfulness which he
had shown him, and desires only that he should not
be injured by Abraham either in his person or in his
descendants. But Abraham distinguishes clearly
between politinal and private rights, and now it is for
him to administer rebukes, f — And he reproved

* [Banmgarteii renders a hero an archer ; and refers for
ui analogy to the phrase n^sina nns: , p. 223.— A. G.l

t (Murphy renders Kin 'and Kith to represent the He-
Iwew "nas ■'513, p. 334.— A. G.l

Abimelech because of a '^ell of water (see ch
xiii. 7 ; xxvi. 16 ; the great value of wells in Canaan),
— But the ingenuous prince in part throws back th«
reproach upon him : Abraham had not spoken of th«
matter until to-day, and he had known nothing of it.
He is ready, therefore, to make restitution, and now
follows the making of the covenant. — Sheep and
OKen. — The usual covenant presents (la. xxx. 6;
xxxix. 1 ; 1 Kings xv. 19). — Seven ewe lambs 01
the flock. — Although the well belonged to him, he
secures again in the most solemn way its possession,
through the execution of the covenant, since a gift
which one of the contracting parties receives from
the other binds him more strictly to its stipulations
(Ewald: " Antiquities," p. 18). — Beersheba. — It is
a question, in the first place, how the name is to be
explained, and then, what relation this well, in its
derivation, sustains to the wells of Beersheba (ch.
xxvi. 32). Knobel asserts that the author explains
Beersheba through oath of the weUs, since he takes
Saia for nS!ias) , oath ; but literally the word can
only signify seven wells. Keil, on the other hand,
asserts that the sense of the passage is this : that the
wells take their name from the seven lambs with
whose gift Abraham sealed his possession. When
we recollect that in the name of Isaac differently
related titles were united, we shall not press the an-
tithesis between the seven weUs and the wells of the
oath. The form designates it as the seven weUs, but
the seven really marks it as the well of the oath.
"S3tti3,they sware, literally they confirmed by
seven,' not because three, the number of the deity,
is united in the oath with four, the number of the
world (Leopold Schmidt, and this exposition is un-
deniably suggestive), but on account of the sacred-
ness of the number seven, which has its ground and
origin in the number seven of the creation (which,
however, may be divided into the three and the
four) ; they chose seven things for the confirmation
of the oath, as Herodotus, among others, testifies of
the Arabians (ch. iii. 8)." Keil. According to Kno-
bel, the narrative of the name Beersheba (ch. xxvi.
30) is only another tradition concerning the origin of
the same name. " But Robinson," Delitzsch replies,
" after a long time the first explorer of the southern
region of Palestine, foimd upon the borders of the
desert two deep wells, with clear, excellent water."*
These wells are called Bir ea Seba, seven wells ; after
the erroneous explanation of the Bedouins, the well
of the lion. According to Robinson, Beersheba
lay near by the bed of a wide watercourse running
towards the coast, called Wady es Seba (Rob. " Pal."
i. p. 300). — And he planted a grove (tamarisk).
— " Probably the Tamarix Africana, common in
Egypt, Petrea, and Palestine ; not a collection (com-
pare with this tamarisk of Abraham, that in Gibeah,
1 Sam. xxii. 6, and that in Jabesh, 1 Sam. xxxi. 13)."
Delitzsch. " They were accustomed to plant the
tamarisks as garden trees, which grew to a remark,
able height and furnished a wide shade." [Calvin
remarks that the planting of the trees indicates that
Abraham enjoyed more of quiet and rest after the
covenant was made than he had done before. — A. G.l
Michaelis. The tamarisk, with its lasting wood ana
evergreen foliage, was an emblem of the eternity of
God, whom he declared, or as Keil expresses it, of

* [There are thus, in fact, two wells, from which the city
might have been named, and from which it was named, ac-
cording to the two accounta or testimc-ios in Genesis- De«
LlTzgCH, p. 296. — A. Q 1

160

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

the eternally enduring grace of the true God of the
Covenant. But it is questionable whether Abraham,
the great antagonist of all that i-s traditional in
mythology, overthrowing the symbolism of nature,
would make such an exception here. We must then
also suppose that his preaching of Jehovah, the eter-
nal God, both preceded and followed the planting of
the tamarisk. Knobel thinks it is clear that a remark-
able tamarisk stood there, which one then traced back
to Abraham. As a planter of the tamarisk, Abraham
appears a prophet of civilization, as in his proclaim-
ing of the eternal God (the N"ij3 with beth is always
more definite than simply to call ■upon ; it designates
also the act of proclaiming) he is the prophet of the
faith (the cultus). — The name obi's bs appears to be
used here as a peculiar explanation of mni , and
thus to justify the translation of this name by the
words, the eternal. But Abraham had earlier (eh.
xiv. 22) designated Jehovah as El Eljon, then recog-
nized him (ch. xvii. 1) as El Shaddai. It follows
from this that Jehovah revealed himself to him under
various aspects, whose definitions form a parallel to
the universal name Elohim. The God of the highest
majesty who gave him victory over the kings of the
East, the God of miraculous power who bestows
upon him his son Isaac, now reveals himself in his
divine covenant-truth, over against his temporary
covenant with Abimelech, as the eternal God. And
the tamarisk might well signify this also, that the
hope of his seed for Canaan should remain green until
the most distant future, uninjured by his temporary
covenant with Abimelech, which he will hold sacred.
— Abraham sojourned in the land of the Phil-
istineB. — Abraham e\'idently remained a longer time
at Beersheba, and this, together with his residence at
Gerar, is described as a sojourn in the land of the
Philistines. But how then could it be said before,
that Abimelech and his chief captain turned back
from Beersheba to the land of the Philistines ? Keil
solves the apparent difficulty with the remark, the
land of the Philistines had at that time no fixed
bounds towards the wilderness ; Beersheba did not
belong to Gerar, the kingdom of Abimelech in the
narrower sense. — Many days. — These many days
during which he sojourned in the land of the Philis-
tines, form a contrast to the name of the eternal
God, who had promised Canaan to him.

DOCTEINAl AlTD ETHICAl.

1. Sarah's visitation a type of the visitation of
Mary, notwithstanding the great distinction between
them. The visitation lies in the extraordinary and
wonderful personal grace, to which an immeasurable
general human salvation is closely joined. But with
Sarah this visitation occurs very late in life, and after
long waiting ; with Mary it was entirely unexpected.
Sarah's body is dead ; Mary had not known a hus-
band. The son of Sarah is himself only a type of
the son of Mary. But with both women the richest
promise of heaven is limited through one particular
woman on the earth, a conception in faith, an ap-
parently impossible, but yet actual human birth;
both are illustrious instances of the destination of
the female race, of the importance of the wife, the
mother, for the kingdom of God. Both become 11-
ustrious since they freely subjected themselves to
this destination, since they yielded their sons in the
futcie, th« sons of promise, or in the son of prom-

ise ; for Isaac has all his inoportance as a type of
Christ, and Christ the son of man is the manifesta
tion of the eternal Son. — The visitation of Sarah wai
that which Jehovah had promised a year before. He
visits the believer with the word of promise, and
visits him again with the word of fulfilment, Abra^
ham must have waited five and twenty years for the
promise, Sarah only one year.

2. Isaac; he will laugh, or one will laugh (se
ch. xvii. 19). The believer laughs at the last.

3. The sons of old age and miraculously-givel
children : the sons of Noah, Isaac, Joseph (ch. xxxvii.
3), Benjamin (ch. xliv. 20), Samuel, John the Bap
tist, and Christ.

4. The little song of Sarah, the sacred joyful
word of the mother over Isaac. The first cradle
hymn.

5. The feast of the weaning of Isaac. " The
announcement, the birth, the weaning of the child. —
All this furnishes matter for manifold joy and laugh-
ter ; pri37 , i. e., the laugher, the Mness of joy in
his name. Our Lord reveals the profoundest source
of this joy when he says (John viii. 56), Abraham
your father rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it,
and was glad. Since Sarah, the wife of one, became
the mother of Isaac, she became the mother of Is-
rael (Is. li. 2; Mai. ii. 15; Ezek. xxxiii. 24), and
since she is the mother of Israel, the ancestress, and,
in some sense, the mother of Jesus Christ, who de-
rives his flesh and blood from Isaac, out of Lsrael,
and in whom Abraham is a blessing to all the na.
tions, the birthday of Isaac, spiritually viewed, thus
becomes the door or entrance of the day of Christ,
and the day of Christ the background of the birth-
day of Isaac." Delitzsch. Calvin dwells especially
upon the circumstance that Sarah nursed her child.
"Whom he counts worthy of the honor of being
a mother he at the same time makes nurse; and
those who feel themselves burdened through the
nursing of their children, rend, as far as in them lies,
the sacred bonds of nature, unless weakness, or
some infirmities, form their excuse." It is remark-
able that a century after the Genevan Calvin, the
Genevan Rousseau should again hold up the sacred-
ness of this law of nature, that mothers should nurse
their own children, against the unnataral custom at
his time of using wet-nurses, although, indeed, he
himself had fundamentally no right to plead it.

6. The whole context confirms the Hebrew tradi-
tion, which finds in the jests of Ishmael the kindred
idea of mockery, and upon this rests the confirma-
tion of the allegorical explanation of Paul (Gal. iv. ;
comp. "Biblework " on Gal. iv. 22-30). [The apos-
tle, however, does not say that the history was designed
to be typical, but had been used and may be used to
illustrate the truth he was discussing. — A. G.] [Ish-
mael mocked the child of promise, the faith of hia
parents, and therefore the word and purpose of God.
His mocking was the outward expression of his un-
belief, as the joy of his parents, which gave rise to
the feast, was of their faith. It thtis reveals his
character as unworthy and incapable of sharing in
the blessing, which then, as now, was secured only
by faith. Hence, like Esau, Saul, the carnal Juda-
izers of the apostle's day, all who trust in them-
selves rather than in the promise, he was cast out.-
A. G.]

1. Female tact and accuracy in the estimate ol
youthful character. Sarah. Rebekah. Sarah's ii>
terference with the order of Abraham's houaelioW

CHAP. XXI. 1-34.

161

cannot be without sin, but in this case she meets and
responds to the theocratic thought. This fact is re-
peated in a stronger form in the position of Rebekah
over against that of Isaac, since she secures to Jacob
the right of the first-bom. Both fathers must have
their prejudices in favor of the rights of the natural
first-born corrected by the presaging, far-seeing
mothers.

8. Abraham rose up early in the morning, espe-
cially when a command of the Lord is to be fulfilled
or a sacrifice is to be brought (ch. xxii).

9. The expulsion of Hagar. Since lahmael had
grown to nearly sixteen years of age in the house
of Sarah, her proposal cannot be explained upon
motives of h\iman jealousy. The text shows how
painfiil the measure was to Abraham. But the man
of faith who should later offer up Isaac, must now
be able to offer Ishmael also. He dismisses him,
however, in the Hght of the promise, that his expul-
sion confirmed his promotion to be the head of a
great nation, and because the purpose of God in
reference to Isaac could only become actual through
this separation. The separation of Lot from Abra-
ham, of Ishmael from Isaac, of Esau from Jacob,
proceeds later in the separation of the ten tribes
from Judah, and finally in the excision of the unbe-
lieving Jewish population from the election (Rom.
X.; Gal. iv.). These separations are continued even
in the Christian Church. In the New-Covenant,
moreover, the Jews for the most part have been ex-
cluded as Ishmael, while many Ishmaelites on the
contrary have been made heirs of the faith of Abra-
ham. The Queen of Sheba perhaps adheres more
faithfully to wisdom than Solomon.

10. The moral beauty of Hagar in the desert, in
her mother-love and in her confidence in God. Ha-
gar in the desert an imperishable pattern of true
maternal love.

11. The straits of the desert the consecration of
the sons of the desert. The terrible desert, through
the wonderful help of God, the wells, and oases of
God, became a dear home to him. There is no
doubt, also, that after he had learned thoroughly by
experience that he was not a fellow-heir with Isaac,
he was richly endowed by Abraham (ch. xxv. 6),
and also remained in friendly relations with Isaac
(ch. xxv. 9).

12. Abimeleoh's presentiment of Abraham's fu-
ture greatness, and his prudent care for the security
of his kingdom in his own person and in his descend-
ants. The children of Israel did not attack the land
of the Philistines until the Philistines had destroyed
every recollection of the old covenant relations.
Abimelech ever prudent, honest, and noble. The
significance of the covenant of peace between the
father of the faithful and a heathen prince (comp.
" Covenant of Abraham," ch. xiv.).

13. Abraham gives to Abimelech upon his de-
sire the oath of the covenant, as he had earlier
sworn to the king of Sodom, " I will swear," the
sign of the condescension of the believer, in the re-
lations and necessities of human society. Bearing
■•ipon the doctrine of the oath.

14. Abraham learns the character of Jehovah in
% living experience of faith, according to his varied
revelations, and with this experience the knowledge
of the attributes of God rises into prominence. As
Elohim proves himself to be Jehovah to him, so Je-
hovah again proves himself to be Elohim in a higher
Bense. God the Exalted is the Covenant God for
him ; God the Almif Hty performs wonders foi him ;

God the Eternal busies himself for him in the etema
truth of the Covenant.

15. Abraham calls upon aTid proclaims the name
of the Lord. The one is in truth not to be sepa-
rated from the other. The living prayer must yield
its fruit in the declaration, the living declaration must
have its root in prayer. The faith of Abraham in
Jehovah develops itself into a faith in the etema)
truth of his covenant, and in the ever green ana
vigorous life of the promise. [" He calls upon th«
name of the Lord with the significant surname of the
God of perpetuity, the eternal, unchangeable God.
This marks him as the »ure and able peiformer of
his promise, as the everlasting vindicator of the faith
of treaties, and as the infallible source of the believ-
er's rest and peace." Murphy. — A. G.] For th«
tamarisk (see Dictionaries of the Bible) and for the
meaning of the desert of Beersheba and the city ol
the same name (see Concordances).

16. Abraham, Samson, and David, in the land of
the PhiUstines. Alternate friendships and hostilitiea
Abraham at first gains in South-Canaan a well, then
a grave (ch. xxiii.). Both were signs of his inherit
ing the land at some future time.

lY. Beersheba, honored and sanctified through
the long residence of Abraham and Isaac. This city
marking the southern limits of Israel in contrast
with the city of Dan as ». northern limit was, later,
also profaned through an idolatrous service (Amo.»
V. 5 ; viii. 14).

18. Passavant dwells upon the glory of the Ara
bians in Spain for seven centuries. " Indeed, they
still, today, from the wide and broad desert, ever
weep over the forsaken, crushed clods of that heroic
land." But what has Roman fanaticism made of the
land of Spain ? He says again : " Arabia has also
its treasures, its spices, and ointments, herds of noble
animals, sweet, noble fruits, but it is not a Canaan,
and its sons, coursing, racing, plundering, find in ila
wild freedom an uncertain inheritance." " Gal. iv. 29
is fulfilled especially in the history of Mohammed."

19. Upon the covenant of Abraham and Abime-
lech, Passavant quotes the words. Blessed are the
peace-makers. Schwenke represents Abimelech as
a self-righteous person, but without sufficient reason

HOMrLETICAL AND PEACTICAi.

See the doctrinal paragraphs. — The connection
between Isaac's birth and Ishmael's expulsion. — The
joyful feast in Abraham's house. — Haear's necessity ;
Hagar's purification and glorification. — Abraham's
second meeting with Abimelech. — Abraham at Beer-
sheba, or the connection between civilization and the
cultus in Abraham's lite. An example for Christian
missions.

1. Isna<fs birth (ver. 1-8), Ver. 1. In the prov-
idence of God we first experience that he himself
visits us. that he gives us himself; then that he
visits us with his deeds of salvation " Noble natures
regard what they are as one with what they do." It
is true of God above all others, that we come to
know him in his gifts, and his gifts in his visitation.
— The section affords appropriate texts for baptismal
discourses. Stakke : the repetition {as he had spoken,
of which he had spoken) has the utmost emphasis.
The promises of God must at last pass into fulfil-
ment, even when all hope has been lost by men. His
promises are yea and amen, — Luther; " Mosei
abounds in words, and repeats his words twice, il

4(52

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

order to bring before our minds the unutterable joy
of the patriarch. This joy would be increased also
(if it is true, as some say, that the Son of God in
human form appeared to Sarah in the sixth week,
and wished her joy of her young son, ch. xviii. 10).
— H. C. Rambach : Isaac's birth in many respeets
resembles greatly the birth of Christ : 1. Both births
were announced long before ; 2. both occur at the
time fixed by God; 8. both persons were named
before they were born ; 4. both were supernaturally
(miraculously) conceived ; 5. both births occasioned
great joy : 6. the law of circumcision begins (as to
its principle) with Isaac, and ceases in (through)
Christ, Ver. 1. In her joy Sarah speaks of many
(several) children, when she had borne only one son,
who, hoHOver, was better to her than ten sons. — Slie
will say ; Not only has my dead body received
strength from God, to bring a child into the world,
but I am conscious of such strength that I can
supply its food which sometimes fails much younger
and more vigorous mothers. — Sarah did this (nursed
her child) although she was a princess (ch. xxiii. 6)
and of noble blood, for the law of nature itself
requires this from all, since, with this very end in
view, God has given breasts to all and filled them
with milk. The Scriptures united these two functions,
the bearing of children and nursing them, as belong-
ing to the mother (Luke xi. 27 : xxiii. 29 : Ps. xxii.
10). Thus these two things were reckoned among
the blessings and kindness of the Great God (ch. xlix.
25), while an unfruitful body and dry breasts are a
punishment from him (Hosea ix. 11-14). — Ver. 8.
(Whether, as the Jews say, Shem, Melchizedec and
Selah were present at this feast, cannot be said with
certainty.) — Abi-aham doubtless had his servants to
share in the feast, and held instructive conversation
with them, exhorting them to confidence in God, to
the praise of his name. It is a peculiarly spiritual,
joyful, and thankful feast. — An enumeration of bib-
lical feasts (2 Cor. i. 20). — The blessing of children.
Ingratitude, in regarding many such gifts (children) as
1 punishment. — Feasts after laaptism are not opposed
to the will of God, but they should still be observed
to his honor, with pious people, without luxury, and
other poor women in childbed should not be for-
gotten.— Schroder: Ver. 1. He is faithful (Num.
xxiii. 19). — Since every birth flows from (is a gift from)
God (Ps. cxxvii. 3), so we may rightly say, that the
Lord visits those to whom he sends children. — Ver.
S. Isaac was the son of the free- woman, born through
the promise of God (Gal. iv. 22, 23), consequently a
type of every child of God, who through the strength
of the promise, or of the gospel, is born to freedom
and of a free-woman. (Roos.)— What strange dis-
appointments ! The son, who receives from God
who hears the cries and wishes of men, his name
Ishmael (God hears) is not the promised one, but
the promise was fulfilled in the other, Isaac, who was
named according to a more common human custom !
[The laughing of Abraham (ch. xvii. 17) has how-
ever a greater spiritual worth than the cry of Hagar
for help (ch. xvi. 11).] — Passavant: Behold, two
children of one father and in the same hou.se, reared un-
der one discipline, consecrated before the same altar, of
like hearts, borne before God upon the same prayer
and thus offered to him, and still so unlike in their
minds and ways, in their conduct and aims, etc. ; the
dark mysteries of nature and grace. — Taube ; The
birth of Isaac and expulsion of Ishmael an example
of wliat occurred at the Reformation, and of what
must take place in us all.

2. Ishmaers removal (ver. 9-21). TTie thec-.TatU
separations in their import : a. Judgment in respect
to the fitness for theocratic purposes, but not, b. in
respect to a destination to blessedness. — [So Henry.
We are not sure that it was his eternal ruin ; it if
presumption to say that all those who are left out of
the external dispensation of God's covenant, ar<
therefore excluded from all his mercies. — A. G.] —
The providence of God over Ishmael. — The Arabians.
— The Mohammedan world. — Mission Sermons. — The
external separation presupposes an Inward estrange-
ment.

Starke : Ver. 9. A laughing, jesting, gay, and
playful youth. It may be that Ishmael had reviled
Isaac because of his name which he had received
from a laugh, and had treated him with scorn. —
Lange ; Ver. 10. Sarah could not have been without
human wealoiess in this harsh demand ; but the
hand of God was in it. — Cramer : The faults and
defects of parents usually cleave to their children,
hence parents, especially mothers during pregnancy,
should guard themselves lest they stain themselves
with a grave fault which shall cleave to their children
during their Uves. — Bill. TOb. : The mocking spirit
is the sign of an evil, proud, jealous, envious heart ;
take heed that thou dost not sit with the scomer (Ps.
i. 1) — Bibl. Wirt. : Cases often occur in a family in
which the wife is much wiser than her husband,
hence their advice and counsel ought not to be
refused (1 Sam. xxv. 3, 17). Polygamy produces
great unhappiness. — Cramer ; There will arise some-
times disputes between married persons, even be-
tween those who are usually peaceful and friendly.
Still one should not give loose reins to his passion,
or allow the difference to go too far. — Ver. 12.
Lange: Here we see that the seed of the bond-
woman shall be distinguished from Isaac. — The
general rule is, tliat the wife shall be subject to her
husband, and in all reasonable things obey him, but
here God makes an exception. — Since Abraham in
the former case had followed his wife without consult-
ing God, when she gave him Hagar to wife, so he
must now also fulfil her will. — The comparison of
Ishmael with the unbelieving Jews at the time of the
New Testament : the haughty, perverse, scofittng
spirit of persecution ; the sympathy of Abraham
with Ishmael, the compassion of .Jesus towards the
Jews ; the expulsion and wandering in the wilder-
ness, but still under the Divine providence ; the hope
that they shall finally attain favor and grace. —
Cramer : The recollection of his former sins should
be a cross to the Christian. — One misfortune seldom
comes alone. — Sibl. Wirt. : There is nothing which
makes a man so tender and humble as the cross,
affliction, and distress.— Gerlach : The great truth
that natural claims avail nothing before God, reveals
itBelf clearly in this history. — Isaac receives his name
from a holy laughing ; Ishmael was also a laugher,
but at the same time a profane scoffer. — Calwer,
Uandbueh: What we often receive as a reproach,
and listen to with reluctance, may contain under the
rough, hard shell a noble kernel of truth, which in
deed agrees with the will of God. — Schroder :
(Luther supposes Abraham to Invite to the feast all
the patriarchs then living ; with Melchizedec and the
King of the Phihstines.) — Isaac, the subject of thf
holy laugh, serves also as a laughing-stock of profane
wit. — Ishmael is the representative of that world in
the church yet scoffing at the church. (In the letter to
the Galatians of the bond-church, in opposition to th(
free. — Both, if I may say so, are the sons of laughtei

CHAP. XXn. 1-19.

463

but in how different a sense. Sarah does not call
Ishmael by his name (a clear sign of her indignation),
and shows her contempt by calling him the son of
this bond-woman. (Lttthbr : ch. iii. 24 ; Prov. xxii.
10; John viii. 35.) — Ver. 13. Ishmael remained his
son, and indeed his first-born, whom he had long
held for the heir of the blessing. It is never easy
to rend from our hearts the objects of our dear affec-
tions. But he who must soon offer Isaac also is here
put into the school for preparation. Michaelis sees
in this removal the evidence that God was displeased
with polygamy. — Ver. 14. In many points surely the
men of God seem somewhat cold and hard-hearted (Ex.
xxxiL 27; Deut. xiii. 6 ff. ; sxxiii. 9 ; Matt. x. 37 ; Luke
xiv. 26). After this distinction was clearly made, Ish-
mael himself might draw near again (oh. xxv. 9) and
indeed share in the possessions of his rich father.
Baumgarten. — The expulsion of Ishmael was a
warning for Israel, so far as it constantly relied upon
its natural sonship from Abraham. — Thus the Papists
to-day, when they parade their long succession,
say nothing more than if they also called Ishmael the
first-bom. — Ver 17. We see moreover here that if
father and mother forsake us, then the Lord himself
willtakeusup. Oalvin. — The same : Ver. 19. If God
withdraw from lis the grace of his providence we are
as surely deprived of all means of help, even of those
which lie near at hand, as if they were far removed
from us. We pray him, therefore, not only that he
would supply us with what we need, but give us pru-
dence to make a right use of it ; otherwise it will
happen that, with closed eyes, we shall lie in the
midst of our supplies and perish.* — Passavant :
3agar's marriage was Sarah's own deed, not the
work of God, and this also made her fearful. Men
easily become anxious about their own, self-chosen
ways. — Abraham obeys. — The obedience of the pious

* [So we do not see the fountain opened for sinners in
this world's wiJderness until God opens our eyes. Jacobus.
-A. e.]

blessed in its results in all cases. — God knows how
to find us, even in the wilderness.

8. Abraham's covenant with Abimelech (vers.
22-34). — Traits of noble minds in the heathec
world. — The Hebrews and the PhUistlnes. — Why
they attract and why repel. — Starke: Bibl. Tub..
Even the world wonders at the blessedness of tht
pious. — Bibl. Wirt. It is allowed the Christian truly
to enter into covenant with strange, foreign, and,
to a certain extent, with unbelieving people. — A
pious man ought to complain to the rulers of the
reproach and injustice he suffers. — Rulers should
themselves take the care of the land, since cour
tiers often do what they wish. — The Kabbins (ver.
33) think that Abraham planted a garden of fruit-
trees, in which he received and entertained the stran-
gers, from which he did not suffer them to depart
until they became proselytes. — It is probable that
Abraham had pitched near a grove or wood, from
which he might have wood for his sacrifices, and in
which he might perhaps hold his worship, and also
that he might have more shade in this hot Eastern
land. — I am also a stranger here upon the earth. — -
Geelaoh : Ver. 22. The blessing of God which rest-
ed upon Abraham awakened reverence even in these
heathen, who served still the true God ; a type of the
blessing which, even in Old-Testament times, passed
over from the covenant people upon the heathen. —
ScHEODEE: A consolation follows upon the great
sorrow (Calvin). — The oath was an act of condescen-
sion to the evident mistrust of the Princes ; in the
other aspect an act of worship. — The Holy Scrip-
tures regard the oath as if a pecuUar sacrament ;
there is the name of God, and the hearts of the peo-
ple are reconciled, and mistrust and strifes destroyed.
(Luther). — Nature fixes itself firmly when all goes
well. But faith knows here no continuing city {£er-
lenburger Bibel). — Moses reports three sacred works
of Abraham: 1. He labored; 2. he preached, 3.
he bore patiently his long sojourn in a strange land.

TENTH SECTION".

Tlie lacrifice of Isaac. The sealing of the faith of Abraham. The completion and sealing of the

Divine Promise.

Chapter XXIL 1-19.

1 And it came to pass after these things [preparatory thereto], that God [Eiohim] did

2 tempt ' Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham : and he said. Behold, here I am. And
he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into
the land of Moriah [shown or provided of Jehovah] f and offer him there for a burnt offering'
upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

3 And A.braham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of
Ms young men [servants] with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt

1 offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on
3 the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham

said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass ; and I and the lad will go yondoi
6 and worship, and come [may come] again to you (nawj). And Abraham took the wooi?

of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son ; and he took the fire in his liand

464

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSKH.

7 and a knife : and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham
his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I [ihear], my son. And he

8 said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And
Abraham said, My son, God will provide' himself a lamb ■'or a burnt offering: so they

9 went [further] both of them together. And they came to he place which God had tola
him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid [upon it] the wood in order; and

10 bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon ths wood. And Abraham stretched

1 1 forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called

12 unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said. Here am I. And
he said. Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him : foi

now I know [l have perceived] that thou fearest God [literally : a God-fearer art thou], seeing

13 thou hast not withlield thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up hia
eyes, and looked [spied, descried], and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by
his horns : and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him for a burnt offering

14 in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh'
[jehovah will see] : as it is said to this day. In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.

15 And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time,

16 And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this

17 tiling, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son : That in blessing I will bless thee,
and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand

18 which is upon the sea shore ; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. And
in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed [shall hiess themselves ; Hithpael] ;

19 because thou hast obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned unto his young men; and
they rose up, and went together to Beer-slieba ; and Abraham dwelt [still longer] at
Beer-sheba.

[^ Ver. 1. — i^D3 , to try, to prove, to put to the test. And, since men are tested only as they are placed in circumstanced
of temptation, to tempt. — A. G.]

[2 Ver. 'I. — Or where Jehovah is seen, appears, is manifested. — A. G.]

[3 Vei-. 2. — Heb., Make him ascend for a burnt offering. — A. G.l

[* Ver. ».— WiU see/or himself a lamb.— A. Q.]

[* Ver. 14. — Lir,, Jehovah shall be Been — or appear — or be manifested. Most of the early versions render Jehovah in
the nominative. — A Or.]

GENERAL PKELIMINAET EEMAEKS.

1. The documentary hypothesis [which implies
not only that historical documents may have come
down to Moses, and were used by him, but also
that the book is compacted from distinct and still
distinguishable compositions. — A. G] meets in this
section a very significant rebuke, whose import has
not been sufficiently estimated either by Knobel or
Delitzsch. " Leaving out of view the term Elohim,
nothing reminds us," saysJKnobel, " of the Elohistic,
but rather, everything is in favor of the Jehovistic
author, e. g., in the main point, its whole tendency
as thus stated (the knowledge of the unlawfulness
of human sacrifices in Israel), the human way in
which God is spoken of, etc. We must, therefore,
bold thiit the Jehovist uses Elohim here, so long as
he treats of human sacrifice.', and then first, after
this sacrifice, so foreign to the religion of Jehovah
ver. 1), has been rebuked, uses Jehovah." The real
distiir.ction of the names of God is thus recognized
without considering its consequences. Delitzsch
Bays, "the enlarger generally uses the name n'ln"'
less exclusively than the author of the original writing
the Dinbx(n). This change of the names of God
is, at all events, significant, as is every change of the
names of God in the original dependence and con-
nection of one of the two narrators." This conces-
sion does not agree with his introduction, when he
VLYB, " a comprehensible distinction between the two

names of God, Elohim and Jehovah, is not always
to be received ; the author has often merely found a
pleasure in ornamenting his work with the alternation
of these two names " (p. 32, 33). The change in
the names in this section is explained by the fact,
that the revelation of God, which the patiiarch re-
ceived at the beginning of the history, mingled itself
in his consciousness with traditional Elohistic ideas
or prejudices, while in the sequel, the second revela-
tion of Jehovah makes a clear and lasting distinction
between the pure word of Jehovah, and the tradi-
tional Elohistic, or general religious apprehension
of it.

2. We have already discussed, in the introduc-
tion (p. Ixxiv. ft), the peculiar idea in the history of
the sacrifice of Isaac, which tbe traditional theologi-
cal misunderstanding has transformed into a dark
enigma, which lies as a grave difficulty or stumbling
block in the history. In his " History of the Old
Covenant " (2d ed. p. 205), Kurtz resumes with great
zeal the discussion, with reference to Hengstenbeeg's
Beiirdge, iii. p. 145 ; Lange: Leben Jesu, i. p. 120;
" Positive Dogmatics," p. 818, and other works, and
asserts directly that God demanded from Abraham
the actual daying of Isaac. It is no difficulty, in his
view, that God, the true one, who is truth, commanck
at the beginning of the narrative, what be forbidt
at the close, as it was not difficult to him to hold that
the assumed angels (ch. vi.) were created sexless, bill
had in some magical way themselves created for them-
selves the sexual power. ("This is the difficulty whiofc

CHAP. XXn. 1-19.

465

Eurtz overlooks. It is not the difficulty in reconciling
this command with the prohibition of human sacrifices
in the Mosaic law, but in reconciling the command
with the prohibition in this history, if the killing of
Isaac is referred to in both. Hengstenberg and thiose
who argue with him, urge in favor of their view : 1 .
That the command relates only to the spiritual sacri-
fice of Isaac, here termed a bumt-KjSering because
of the entire renunciation of Isaac as a son by na-
ture, which he was to make, so that Isaac was to be
dead to him, and then received back again from the
dead, no longer in any sense a son of the flesh, but
the son of promise and of grace ; and then, 2. the
numerons places in the Scripture in which these sac-
rificial terms are used in a spiritual sense (e. g., Hos.
xiv. 3 ; Ps. xl. 7-9 ; where the same term, burnt-
ofifering, is used, and the Psalmist describes the en-
tire yielding of his personality as the sacrifice which
God required ; Ps. li. 19 ; cxix. 108 ; Rom. xii. 1 ;
FhiL iv. 18 ; Heb. xiii. 15, etc. See also the pnssage
1 Sam. i. 24, 25) ; and finally 3. the force and usage of
the word here rendered to tempt. But on the other
hand it is urged with great force : 1. That the terms
here used are such as to justify, if not require, the
mterpretation which Abraham put upon the com-
mand, i. e., that he was required literally to slay his
son as a sacrifice ; 2. that it is only as thus under-
stood that we see the force of the temptation to
which Abraham was subjected. It is obviously the
design of the writer to present this temptation as the
most severe and conclusive test. He was tried in
the command to leave his home, in his long waiting
for the promised seed, in the command to expel Ish-
mael. In all these his faith and obedience stood the
test. It remained to be seen whether it would yield
the son of promise also. This test, therefore, was
applied. The temptation was not merely to part
with his son, the only son of his love, but it was in
the command to put him to death, of whom it was
said, "in Isaac shall thy seed be called." The com-
mand and the promise were apparently in direct con-
flict. K he obeys the command he would seem to
frustrate the promise ; if he held fast to the promise
and saved his son he would disobey the command.

3. That this interpretation best explains the whole
transaction, as it related to Isaac as the channel of
blessing to the world, and the type of Christ, who
was the true human sacrifice — the man for men.

4. That there is no real moral difliculty, since God,
who is the giver of life, has a right to require it, and
since his command clearly expressed, both justified
Abraham in this painful deed and made it binding
upon him. 5. That this seems to be required by the
words of the apostle, Heb. xi. 19, " accounting that
God was able to raise him from the dead." The
weight of authority is greatly in favor of the latter
interpretation, even among recent commentators,
and it is clearly to be preferred. In regard to the
difliculty which Hengstenberg and Lange urge, it
may be said that the command of God is not always
a revelation of his secret wiU. He did not intend
that Abraham should actually slay his son, and there
is therefore no change in his purpose or will. He
did intend that Abraham should understand that he
was to do this. It was his purpose now to apply the
final test of his faith (a test needful to the patriarch
himself, and to all believers), which could only be
the surrender to the will of God of that which he
held most dear ; in this case his son, the son of
promise, in whom his seed should be called. To ap-
ply the test, he commands the patriarch, as he had a

30

perfect right to do, to go and offer his son a bumt>
offering. When the act was performed in heart, and
was about to be actually completed, the test waa
clear, the obedience of faith was manifest, the whole
condition of things was changed, and there was
therefore a corresponding change in the formal com-
mand, though no change in the divine purpose. — ■
A. G.] The actual divine restraint, which even
restrained the sacrifice of Isaac in the very aot
(p. 207), forms the reconciling middle-term be-
tween the command to Abraham and the pro-
hibition to Abraham's descendants. We cannot
truly yield our assent to such reconciling middle-
teims between the commands and prohibitions of
God. The question, how could the assumed posi-
tive command, " Thou shalt slay Isaac," become a
ground of the certain faith of Abraham ? which is
the main difficulty in the ordinary view of the pas-
sage, Delitzsch dismisses with the remark (3d ed. p.
418), "the subjective criterion of a fact of ^evelf^
tion is not its agreement with the utterances of the
so-called pious consciousness which exalts itself
above the Scripture, etc., but it is the experience of
the new-birth." This accords entirely with the ex-
planation of the Tridentme theologians. The sub-
jective criterion of a fact of revelation is rather that
clear, i. e., calm, because free from doubt, firm cer-
tainty of faith produced directly by the fact of reve-
lation itself. And this is truly a consciousness of the
pious, which does not indeed set itself above the
Scripture, but with which, also, the different acts,
words, and commands of Jehovah, who ever remains
the same in his truth and veracity, cannot be in con-
flict. The agreement between the declarations of
the eternal revelation, and the eternal declarations
of the religious consciousness, is so far wanting hcfc,
that Delitzsch says : " Israel knew that God had
once required from Abraham (the human sacrifice)
in order to fix for it a prohibition for all time. The
law therefore recognizes the human sacrifice only as
an abomination of the Moloch-worship (Lev. xviu.
21 ; XX. 1-5), and the case of Jephthah belongs to a
time when the Israelitish and Canaanitish popular
spirit and views were peculiarly intermingled." Then
the abomination of the Moloch-service in Israel rests
purely upon the positive ground of the example in
this history, an example which with the same extreme
positiveness, might be understood to have just the
contrary force, if it signifies, perhaps ; we may
omit the human sacrifice in all such cases, when Je-
hovah makes the same wonderful prohibition. As
to the sacrifice of Jephthah, Delitzsch regards it as a
sort of reconciling middle-term between the Moloch-
worship of the Canaanitea and the prohibition of a
Moloch-worship in Israel, that a hero of the time of
the Judges should have acted in a heathen (even
Canaanitish !) rather than in an Israelitish manner.
Jephthah, who with the most definite and triumphant
consciousness distinguishes between the MoabitisL
and Ammonite God, Chemosh, to whom, probably,
human sacrifices were offered (2 Kings iii. 27), and
the God of Israel, Jehovah (Judg. xi. 24) ; Jephthah,
who made his vow of a sacrifice to Jehovah, after
the spirit of Jehovah came upon him (ver. 29), a vow
which was connected with a prayer for victory ovei
a Moloch-serving people ; Jephthah, who was clearly
conscious that he had made his vow to Jehovah that
through him he might overcome the children of Am
mon under their God Chemosh ; offered indeed an
abomination to Jehovah ; and it is obvious what is
meant when it is said, the daughters upon the mouQ

466

GENESIS. OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

tains bewailed her virginity (not the lost, but the
illegally fixed) and not hei life, although the matter
concerned her life ; but it is not bo evident when it
is said that she never knew a man, after her father
had put her to death (ver. 39), and it must not sur-
piise us, truly, that it became a custom for the daugh-
ters of Israel to spend four days yearly to commemo-
rate and praise a virgin who was entirely in accord-
ance with her father in the most hurtful and godless
misunderstanding, and in the most abominable sacri-
fice.* We have to observe three oppositions in this
history: first, that between "lasi'l nS3 and X'^p^]
^laian-ja , second, that between DTl'bxri and
plin^ , and third, that between nbsn of verse second
and ania of verse tenth. — The key to the explana-
tion of the whole history hes in the expression nB3 .
It denotes not simply to prove, or to put to the test
(Knobel, Dehtzsch), but to prove under circumstances
which have originated from sin, and which increase
the severity of the proof, and make it a temptation,
ind in so far as the union of the elements of the
testing and of the tempting, i. e., the sohciting to
evil, is under the providence of Jehovah, it denotes,
he, tempts, in much the same sense that he also pun-
ishes sin with sin. It is defined more closely thus :
he leads or can lead into temptation (to do wrong)
(Matt. vi. IS). But the closest analysis is this : the
proving is from God, the temptation is from sin
James i. 13). Thus the promise at Marah (Exod.
XV. 25, 26) was in so far a temptation of the people
as it had the inclination to misinterpret the same in
a fleshly sense ; the giving of the manna was a temp-
tation so far as it was connected with the ordinance
that the manna should not be gathered upon the
Sabbath (Exod. xvi. 4) ; the terrible revelation of
God from Sinai (Exod. xx. 20) was a temptation of
the people, since it could be the occasion for their
falling into slavish fear, and flight from the presence
of God (Exod. XX. 19) ; comp. Deut. viii. 2 ; ver. 16 ;
especially ch. xiii. 4 ; Judg. ii. 22. The demand of
God from Abraham that he should saa-ifice hia son,
became, through the remaining and overwhelming
prejudices of the heathen, to whom to sacrifice was
identical with to slay, a temptation to Abraham ac-
tually " to lay his hands upon the lad." The com-
mand of God stands sure, but he did not understand
its import fully, viz., that he should, in and under the
completion of an animal sacrifice, consecrate and in-
wardly yield hi? son to Jehovah, and thus purify his
heart from all mere fleshly and slavish attachment to
him. But it was the ordination of God, that in his
conflict with the elements of the temptation, he
should come to the point, when he could reveal to
him the pure and full sense of his command. Hence
also the first revelation was darker than the second.
This fact is distorted when ScheUing finds here in
the Elohim the ungodly principle, which appears in
opposition to the Maleach Jehovah as the true God
(Dklitzsch, p. 417). Even the distinction between
a night and dream-voice, and a clear and lou i tone
at the perfect day (Ewald), decides nothing, although
ganerally the dream-vision is the more imperfect form.

* We congratulate ourflelves upon eecunng: Dr. Paulns
Osssel to prepare the Bihilwerlc upon the book of Judges,
who has shown in his condensed article, "Jephthah," in
Herzog's Rial Encydvpedia, that he will not snffev himself
to he imposed upon by the massive traditional misintei'pre-
t;ition of thi6 pas.sage (for whose exegetical restitution
Hengsteii'oerg has rendered important service^, to the injury
of a free and living interpretation of it.

But the distinction between an imperfect, Tag-je, and
general, and the perfect, definite revelation, is here
truly of decisive importance. The history of the
prophets (a-s of Jonah) and of the apostles (as ol
Peter) confirms abundantly that a true divine reve-
lation can be obscured through an erroneous under-
standing of the revelation (as indeed the unerring
voice of cosscience may be obscured through an er-
roneous judgment of the conscience). This same
fact appears and continues in the development of
faith. " The flame purifies itself from the smoke."
We thus hold here, as earlier, with Hengstenherg
and Bertheau, that the divine command to Abraham
was subject to a misunderstanding in him, through
the inner Asiatic sinful tradition of human sacrifice,
but a misunderstanding providentially appointed to
be finally salutary to Abraham. With this contrast
betueen the imperfect and perfect revelation now
referred to, corresponds fully the contrast between
Hselohim, Elohim on the one side, and Maleaoh-Jeho
vah, and Jehovah on the other side. God, as the God
of all Gods, whose name brealis through all the im-
pure conceptions of him, gave the first comimand,
which Abraham, in his traditional and Elohistic ideas,
with an admixture of some misconception, has yet
correctly but vaguely understood, but the God of
revelation corrects his m«understanding, when he
seals and confirms his understanding, that he should
sacrifice his son to God in his heart. But the third
opposition, betwcn the expression to sacrifice and to
slay (rrbyn and oniL'), is very important. It is a
fact that the Israelitish consciousness from the begin-
ning has distinguished between the spiritual yielding,
consecration (especially of the first-born), and the
external symbolical slaying of a sacrificial animal for
the representation and confirmation of thatinwaid
consecration ; and thus also between the sacrifice
and the killing in a literal sense. This fact was also
divinely grounded, through the saciitice of Isaac.
It served, through the divine providence, for the
rejection of all heathenish abominations, and for the
founding of the consecrated tjpical nature of the
sacrifices of the Israelites.

3. According to De Wette, Schumann, von Boh-
len and others, this narrative is a pure myth. Kno-
bel is doubtful whether there is not a fact lying at
its basis, but which he explains in a rationalistic
manner (p. 189). He gives correctly the ideas of the
history, the removing of human sacrifice, and the
sanctifying of a place for sacrifice at Jerusalem.
But the main idea, the spiritual sacrifice of the son,
as well as the unity of the idea and the historical
fact escapes him. For the untenableness of myth-
ical interpretations in ihe Old Testament, see the In-
troduction.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITIOAu.

1. The command of God to Abraham, and hi»
journey to Moriah (vers. 1-3). — God did tempt
Abraham.— For the meaning of the word see above.
It is in the highest degree probable that the form of
the revelation was a dream-vision of the night, as
this was the form of the revealed command to re-
move Ishmael. — Abraham ! Behold, here am I.
— Similarly : M;^ father ! Here am J, my son
(ver. T). Abraham, Abraham ! Here am I (ver.
11). These brief introductions of the conversation
express the great tension and application of the
human mind in those moments, in a striking way

CHAP. XXn. 1-19.

467

md serve at the same time to prepare us for the im-
portance of the conversation. The call : Abraham 1
the announcement of a revelation, of a command.
Here am 1 1 the expression of hearing and obedience.
—Take now thy son. — K^'f^i^. The S3 modifies
the command; it seems to express that Elohim
wished to receive the sacrifice from him as n, free-
will offering. — Thine only. — [Reminding us, as was
intended, of the only begotten of the Father.
A . G.] The Sept. hag h.ywnt\-'iv, the Vul. unigenitum.
The TTT^ is more significant ; it renders emphatic
the incomparableness ; this term and the two follow-
ing express the greatness of the sacrifice, bat also
the thought that God knew well what he demanded
from him. — Get thee into the land of Moriah.

i. e., into the region of the mountain of Moriali, or

of Jerosalem. The name Moriah was anticipated ;
according to ver. 14, it was occasioned through the
events here recorded.* Michaelis, Bleek and Tuch
understand the word to refer not to Jerusalem, but to
Moreh in Sichem. See the counter-reasons in Kno-
bel One main reason among others, is that the way
from Beer-sheba, where Abraham still dwelt, by
Hebron and Jerusalem to Sichem, according to
Robinson, required about 35 hours, a distance which
the old man Abraham and the youth Isaac could not
well have accomplished in three days (ver. 4). The
distance from Beer-sheba to Jerusalem is, according
to Robinson, 20-J- hours. For the meaning of Moriah
see below. [Hengsienbeeg (5(«<. ii. p. 263) derives
the name from nsi, to see. It is the Hoph. part,
with the abbreviated name of Jehovah, or n"", and
signifies the shown or pointed out of Jehovah. The
RX-:, 2 Chron. iii. 1, has no decisive weight against
this since it may be rendered: "which was pointed
out, shown to David," as well as " where Jehovah
appeared to David." — A. G.] Xhe Samaritans hold
Gerizira to have been the place of the sacrifice, but
have not altered the text. — And offer him there. —
For a burnt offering may mean as a burnt offering,
or, also, with a burnt offering, in and under the sym-
bolical presenting of it, — Upon one of the moun-
tains.— A clear intimation of the region of Jeru-
salem.— Which I will tell thee of.— It is not said
when this more distinct designation of the place of
the sacrifice should be given. The designation is,
however, already, by anticipation, contained in
Moriah. — And Abraham rose up early in the
morning. (See Chap. xxi. 24.) — And saddled
his ass. — Girded, not saddled him. The ass was
destined to bear the wood upon his covering. Abra-
ham sets out with the bleeding heart of the father,
and the three days' journey are, no doubt, designed
to give him time for the great conflict within him,
and for the religious process of development (see
Acts ix. 9). [As far as the matter of obedience was
concerned, the conflict was over. His purpose was
fixed. He did not consult \pith flesh and blood,
but instantly obeyed. — A. G.]

2. The mountain and place of the sacrifice.
Vers. 4-10.)— Then on the third day.— He had
flow entire certainty as to the place. It is barely
intimated how significant, sacred and fearful the
place of sacrifice was to him. — Abide ye here
with the ass. — The yonng men or sei-vants, or
young slaves, destined to this service, must not go

* [Comp. with this history the revelation of God in the
Bount, recorded in 2 Sam. Ixiv. 25 ; 2 (Jhron. vii. 1-3, and
Luke ii. 22-28.— A. G.l

with him to the sacred mountain, nor be present al
the fearful sacrifice. — And I and the lad. — They
could easily see from the wood of the burnt-offering,
and the fire, and the knife, that he went not mereh
to worship, but to sacrifice ; but to him the sacrifice
was the main thing. — And wiU worship, and
come again to you. — Knobel remarks : " The
author appears not to have beUeved that Abraham
would be presented in a bad light, through such false
utterances (comp. ch. xii. 13 ; xx. 12)." We have
already seen what are the elements of truth, in the
places referred to, here the sense of the word of
Abraham is determined through the utterance of the
wish in 3111)3, which, according to the form n^TlCJI,
might be translated : and may we return again —
would that we might. It is the design of the am-
biguous term to assure them as to his intention or
purpose. [It is rather the utterance of his faith
that God was able to raise him from the dead. See
Heb. xi. 19.— A. G.] —And laid it upon Isaac—
From the three days' journey of Isaac, and the service
which he here performs, we may conclude that he
had grown to a strong youth, like Ishmael, perhaps,
at the time of his expulsion (the age at which we
coirfirm). — The fire. — "A glimmering ember or tin-
der wood." Knobel. — But where is the lamb 7 *
— Isaac knew that a sacrificial animal belonged tc
the sacrifice. The evasive answer of the father,
trembling anew at the question of his beloved child,
appears to intimate that he held the entrance of a
new revelation at the decisive moment to be possible.
Until this occurs he must truly obey according to his
previous view and purpose. — The terms of the ad-
dress: My father! my son! — The few weighty
and richly significant words mark the difficulty of the
whole course for Abraham, and present in so much
clearer a light, the unwavering steadfastness of his
readiness to make the offering. — And took the
knife. — The very highest expression of his readi-
ness, f Nothing is said of any agitation, of any re-
sistance, or complaint on the part of Isaac. It is
clear that he is thus described as the willing sacri-
ficial lamb. I

3. T/ie first call from heaven (vera. 11-14). —
Abraham, Abraham ! — As the call of the Angel of
Jehovah stands m contrast with that of Elohim, so,
also, the repetition of the name here, to its single
use (ver. 1). A clearer, wider, more definite, and
further leading revelation is thus described. The
repeated call : Abraham ! designates also the ur-
gency of the interruption, the decided rejection of
the human sacrifice. For the Angel of the Lord, see
ch. xii. — Now I know that thou fearest God.—
Abraham has stood the test. The knowledge of God
reflects itself as a new experimental knowledge in
the consciousness of Abraham. [I know, in the
sense of use, declare my knowledge — have made it
manifest by evident proof. Wordsworth, p. 100,
"An eventual knowing, a discovering by actual ex-
periment." MoRPHY, p. 341.— A. G.]— Behind
him a ram. — "int< for linx behind, backwards,
is not used elsewhere in the Old Testament, ana
from this has arisei. the conjectural reading TlX,
and also numerous constructions (see Knobel, p. 1'75).

♦ [9od will yrmide himself. "Another prophetic speech ;"
and how significant ! — A. G.]

t [All the commentators dwell npon the tendemesi and
beauty of the scene here described. But no words can makd
it more impressive. — A. G.]

t [How it bring" V-'ifore ns the Lamb -rbc was led to tm
slaughter.— A. G.]

468

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Geseniis explains the word in the background;
but we should observe well that it is said that Abra-
ham looked around him, and thus perceived the ram
behind his back. Unseen, God mysteriously pre-
pares his gifts for his own. He does not receive a
positive command to sacrifice the ram instead of his
BCD, although he recognizes in the fact that the ram
with his long, crooked horns was caught in the thick-
et, the divine suggestion. Knobel : " In a like
way, through a divine providence, a goat is presented
as a sacrificial animal for Iphigenia, whom her father,
Agamemnon, would sacrifice to Venus at Aulis
(EoKip. Ipkig. Aulid. 1591 ff.)."— In the stead of
his son. * — This expression is of deciding import-
ance for the whole theory of sacrifice. The sacri-
ficial animal design;ites the symbolical representation
of the person who presents the sacrifice ; but this
representation in the later ritual of the sacrifices,
must be interpreted diflijrently, according to the dif-
ferent sacrifices. — And Abraham called the name
of that place. — Delitzsch and Keil explain the word
ilKTI", Jehovah observes, or takes care, but reject
the explanation of the Niphal, ns^" etc., upon the
mount of the Lord it shall be seen, chosen, i. e., be
provided, or cared for. They lay aside this signifi-
cation of the Niphal, and Delitzsch translates: he
appears upon the mount of Jehovah. But the
Niphal must here certainly correspond with the Kal,
although we could point to no other proof for it.
The explanation also, upon the mount where Jehovah
appears, is far too general, since Jehovah does not
appear only upon Moriah. The expression : " it
will be chosen, provided," does not mean he will
care for, but he will himself choose, and hence the
Niphil also must be : Tlte mount of Jehovah is the
mcfMam where he himself selects and 'provides his
srjrijice. Moriah is, therefore, indeed, not the mount
of the heeoming visible, of the revelation of God
(Delitzsch), but the mount of being seen, the mount
of selection, the mount of the choice of the sacrifice
of God — inclusive of the sacrifices of God. [And
thus of the sacrifice. — A. G.] For Moriah and Zion,
compare the Bible Dictionaries and the topography
of Jerusalem.

4. The second call from heaven (vers. 16-19).
The subject of the first call was preeminently nega-
tive, a prohibition of the human sacrifice, connected
with a recognition of the spiritual sacrifice, ascer-
tained, and confirmed through this suggestion of the
typical nature of the sacrifice. The second call of
the Maleach Jehovah is throughout positive. — By
myself have I sworn. — The oath of Jehovah t
(eh. xxiv. 1 ; xxvi. 3 ; 1. 24 ; Ex. xiii. 5 ; xi. 33)
is described here as a swearing by himself, also,
Ex. xxxii. 13; Isa. xlv. 23; Heb. vi. 18 ff.
The swearing of Gov by himself, is an anthro-
pomorphic expression, for the irrevocable, cer-
tain promise of Jehovah, for which he, so to speak,
pledges the consciousness of his own personality,
as it imprints this promise itself in the perfect seal-
ing ot the assurance of the faith of the believing
patriar<^hs. Abraham can only be certain of the
oath of God, through its eternal echo in his own
heart. Hence this oath is supposed also where the
perfection of the assurance of the faith is supposed.

* [Abraham offers the ram aa a substitute for Isaa«. He
withholds not his only son in intent, and yet in fact heoftera
ft subslitnte for his son. Murphy, p. 341. — A. G.]

t fTlds is the only instance of God's ewearinf;; by himself
m bis Intercoinrse with the patriarchs— a proof of the unique
Importance of tbis event Wordswoeth, p. 101. — A. G.l

Hence, also, Jehovah declares thai he had sworn
unto Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and it is not alto
gether correct, although Keil yields his assent, when
Luther says with reference to Ps. Ixxxix. 36 ; ex. 4,
and cxxxii. 11, "As the promise of the seed ol
Abraham descends in the seed of David, so the sa-
cred scriptures transfer the oath given to Abraham,
to the person of David." Although " there id
nothing said in the promise, 2 Sam. vii., and 1 ChroD.
xvii. upon which these psalms rest, of an oath of
God." Knobel. The oath of God reveals itseW
even in the sealing of the faith, leaving out of view
the fact that the promise given to David was much
more particular and definite than that which Abra-
ham received. — Saith the Lord (the saying of
Jehovah). — [Compare the rendering of the Sept.,
thou hast not withheld thy son, with the terms of the
apostle, Rom. viii. 32. The resemblance is striking,
and is one of the catch-words of which Wordsworth
speaks. — A. G.] A solemn statement of the prom-
ise, pointing down to the time of the prophets.
nirr^ Ct<2, saying of the Lord, occurs elsewhere in
the Pentateuch only (Num. xiv. 28). and without
Jehovah in the words of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 3-15).
In addition to the comparison of the number of the
stars of heaven (ch. xv. 5), we have that of the sand
upon the sea-shore, the strong figure for an innumer-
able mass (ch. xxxii, 13 ; Josh. xi. 4). — Shall pos-
sess the gate of his enemies The most obivious

sense is this : Israel should overcome his enemies,
and capture their cities, since he should seize and
occupy their gates. But the gate here points to a
deeper meaning. The hostile world has a gate or
gates in its susceptibilities, through which the be-
lieving Israel should enter it (Ps. xxiv. V-9). The
following words prove that this is the sense of the
words here. — And shall be blessed (shall bless
themselves). — The blessing of the nations (cji. xii.)
in which they appear still in a passive attitude, be-
comes, in its result, the cause of their freely blessing
themselves in the seed of Abraham, i. e., wishing
blessedness, and calling themselves blessed. — Be-
cause thou hast obeyed my voice (comp. ver.
16). — The great promise of Jehovah is no blind,
arbitrary good, but stands in relation to the tried
and believing obedience of Abraham (see James
ii. 23). [The closing remarks of Keil on this pas-
sage, are as follows : This glorious issue of the
temptation so triumphantly endured by Abraham,
not only authenticates the historical character of
this event, but shows, in the clearest manner, that
the temptation was necessary to the faith of the
patriarch, and of fundamental importance to his
position in the history of salvation. The doubt wheth-
er the true God could demand a human sacrifice, is
removed by the fact that God himself prevents the
completion of the sacrifice, and the opinion
that God, at least apparently, comes into conflict
with himself, when he demands a sacrifice, and then
actually forbids and prevents its completion, is mef
by the very significant change in the names of God
since God who commands Abraham to offer Isaac,
is called Dlfl'^Sfl, but the actual completion of the
sacrifice is prevented by JTini, who is identical with
the nin';' ^S?^-?- Neither nini_ the God of sal-
vation, or the God of the covenant, who gave to
Abraham the only son as the heir of the promise,
demands the sacrifice of the promised and givei
heir, nor OTibx, God the creator, who hastl.e povi

CHAP. 5Xn. 1-19.

m

er to give and take away life, but D^n^xn, the true
God, whom Abraham knew nnd worshipped as liis
personal God, with whom he had entered into a per-
sonal relation. The command (comingfrom the true
God, whom Abraham served) to yield up his only
and beloved son, could have no other object than
to purify and sanctify the state of the heart of the
patriarch towards his son, and towards his God ;
an object corresponding to the very goal of his call-
ing. It was to purify bis love to the sou of his
body from all the dross of fleshly self-love, and nat-
ural self-seeking which still clave to it, and so to
glorify it through love to God, who had given him
his son, that he should no more love his beloved son
PIS his flesh and blood, but solely and only as the
g'acious gift and possession of God, as a good en-
trusted to him by God, and which he was to be ready
to render back to him at any and every moment.
As Abraham had left his country, kindred, father's
house, at the caU of God, so he must, in his walk
before God, willingly bring his only son, the goal of
his desires, the hope of his life, the joy of his old
age, an offering. And more than this even. He
had not only loved Isaac as the heir of his posses-
sions (xv. 2,) but upon Isaac rested all the promises
of God, in Isaac should his seed be called (xxi. 12).
The command to offer to God this only son of his
wife Sarah, in whom his seed should become a mul-
titude of nations (xvii. 4, 6, 16), appeared to destroy
the divine promise itself ; to frustrate not only the
wish of his heart, but even the repeated promises of
his God. At this command should his faith perfect
itself to unconditional confidence upon God, to the
firm assurance that God could reawaken him from
the dend. But this temptation has not only the im-
port for Abraham, that he should, through the over-
soming of flesh and blood, be fitted to be the father of
believers, the ancestor of the Christ of God ; through
it, alsS, Isaac must be prepared and consecrated for
his calling in the history of salvation. As he suf-
fered himself, without resistance, to be bound and
laid upon the altar, he gave his natural life to death,
that he might, through the grace of God, rise to
newness of life. Upon the altar he was sanctified
to God, consecrated to be the beginner of the holy
Church of God, and thus "the later legal consecror
tion of the first-bom was completed in him " (De-
litzsch). As the divine command, therefore, shows
in all its weight and earnestness the claim of God
upon his own, to sacrifice all to him, even the most
dear (comp. Matt. x. 37, and Luke xiv. 26), pene-
trating even to the very heart, so the issue of the
temptation teaches that the true God does not de-
mand from his worshippers a bodily human sacrifice,
but the spiritual sacrifice, the unconditional yielding
up of the natural life, even unto death. Since
through the divine providence Abraham offered a
ram for a burnt-offering, instead of his son, the ani-
mal sacrifice was not only offered as a substitute for
ihe human sacrifice, and sanctioned as a symbol of
the spiritual sacrifice of the person himself, well
pleasing to God, but the offering of human sacrifices
by the heathen, is marked as an ungodly 4^e\o^pri<T-
Keia, judged and condemned. And this comes to
pass through Jehovah, the God of salvation, who
restrains the completion of the external sacrifice.
Hence, this event, viewed with respect to the divine
i9reparation of salvation, wins for the church of the
Lord prophetic significance, which is pointed out
with p.culiar distinctness in the place of this sacri-

fice, the mount Moriah, upon which, under the lega
economy, all the typical sacrifices were brought ta
Jehovah, upon which, also, in the fulness of time,
God the Father, gave his only-begotten Son an
atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, in order,
through this one true sacrifice, to raise the shadow-
ing image of the typical animal sacrifice to its truth
and real nature. If, therefore, the destmation ol
Moriah, as the place for the offering of Isaac, with
the actual offering of the ram in his stead, should be
only at first typical, with reference to the signifi-
cance and object of the Old Testament sacrifice,
still this type already, also, points down to that in
the future appearing antitype, when the eternal love
of the Heavenly Father, itself, did what it demanded
here from Abraham, namely, spared not his only-be-
gotten son, but gave him, for us all, up to that death ac-
tually, which Isaac only endured in spirit, that we
might die with Christ spiritually, and with him rise
to eternal Ufe (Rom. viii. 32; vi. 5, etc.), pp. 177-
179.— A. G.]

DOCTEINAI. AND ETHICAL.

1. The ruling thought in this whole narrative, is
the perfection of the obedience of faith of Abraham,
not merely, however, in the sacrifice of his son, but
also in his readiness to perceive the revelation of
Jehovah, which forbids the killing of his son, and
causes the symbolic killing of the sacrifice provided
as the seal and confirmation of the spiritual sacrifice.
Faith must prove itself in the inward hearty conces-
sion of the dearest objects of life, even of all our
own thoughts, as to the realization of salvation, pres-
ent and future, to the providence of the grace of
God. But it cannot complete itself with reference
to this salvation, without purifying itself, or allowing
itself to be purified from all traditional, fanatical
ideas, or misconceptions of faith. In the completion
of faith, the highest divinity coincides with the
purest humanity. The sacrifice of Isaac is, therefore,
the real separation of the sacred Israelitish sacrifice
from the abominations of human sacrifices. "These
sacrifices, especially of children, were customary
among the pre-Hi-braic nations of Palestine (2 Kin.
xvi. 3 ; Ps. cvi. 38), among the kindred Phoenicians
(PoEPHTR. de abslin. ii. 56 ; P^nSEB. Prcepar. ev.
i. 10, and Laudo. Const, xiii. 4), among their de-
scendants, the Carthaginians (Dion. xx. 14, Plotarch,
etc.), among the Egyptians (Dion. i. 88, etc.), among
the tribes related with Israel, the Moabites and Am-
monites (2 Kin. iii. 27) who honored Moloch with
them (Lev. xviii. 21 ; xx. 2), appear also in the Ar-
amaic and Arabian tribes (2 Kings vii. 31 ffi), as well
as in Ahaz among the Israelites (2 Kings xvi. 3 ff.),
but were forbidden by the law (Dent. xii. 81), and
opposed by the prophets (Jer. vii. 31 ff.). They
were thus generally spread through the cuUus of the
nations in contact with Israel, but were entirely for-
eign to its legally established religion." Kuobel.
According to Hengstenberg, the human sacrifice
does not belong to heathenism in general, but to the
darkest aspect of heathenism [Beitrage iii. p. 144).
Kurtz believes that he gives the correction (p. 210)
The fact that the spirit of humanity among thf
Greeks and Romans opposed the human sacrifice
(see Lanoe : Ponitive Dagrnatik, p. 862), loses its force
with him, since he ascribes this opposition to the re-
ligious and rationalistic superficially of their times ;
the human sacrifices are, indeed, a fearful madness,
but a mildness of doubt as to the true sacrifice, o/

470

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

hopelessness as to finding the true atonement. But
the true atonement is even in the death of Christ,
the obedient concession of Christ to the judgment of
God ; and the crucifixion of Christ analogous to
ihe Moloch-sacrifice, must be distinguished from it
both on the side of Judaism and of the world. The
entire perversion of the fact that the religion of
Jehovah abhors and rejects the human sacrifice, as it
has been introduced by Vatke and Von Bohlen (the
reUgion of Jehovah stood originally upon the same
plane with the Moloch service), and has been com-
pleted by Daumer, Kurtz has examined and exposed
in a most satisfactory way (p. 204 if.). [The arbi-
trariness and blasphemy of Daumer, and the boldness
with which he makes his assertions in the face of
all history, render his work unworthy of any serious
refutation. And Kurtz justly treats it with ridicule.
— A. G.] Ghillant's essay : " The Human Sacri-
fice of the Old Hebrews," may be, also, consulted
here, but is essentially one with Daumer.

2. The sacrifice of Isaac has an inward connection
with the expulsion of Ishmael, which will appear
more clearly if we recollect that the age of both at
the time of these events must have been nearly the
same. Thus must Abraham expiate in the history of
Isaac, the human guilt which lay in his relation to
Ishmael. But as he had surely doubted a long time
as to the choice of Ishmael, so also a doubt intrudes
itself as to the literal external sense of the divine
command in regard to Isaac ; a doubt which can no
more prejudice or limit the divine revelation than
perhaps the doubting thought of Paul upon the way
to Damascus, but rather serves to introduce the new
revelatior. [The narrative of Paul's conversion will
not bear out this comparison. He does not seem to
have been in ony .lo-'bt, but was, as he himself says,
conscientious. He 'c-'ly thought that he ought to
persecute the "^hu.-.h c* God. — A. G.]

3. The dittii;<i;!oj: beiween the divine —-wiled
command and Ab.^abaij's misconception of it is
similar to the distin.nioi, bt'ween the infallible con-
science* and the falliblt mistaken judgement of
conscience, which has not '^een sufficiently noticed
in theology. Thus also Peter, on his way from
Joppa to Cffisarea, with the divine commission
to convert Cornelius, might have connected with it
the misconception that he must first circumcise him,
but the further revelation tears away the misconcep-
tion. The stripping away of the erroneous and
unessential ideas of the time, belongs also to a sound
development of faith.

4. The b'lrnt-oft'ericg of Abraham appears here
.»s the foundotion and central point of all the typical
sacrifices in Isi-aoL Its fundamental thought is the
spiritual yielding cf the life, not the taking of the
bodily life. It recei'ec its wider form in the Passover
lamb, in which the division of the offerings is already
intimated, viz., the thank or peace-offering and the
consecrated killing on the one hand, and the siu-
and guilt- (trespass) offering and the imprecatory
offering on the other, The peculiar atonement offer-
ing is a higher centralization and completion, in which
the whole system of offerings points to that which is
beyond and above itself

6. The nsountain of Jerusalem receives, thtcigh
the offering of Abraham, its preconsecration to its

* IThls assumes what, to Bay the leaat, is a matter of
doubt, and is against the general faith of the Church, that
the conscience itself has not suffered in the ruins of the fall.
There is eroui-d for the distinction, but we cannot hold that
the conscience is infallible. — A. G.l

future destination aa the later mount Moiiah upor
which the temple stood, the preconsecration of th<
historical faith in God, which transcends the un-
historical faith in God of Melchizedec.

6. The Angel of the Lord gives the more accu-
rate and particular definition of that which Elohim
has pointed out in the more general way.

j. The obedience of faith which Abraham ren-
ders in the sacrifice of Isaac, marks the historical
perfection of his faith, in a decisive test. It marks the
stage of the New TestamenD Sokijh^, or sealing (see
the Bihlework upon James).

8. The typical signifloance of the sacrifice of
Isaac is so comprehensive that we may view it, in some
measure, as embracing all Old Testament types, just
as the sacrifice of Abraham itself may be regarded aa
including the whole Mosaic system of sacrifices. The
sacrifice itself is the type of the sacrificial death of
Christ, and indeed, just as truly, in reference to the
interest of God, as to the interest of the world in thia
fact. The self-denial of Abraham is a copy, a sym
bol (not perhaps a type) of the love of God, whc
gave his only-begotten Son for the salvation of the
world (John iii. 16 : Rom. viii. 32). The sacrificial
act of Abraham, as also the enduring silence of Isaac,
is typical in reference to the two sides of the suffering
obedience of Christ, as he is priest and sacrifice at the
same tune. Isaac received again from the altar is now,
in reference to Abraham, a God-given, consecrated
child of the Spiiit and of promise : in reference tt
Christ, a type of the resurrection, and therefor^
also a type of the new resurrection life of believers.

9. Since Abraham must have reconciled the prom-
ise, earUer connected with the person of Isaac
with the command to offer Isaac as he understood
the command, he was necessarily driven to the hope
of a new awakening, as this is admirably expressed
in the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 19), Luther re-
marked upon the obedience of faith : " Faith T?ecou-
ciles things which are contrary." [Abraham's faith
rested not upon the conclusions of his understanding,
but upon the word of God. The nature and strength
of his faith appear in that he held to the promise
whUe he went promptly to do what, to human view,
seemed to prevent its fulfilment. He set to his seal
that God was true. He believed that God would ful-
fil all that he had promised. How he did not stay
to question. This is true faith. It takes the word of
God as it is, in the face of all difficulties, and acts
upon it. — A. G.] But this reconciliation of appar-
ent contradictions does not happen in this method,
that faith in blind passivity receives and holds the
contradictions, or rather, suffers them to remain
(as, e. g., universal grace and particular election),
but that faith itself is brought, through the spirit of
revelation, to a higher standpoint. [But is not
this standpoint just that from which faith receives
truths apparently contradictory, upon their own evi-
dence in the word of God, and holds them, though it
is not seen how they can be reconciled ? — A.G.] — In
the anticipating activity of his faith, Abraham gained
tlie idea of the resurrection, but in the actual isaue
of the history of the sacrifice he gained the idea of
tbe true sacrifice (Ps. h. 18, 19: Heb. x. 19 ff,), as
a'loo the fundamental form of the Old Testament
sacrifice. [/>i the stead of Ms son. " The wonderful
substitution in which God set forth, as in a figure,
the plan of the Mosaic economy, for the offering oi
animal victims instead of human sacrifices — pointing
forward to the only acceptable substitute whom thej
foreshadowed, who is God's Lamb and not man's-"

CHAP. XXII. 1-19.

47,

the Lamb of God's providing and from his own
bosom. His only-begotten and well-beloved Son,
the man — the God^man." Jacobus. And this great
doctrine, runniag through the whole system of sac-
rifice, culminates in the sacrifice of Christ — the
innocent in the stead o/the guilty. — A. G.]

10. Delitzsch : " The concession unto death at
the threshold of the preliminary history of the new-
humanity is not completed, but merely a prefiguration,
for Isaac's death would have been useless, but the
concession unto death at the threshold of the history
itself is completed, because the fulfilling and per-
fection of the death of Christ is the passing of
himself, and with him of humanity, into Ufe. Judaism
believes differently. It sees ui the sacrifice or bind-
ing of Isaac an act serviceable for all time, and
bringing Israel into favour with God. Where the
Church prays for the sake of the suffering and death
of Jesus Christ, the Synagogue prays for the sake
of the binding of Isaac " (p. 418).

11. Tlie oath of Jehovah. It is not merely the
basis for the oaths of men, but : 1. The expression
of the absolute self-determination, consciousness,
and faithfulness of the personal God ;* 2. The ex-
pression of a corresponding unshaken certainty of
faith in the hearts of believers ; 3. The expression
of the indissoluble union between the divine promise
and the human assurance.

12. The name Moriah \ points out that as God
himself perceives (selects) his sacrifice in the readi-
ness of an obedient heart to make the sacrifice, man
should wait in expectation, and not make an arbitrary
and abominable sacrifice.

13. W. HoFF.MANN: " Until now we hear only of
the bruiser of the serpent, of a conqueror, of a bless-
ing of the nations, of a dominion ; in short only the
image of a great king and dominion, could present
itself to human thought as the form in which the
divine salvation should reach perfection. But now
sorrow, concession, death, the rendering of self
as a sacrifice, enter into the circle of the hope of
salvation, and indeed so enter that the hope of sal-
vation and the sacrifice belong together and are
inseparable."

14. The completion of the promise.^ As the
whole history of the sacrifice of Isaac is typical, so
also is the expression of the completed promise. It
refers beyond Israel, to the innumerable children of
Abraham by faith, and the conquest of the world,
promised to them, appears both in the aspect of a
contest, as in that of the solemn feasts of victory
and blessing.

15. We cannot say directly that Abraham sacri-
ficed Isaac as a natural son, that he might receive
him again sanctified and as a spiritual son. For
Isaac was given to him as the son of the promise
from his birth. But he sacrificed him in his present
corporeal nature, that he might receive him again as
the type of a second, new, and higher life. Thus
Israel must sacrifice its ideas of the present kingdom
of God in order to gain the true kingdom of God

* [An oath with &od is a Bolenm pledfying of himself in
all the Tinchangeableness of his faithfulness and truth to
til? fulfilment of the promise. Muhphy, p. 341. — A. G.]

■ ;The Mount of the Lord here means th« very height
of the trial into which he brings his saints. There he
will certaioly appear in due time for their deliverance.
If HRPHY, p. 341.— A. G.l

I [In this transcendent blessing, repeated on this mo-
mentous occasion, Abraham truly saw the day of the seed
of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the Son of man.
MoMHT, p. 342.— A G.l

which is not of this world. The wa:it of this idei
of sacrifice betrays the most of them into unbelief
through Chiliastic dreams. It happens similarly to
all who, in the sacrificial hour appointed by God
will not sacrifice their inherited ideas that they maj
gain a glorified form of faith. On the other hand,
every arbitrary external sacrifice is regarded and
judged as a self-chosen service of God.

16. The meaning of the ram in the sacrifice of
Abraham is not to be lightly estimated. It desig
nates figuratively the fact, that Christ also, in his
sacrificial death, has not lost his own peculiar life,
but, as the leading shepherd of his Jloch, has only
sacrificed his old temporal form of a servant, in order
that through his death he might redeem them from
death, the fear of death, the bondage of sin and
Satan, and introduce them into a higher, deathless life.

[In the person of Abraham is unfolded that
spiritual process by which the soul is drawn to God
He hears the call of God, and comes to the decisive
act of trusting in the revealed God of mercy anc
truth, on the ground of which act be is accounted as
righteous. He then rises to the successive acts of
walking with God, covenanting "with bitn, communing
and interceding with him, and at length withholding
nothing that he has or holds dear from him. In all
this we discern certain primary and essential charac-
teristics of the man who is saved through acceptance
of the mercy of God proclaimed to him in a prime-
val gospel. Faith in God (ch. xv.), repentance
towards him (oh. xvi.), and fellowship with him (ch.
xviii.), are the three great turning-points of the
soul's returning Ufe. 'They are built upon the effec-
tual call of God (ch. xii.), and culminate in unre-
served resignation to him (ch. xxii.). With wonder-
ful facihty has the sacred record descended in this
pattern of spiritual biography, from the rational and
accountable race to the individual and immortal soul,
and traced the footsteps of its path to God. Mdr-
PHY p. 342.— A. G.]

HOMILETICAL AND PEACTICAL.

Through the traditional exegetical interpretation
the sacrifice of Isaac has often been used homUeti-
cally without due caution. What Kurtz in his work
asserts with confidence we often hear also from the
pulpit — God commanded Abraham to kill his son
Isaac. Thus a gross sensuous interpretation in fact
transforms a history which is the key to the nature
of the whole Old-Testament sacrificial system, which
presents in a striking light the humane aspect of the
theocracy in contrast with heathenism, into an of-
fence to the human and Christian feeling, i. e., an
offence which is burdensome and injurious to a Um-
ited and contracted theology, but must be carefully
distinguished from the offences or difficulties of un-
belief. We make this remark notwithstanding Kurtz
thinks that he must administer to us a rebuke for
similar utterances (p. 206). Luther also has already
spoken of the difficulty in treating this passage cor-
rectly. — Ver. 1. The testing or trying of Abraham,
as full of temptation ; 1. As a temptation ; 2. as »
testing. Or ; I. The sacrifice of God ; 2. Abraham's
obedience of faith. — Ver. 2. Abraham's sacrifice ; 1.
The command of God; 2. the leading of God; 3.
the decision of God ; 4. the judgment of God. — Yer
?,. Abraham's obedience of faith: 1. Faith as the
soul of obedience ; 2. obedience as the full preser-
vation of faith. — Abraham's sealing. — Ver. 16. Tha

472

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

oath of God: 1. What it means; 2. as it perpetu-
ates and generaUzes itself in the sacraments ; 3. to
whose advantage it will be. — The silence of Isaac. —
Ver. 4. Abraham's journey to Moriah an image of
the way to all true sacrifice : 1 . The journey thither ;
2. the journey home. — Moriah, or the meeting of
God with the sacrificing believer : 1. God sees ; 2.
he is seen, appears; 3. he cares for, provides; 4.
he himself selects his sacrifice ; 6. he gives to man
in an eternal form what he has taken from him in a
temporal form.

Starke : (Moses does not relate the peculiar time
of this severe test of Abraham's faith. Some place
it in the thirteenth, others In the fifteenth, and still
others in the thirty-fifth or thirty-seventh year of
Isaac. Because in this whole transaction Isaac was
a type of Christ, and he finished the work of redemp-
tion, through his death, in the thirty-third, or accord-
ing to others th*^ thirty-fourth, year of his age, it may
well be thought that in this year also Isaac was led
out as a sacrifice. — The existing incorrect use of the
typology still runs through the misconceptions of
Passavant and Schwenke. He is three and thirty
years old, says Schwenke; and Passavant says he
was grown up to be a mature man.) — Some reckon
ten temptations wherein Abraham's faith was put to
the test, among which this was the last and most se-
vere : 1. When he must leave his fatherland at the
call of God (ch. xii. 1 ), etc. — Ver. 2. ( Off^ r him
there, put him to death with thine own hand, then
bum the dead body to ashes, thus make him a burnt-
offering. — Luther and others think that Adam, Cain
and Abel, Noah also when he came from the ark,
held their worship of God and sacrificed upon this
mountain. Hence the Arabic and both the Chaldaic
interpreters name it the land of the worship and
service of God. — Various ancient utterances as to
the mountain of Moriah and its meaning follow.) —
Ver. 4. God reveals the place where our Saviour
should suffer and die, earlier than the city in which
he should be born (we must distinguish, however,
between verbal and typical prophecy). — The two ser-
vants of Abraham. It is scarcely, at least not seri-
ously, to be conjectured even, as the Chaldaic inter-
preters suppose, that they were Ishmael and Eliezir.
— Neither Sarah nor Isaac knew at the time the
special object of the journey. Undoubtedly the
mother would have placed many hindrances in the
way, and would have sought to dissuade Abraham
for entering it. — When it is said (Heb. xi. 19) that
he had received him as a figure, we discern what
Abraham knew through the illumination of the Holy
Spirit.* (At all events Abraham knew that the sac-
rifice of the first-born should henceforth be an ordi-
nance of God, and that this should culminate in a
closing sacrifice bringing salvation). — The three days
of the journey. — Abraham must in his heart hold his
son as dead, as long as Christ should lie in the
grave. — But one must above all else guard against a
self-chosen service of God. — Upon ver. 8. He stood
at the time in the midst of the controversy between
natural love and faith. — (The altar upon Moriah.
The Jews think that it was the altar which Noah had
built upon this mountain after the flood, which time
had thrown into ruins, but was again rebuilt by
Abraham.) — Upon ver. 13. The LXX render, in the
thicket, Sabek. They regarded it as a proper name,
(rhich shows the ignorance of the Hebrew language

* [Isaac's deliverance was a parable or figure, viz., of
Cbjiiit's £ jsurrection. "Wordsworth, p. 101. — A. G.]

in the Greek commentators, after the Babyloniaa
captivity. Starke records the fact, that some " Pa
pists " refer the expression of Christ upon the cross,
lama sabacthani, to this bush Sabek, and that Aths-
nasius says, Planta Sabek est venerarida crux, — Com-
parison of the sacrifice of Isaac with the death and

resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. x. 13). Ver. 10.

Lange : God knows the right hour, indeed, the right
moment, to give his help. — Bibl. Wirt. : If our obe
dience shall please God, it must be not merely ac-
cording to examples without command, but in accord
anoe with the express word of God. — Bibl. Tub..
Ver. 11. When we cannot see on any side a way of
escape, then God comes and often shows us a won-
derful deliverance. — Hall : The true Christian motto
through the whole of life is : The Lord sees me. —
Ver. 15. The last manifestation of God with which
Abraham was directly honored, which appears in the
Holy Scriptures. — The oath of God : just as if he
had sworn by his name, or by his life. In place of
this form of speech Christ uses very often the
Verily. — John xvi. 20. — What one gives for God,
and to him, is never lost. [Mot only not lost, but
received back again in its higher form and use. Even
so every child of Abraham must hold all that is most
precious to him as the gift of God's grace; must
first yield to God the bles^ings which seem to come
to him as to others, as mere natural blessings, and
then receive them back as coming purely from his
grace. — A. G.]

Lisco: What could better teach the Jews the
true idea and aim of the whole sacrificial service (the
perfect yielding to God) than the history of Abra-
ham ? Ver. 6. Thus Jesus bare his cross. Ver. 18.
The great blessing is Christ who brings blessings to
all nations (Acts iii. 25 ; Gal. iii. 8). — When God
brings a dear child near to death, or indeed calls it
an ay, he thus proves us in a like way. — Gerlach :
The name Moriah signifies, shown, pointed out, by
Jehovah, and refers especially to the wonderful
pointing to the ram. through which Isaac was saved,
since this was for Abraham the turning-point of tlip
history, through which God confirmed his promi»e
and crowned the faith of Abraham. — Ver. 12. Qfid
known: he knows from experience, from the testing,
that the rnan remains faithful to him, since without
the test his faithfulness is uncertain. He foreknew
it, in so far as he foreknew the result of the trial. —
Calw. Sand. : God naturally lays such severe trials
not upon children, but upon men. — Abraham kept
his faith in God, as Jehovah, through his act ; now
also God will approve himself to Abraham, as Jeho-
vah.— This same promise appears here for the third
time (ch. xii. 3 ; xviii. 18) as a reward for Abraham's
obedience and triumph of faith. — Each new well-
endured trial of faith leads to greater strength of
faith ; the fruit of faith yields nourishment again to
faith itself. — The act of faith on the part of Abra-
ham here described, is held, not only by Jews and
Christians, but even by Mohammedans, as the very
acme of all his testing, and as the most complete
obedience of his faith. — ScHRonEK: Ver. 1. He is
constantly leading us into situations in which what
lies concealed in the heart must be revealed. — The
devil tempts that he may destroy ; God tempts that
he may crown (Ambrose). — The temptation has as a
presupposition, that God has not yet been perfectly
formed in us (Hengstenberg). — The idea of the sac-
rifice (1 Sam. i. 25). And they slew the bullock and
brought the child to Eli (comp. Hos. xiv. 2 ; Micah
vi. 7 ; Pb. xL '?-9 ; 11. 19).— For this whole hi^'^wy, sen

CHAP. XXn. 1-19

473

the similar history (Judg. xi.). That Abraham him-
self is the priest, and bis own heart, hig own deepest
love, and all his blessing, is the sacrifice, this consti-
tutes the severity of the test (Krummacber).* — Ver.
5. We cannot regard these words as mere empty
words ; it is rather the word of hope which had not
forsaken Abraham (Baumgarten; also Gerlach). —
According to the Epistle to the Hebrews, an intima-
tion of the hope of the reawakening of Isaac. " But
then, indeed, some one objects, the very severe and
weighty thing in the sacrifice is taken away." Strauss
repUes to this by an allusion to the painfulness of
the death-beds of children to their parents, even
when they are assured of their resurrection. — It is a
more wonderful faith which supports itself even to
the issue which he did not see, as if he saw it
(Strauss). — Ver. 9. The son is silent before the father,
as the father before God, and the child obeys the
parents as the parents obey the Lord (Strauss). — A
sacred contention finds place here. One elevates
himself above human nature ; to the other to resist
the father seems more terrible than death (Gregory
Nyssa). Ver. 12. The apostle (Rom. viii. 32) takes
up again the last words of the Angel, and thus indi-
cates the typical relations of the event. — Ver. 13.
The entire Levitical system of sacrifices is only an
extension of this sacrifice of the ram (Richter),— It
is remarkable that the ram is destined among the
Greeks and Romans as the substitutionary sacrifice
in the gravest cases (Baumgarten). It happens at
first according to the ordinance, that God by virtue
of his concealed providence places and controls what
may serve us, but it follows upon tliis that he stretches
out his hand to us, and reveals himself in an actual
experience (Calvin). — Ver. 18. The blessing given to
the nations in the seed of Abraham, they shall them-
selves come to desire and wish (Baumgarten). Abra-
ham's obedience is named here as a reason of the
promise. This is, too, a new reason (Baumgarten).
— (Abraham's obedience is, however, not so much a
reason of the promise as of the sealing of the prom-
ise through an oath.) — The promise is the promise
of the covenant. On the one hand it rests funda-
mentally upon the grace of God, on the other it ia
introduced for Abraham through the obedience of
faith. — Abraham receives the name of the father of
believers, through this completion of his faith (Baum-
garten). (Certainly also through the whole develop-
ment of his faith.) — Ver. 16. There is a constant ref-
erence to this passage, as to the solemn, great, and
final explanation. Thus in ch. xxiv. 7 ; xxvi. 3 ;
Exod. xxxiii. 1 ; Numb, xxxii. 11 ; Deut. xxix. 13 ;
ixx. 20 ; xxxiv. 4 ; Luke i. 73 ; Acts viL 17 ; Heb.

* (What God required of Abraham was not the sacrifice
If iBsaOj but the sacr\flct of himtelf. ■Wobdswobth, p. 97.
-A.O.]

vi, 13 (Drechsler). — It claims our notice still, thai
the Jews hold the binding of Isaac (ver. 9) as a eat
isfaotion, and use in prayer the words. Consider th«
binding of thine only one (see above). " Indeed,
one hundred and sixty millions of Mohammedanf
also read In their Koran to-day. This truly was i
manifest testing " (Zahn). — Robinson's description of
Beersheba. — Schwenke : The Lord knows how tt
reward his own. — Passavant ; Abraham joumeyi
the first, the second, the third day in silence. — Pre-
cious school of faith, the highest, the most sacred
school, how art thou now so greatly deserted ? —
Abraham has become the father of Christians. — Ver.
14. God sees, lie will see, choose. — Reflection upon
the children of Abraham. — The future of Israel, of
beUevers, etc. — (Passavant closes his work with these
reflections.) — W. Hoffmann: The consecration of
the promise through sacrifice : 1. The concession of
the promised son ; 2. the new reception of the prom-
ised son. — According to this history God tempted
Abraham. There the key is placed in your hand.
It was said indeed before, that the purpose of God
was not to secure an external offering, but an inward
sacrifice, etc. In this inbeing of the internal and
external, in this interworking of the divine and hu-
man, of the eternal and the earthly, there lay a severe
temptation, a constant inducement, to the believers
of the Old Testament, to rest satisfied with the mere
external, the mere shell, the sweet kernel, the fruit
of life itself being forfeited, to go on in security,
indeed oftentimes to grow proud of their possession.
— Ver. 1. In how many ways he enters the family and
calls to the father Abraham ! and when you know the
voice of the Lord, thus answer : Here am I. — Upon
Isaac. Almost entirely a feeble repetition of what
has appeared in the life of Abraham. Ver. 9. But
he lay upon the altar in full consciousness and in si-
lence. There he lay himself, as a dumb sacrificial
lamb, at the feet of God. This is sufficient for a
lifetime of more than a century, and imparts to it, con-
tents, and a character, which admit of no exchange
for the better. — He gives Isaac to him in another
way than that in which he had called him his own
at first. The wliole glory of a wonderful future sur-
rounds the head of Isaac. — Taube : The obedience
of faith, or how first in the yielding of that which is
most precious faith is tested : 1. God brings us to
this proof at the right time ; place yourselves there-
fore in his hands, as Abraham ; 2. these tests are
very severe, and will ever grow more severe in their
progress, for they demand the death of self ; 3. these
tests have a blessed end for the tried and approved
believer ; therefore let us follow the footsteps of
Abraham.^ — Hedser: The way of Abraham to th«
sacrifice. — The offering up of Isaac : 1. In its hi*
torical detail ; 2. in its inward typical meaniii^.

474 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

ELEVENTH SECTION.

2%e sorrows and joys of AhrahanCs domestic life. The accowni and genealogy of those at haiM,

SaraKs death. Her burial-place at Hebron ; the seed of the future inheritance of Canaan.

The theocratic fomidalion of the consecrated burial.

Chapter XXII. 20— XXIII. 20.

20 And it came to pass after these things that it was told Abraham, saying [what follows]

21 Behold, Milcah, she hath also borne children unto thy brother Nahor; Huz [see oh. x. 23;

a light sandy land, in northern Arabia] his first-born, and Buz [a people and region in western Arabia]

22 his brother, and Kemuel [the congregation of God] the father of Aram. And Chesed

[the name of a Chaldaic tribe] and Hazo [an AramaicandChaldaictiibe; Gesenius 'perhapgforilitn , "vision],
and Fildash [Eurst: ttJX nba , flame of fire], and Jidlaph [Gesenlus l tearful; Fiirst : melting away,

23 pining], and Bethuel [Gesenlus : man of God. Fiirst : dwelling-place or people of God]. And Bethuel
begat Rebekah [Eibkah, captivating, ensnaring ; Forst : through beauty] : these eight Milcah did

24 bear to Nahor, Abraham's brother. And his concubine, whose name was Reumah

[GeseniuB : raised, elevated; Ffirst: pearl or coral], she bare also Tebah [Ftirst : extension, breadth; a
locality in Mesopotamia], and Gaham [Gesenlus: having flaming eyes; Fiirst: the black; an Aramaic, dark-
colored tribe], and Tliahash [thenameof an unknown aoimal: badger, maxten, seal?], and Maacliah
[low-lands ; a locality at the foot of Hermon ; used besides as a female name].

Ch. XXIII. 1. And Sarah was an hundred and twenty and seven years old : these were

2 the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba [dtyof Arba] ; the same
is Hebron in the land of Canaan : and Abraham came to mourn for Sarali, and to weep
for her.

3 And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth,

4 saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner [not a citizen] with you: give me a possession of

5 a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. And the children

6 of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him. Hear us, my lord : thou art a mighty
prince [a prince of God] among us : in the choice [most excellent] of our sepulchres bury thy
dead : none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury

7 thy dead. And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even

8 to the cliildren of Heth. And he communed with them, saying. If it be your mind
[soul, soul-desire] that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and entreat for

9 me to Ephron [rflrst: more powerful, stronger] the SOn of Zohar [splendor, noble]. That he
may give me the cave of Machpelah [Gesenlus: doubling; Fnrst: winding, serpentine], which he

hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth [full money] he

10 shall give it me for a possession of a burying-place [hereditary sepulchre] among you. And
Ephron dwelt [sat] among the children of Heth. And Ephron the Hittite answered
Abraham in the audience [ears] of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the

11 gate of his city, saying, Nay, my lord, hear me : the iield give I thee, and the cave
that is therein, I give it thee ; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee :

12 bury thy dead. And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land.

13 And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if
thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me [give me hearing] : I will give thee money for the

14 field; take it from me, and I will bury my dead there. And Ephron answered Ahrar

15 ham, saying unto him. My lord, hearken unto me : the land is worth four hundred
'6 shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. And

Abraham hearkened [followed] unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the
silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of
silver, current money with the merchant.

1 7 And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the
field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees which were in the field, that wen

18 in all the borders round about, were made sure [stood] Unto Abraliam for a possessioM

CHAP. XXn. 20— XXIIL 20.

475

in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city,

19 And after this Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah

20 before Mamre : the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan. And the field, and the
cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place
by the sons of Heth.

EXEGETIOAl AlTD CRITICAL.

1. Survey. The two sections which we have here
placed together, with the following and the last sec-
tions of the life of Abraham, form a contrast with his
previous history. The revelations from God, the
wonderful events of his life, cease, for Abraham's
life of faith is completed with the sacrifice of Isaac.
To til e wonderful completion of the faith of Abraham
there is now added the purely natural aud human per-
fection of Abraham. Its history is certainly much
shorter, but it is at the same time a proof that the
miraculous in the Old Testament does not stand in
any exclusive relation to the natural and human. A
mythology seeking to produce eflfect, would have
closed the life of the father of the faithful with
some splendid supernatural or heroic events. It is,
on the other hand, a trait of the true historical charac-
ter of the tradition here, that it closes the life of
Abraham in the way already stated. But at the
same time the true christological character of the
Old Testament history, wherein it forms the intro-
duction to the New Testament manifestation of the
God-man, discovers itself therein, that the history
of the life of Abraham does not close abruptly with
hie greatest act of faith, but that from and out of
this act of faith there proceeds a natural and human
progress of a consecrated and sanctified life, a course
af Ufe into which even the second marriage of Abra-
ham does not enter as a disturbing element. A ter-
mination of this kind has already appeared in the life
of Noah, appears latf r in the life of Jacob ; and has
its New Testament counterpart in the history of the
forty days of the risen Christ. But as in the hfe of
Jesus, so in the life of Abraham, the events after the
great contests of faith are not without importance.
The two sections which we have combined under
this point of view, <Ae family sorrows and family joys
of Abraham point downwards to the history of Isaac
and Israel. From the son of Abraham there must
now be a family of Abraham, and to this the family
genealogy of the house of Nahor serves as an intro-
duction. This genealogical register first names Re-
bekah, and thus lays the ground for the mission and
the wooing of the bride by Eliezer (ch. xxiv.), a
history in which also the wooing of his bride by
Jacob is introduced through the mention of Laban.
But as the history of the family of Abraham is intro-
duced through the record of the house of Nahor, so
also is the first possession of Abraham and his
descendants in Canaan introduced by the narrative
of the death of Sarah. The burial-place in the cave
and field of Machpelah, are made a point of union for
the later appropriation of Canaan by the people of
God, just as in the new covenant, the grave of Christ
has introduced for Christians the future possession
of the earth ; a method of conquest which unfolds
itself through the graves of the martyrs and the
crypts of Christian churches throughout the whole
KOiM. "The testing of the faith of Abraham is
completed with the sacrifice of Isaac, the end of his
divine calling is fulfilled, and henceforward the his-
tory of his life hastens to its conclusion. It is alto-

gether fitting that there should follow now, after thu
event, a communication to him concerning the family
of his brother Nahor (ch. xi. 27 ff.), which is joined
with so much appropriateness to the sacrifice of
Isaac, since it leads on to the history of the marriage
of the heir of the promise. The NT! OJ (comp.
ch. ii. 29) also points to this actual connection. As
Sarah had borne a son to Abraham, Milcah also bare
sons to Nahor. KTI CS of ver. 24 refers back to
ver. 20." Keil. — Schroder: "This paragraph is
merely a continuation of ch. xi. 27 fif. As ch. xix.
37, 38, brought the side line of Haran to its goal and
end, so here the side Une of Nahor is continued still
further, a testimony, moreover, that Moses never
loses the genealogical thread of the history."

2. Ch. xxii. 20-24. Knobel holds the number
twelve of the sons of Nahor, as also of the sons of
Ishmael (ch. xxv. 13 S.) for an imitation of the
twelve tribes of Israel. It is unjustifiable to infer
from such accidental, or even important resemblances,
without further grounds, that the record is fiction.
It is certainly true also, that of the sons of Nahor, as
also of the sons of Jacob, four are the sons of a con-
cubine. Still, as Keil observes in the history of the
sons of Jacob, there are two mothers as also two con-
cubines. Keil also opposes, upon valid grounds, the
view of Knobel, that the twelve sons of Nahor must
signify twelve tribes of his descendants ; thus, e. g.,
Bethuel does not appear as the founder of a tribe.
" It is probably true only of some of the names, that
those who bore them were ancestors of tribes of the
same name." Keil. — Huz his first-born. — He
must be distinguished from the son of Aram (ch. x.
23), and from the Edomite (ch. xxxvi. 28). Knobel
holds that he must be sought in the neighliiorhood of
the Edomites. — And Buz " also, since this tribe is
mentioned (Jer. xxv. 23) in connection with Dedan,
and Thema, and since Elihu, the fourth opponent of
Job, belonged to it (Job xxxii. 2)." Knobel. —
Kemuel — "Is not the ancestor or founder of the
Aramaic people, but an ancestor of the family of
Ram, to which the Buzite, EUhu, also belonged,
since nns< stands for nn." KeU.— Chesed.— The
chief tribe of the Chaldees appears to have been older
than Chesed, but he seems to have been the founder
of a younger branch of the Chaldees who plundered
Job (Job i. 17). — Bethuel, the father of Rebekah
(see ch. xxv. 20). — Maaoha. — Dent. iii. 14 ; Josh. xii.
5, allude to the Maachathites. At the time of David
the land Maacha was a small Aramaic kingdom (2 Sam.
X. 6 -8 ; 1 Chron. xix. 6). " The others never appear
again." KeU. For conjectures in regard to them, see
Knobel, p. 194. For the difference in the names
Aram, Uz, Chasdim, see Delitzsch, p. 422.

3. Gerlach: " The German word ' .ff'«<''SMci6 ' sig-
nifies a woman taken out of the condition of service, ot
bondage, and this is the meaning of the Hebrew term.
Besides one or more legal wives, a man might take,
according to the custom of the ancients, one from
the rank of slaves, whose children, not by Abraham,
but by Jacob, were made sharers alike with the le-
gally bom (naturally, since, they were held for tti«

47(5

GENESIS, OR THE EIKST BOOK OF MOSES.

adopted children of Rachel and Leah). It was a
kind of lower marriage, as with us the marriage ' on
the left,' * for the concubine was bound to remain
faithful (Judg. xix. 2 ; 2 Sam. iii. 1), and any other
man who went in unto her, must bring his trespass
offering (Lev. xix. 20); the father must treat tlie
concubine of his son as his child, and the son
•130, after the contraction of a marriage with one of
equal rank, must still treat her as his concubine (Ex.
«xi. 9-10)."

4 Cb. 23. Sarah^s death and burial in the cave
9/ Ma^hpelah^ purchased with the adjoining fields by
Abraham^ from the children of Heth as a possession
of u, burying-place. Knobel and Delitzseh find in
the antique and detailed method of statement, and
snnilar traits, the stamp of the characteristics of the
fundamental Elohistic writing. The more truly the
human side of the theocratic history cornea into re-
lief, this peculiar, pleasant, picturesque tone of the
narrative appears, as, e. g., in the next so-called Je-
hovistic chapter. The division of this section Into
two parts, the one of which sliould embrace only the
two first verses, Sarah's death (Delitzseh) is not in
accordance with the unique, pervading method of
statement throughout the whole. Sarah's grave was
the cradle of the Abrahamic kingdom in Canaan.
The scene of the narration is in Hebron (now El
Chalil). When Isaac was born, and also at the time
of his sacrifice, Abraham dwelt at Beersheba (ch.
xxii. 19). At Isaac's birth Sarah was nioety years
old (ch. xvii. 17), now she has reached 127 years,
and Isaac is thus in his 37th year (see ch. xxv. 20).
"Between the journey to Moriah, and Sarah's death,
there is thus an interval of at least 20 years." De-
litzseh. During this interval Abraham must have
changed his dwelling place to Hebron again. The
mention of this change of residence may have ap-
peared, therefore, superfluous to the writer, and fur-
ther, it may be that even during his abode at Beer-
sheba, Hebron was his principal residence, as Knobel
conjectures. — The years of the life of Sarah. —
The age of Sarah was impressed on the memory of
the Israelites through this repetition, as a number
which should not be forgotten. Keil : " Sarah is
the only woman whose age is recorded in the Bible,
because, as the mother of the seed of promise, she
became the mother of all believers (1 Pet. iii. 6)."
— Kirjath-Arba, the same is Hebron (see ch. xiii.
18) — The name Kirjath-Arba, i. e., city of Arba, is
marked by Keil after Hengstenberg as the later
name (coming after Hebron), since the Anakim had
.lot dwelt there at the time of the patriarchs, but
Delitzseh, on the contrary, according to Josh. xiv.
15, and Judg. i. 10, views it as the earlier name.
Since, however. Num. xiii. 22, the city at the very
blooming period of the Anakim, was called Hebron,
and, indeed, with reference to its being founded
ueven years before Zoan (Tanis) in Egypt, it seems
clear that while the time mentioned in the books of
Joshua and Judges, was an earlier time, it was not
the earliest, and the succession in the names is this ;
Hebron, Kirjath-Arba, Hebron, El Chahl (the friend
of God, viz., Abraham). It is still, however, a ques-
tion whether Hebron may not designate specially a

* [The allusion is to a Gemian law or custom, in regard
to marriage between persons of imequal rank, and the off-
spring of such a marriage.— A. G.]

[The concubine was a secondary or half-wife, and among
the Hebrews her position was well defined, and was not re-
garded as illegitimate. Her position was not that of a mis-
cross, as we use the term concubine.— A G.]

valley city of this locality, which belonged to Iht
Hittites (see ch. xxxvii. 14, where Hebron is described
as a valley), the name Kirjath-Arba, on the contrary,
the mountain and mountain city, belonging to the
Anakim. The locality seems to favor the supposi-
tion of two neighboring cities, of which one could
now use the valley city as the abode of Abraham for
the whole locality, and now the mountain city. WTe
have confessedly to accept such a relation between
Sichem and the neighboring town Sichar, in order to
meet the difSeulty in John iv. 5. DeUtzsch explains
the change of names through a change of owners.
Even now Hebron is a celebrated city, at the same
time a hill and valley city, although no longer, great
and populous, situated upon the way from Beer-
sheba to Jerusalem, and about midway between them
(7-8 hours from Jerusalem), surrounded by beautiful
vineyards, olive trees and orchards ; comp. the arti-
cles in Winer's " Dictionary," Von Raumee, and
the various descriptions of travellers. [Robinson's
description (ii, 431^62) is full and accurate, and
leaves little to be desired. — A. G.] — In the land
of Canaan. — This circumstance appears here con-
spicuously in honor of Sarah, and from the import-
ance of her burial-place. — And Abraham came. —
The shepherd prince was busy in his calling in the
field, or in the environs. It is not said that he was
absent at the death of Sarah, but only that he now
sat down by the corpse at Hebron, to complete the
usages of mourning (to mourn for Sarah, and to weep
for her), and to provide for her burial. — Prom be-
fore his dead (corpse). — From before his dead. *
He had mourned in the presence of the dead; now
he goes to the gate of the city, where the people
assembled, where the business was transacted, and
where he could thus purchase a grave. — To the
sous of Heth. — The name, according to Knobel,
appears only in the Elohistic writings. [This at-
tempt to define and characterize particular points of
the book by the use of special names, breaks down
so often that it may be regarded as no longer of any
serious importance — A. G.] — A possession of a
burying-place with you. — It is, as F. C. V. Moser
remarks, a beautiful scene of politeness, simplicity,
kindness, frankness, humility, modesty, not un-
mingled with some shades of avarice, and of a kind
of expectation when one in effecting a sale, throws
himself upon the generosity of the purchaser." De-
litzseh. The delicate affair is introduced by the
modest request of Abraham. As a stranger and a
sojourner f he had no possession, thus even no bury-
ing-place among them. He therefore asks that they
would sell him a piece of ground for the purpose of
a burial-place. — Thou art a mighty prince (»
prince of God).— That is, a man to whom God has
given a princely aspect, in consequence of com-
munion with him. [A man whom God has favored
and made great. — A. G.] They offer him a sepul-
chre, among the most select of their sepulchres (upon
the exchange of ib for lb see Knobel and the op-
posing remarks by Keil). [^B^'^ is generally used
absolutely, but the peculiarity here is not without
analogy (see Lev. xi. 1;, and does not justify the
change to "h nor that adopted by the Sept. tii.^

• [Sarah, thouRh dead, was still his. Wordsworth. — A.G.

t [Woidswortb bore calls attention to the feict that the
Apostle Peter (1 Pet. ii. 11) quotes these words as found in
the Septuagint, when he addresses believers as "strangers
and pilgrims." They were, like Abraham, the fath er of th<
faithful.— A. G.]

CHAP. xxn. 20— xxni. 20.

47"

A. 6.] But Abraham cannot consent thus to mingle
himself with them. He has a separate burying-
placein his eye. — And Abraham stood up.— The

referential bowing is an expression of his gratitude
and of his decliQing the offer. In the oriental bow-
ing the person touches the earth with his brow.
Luther often translates the word in question by " to
worship," in relation to men, where it is obviously
unsuited to the sense. — If it be your mind. — Abra-
ham introduces, in a rery courtly and prudent way,
his purpose to secure the cave of Ephron. It marks
Kphron as a man of prominence and rank, that he
avails himself of their intercession ; Keil infers from
the words his city (ver. 10), that he was then lord of
the city. This is doubtful. — ^The cave of Mach-
pelah. — " The name is rendered in the Septuagint :
tIi airiiXaiiov rh 5it\o5>', according to the meaning of
flbSDO. But it is a proper name, which is also true
of' tlie field (ch. xlix. 30; 1. 13), although it was
originally derived from the form of the cave." Keil.
Caves were often used for sepulchres in Palestine
(see Winer, sepulchres). — And Ephron, the Hit-
tite, answered. — " When now Ephron offered to
give the cave to Abraham — this is a mode of expres-
sion still in use in the East, by which, so far as it is
seriously intended, leaving out of view any regard to
a counterpresent, richly compensating the value of
the present, for the most part it is designed to pre-
vent any abatement from the price desired. [See
'The Land and the Book,' by Thompso.n-, ii. 381-
388. — A. G.] (Comp. Dieterioi and descriptions of
the Eastern lands, ii. p. 168 f.)." Keil. It is not
certain that we should identify so directly the orig-
inal utterance of true generosity with the like sound-
ing form of a later custom. It must be observed,
still, that Abraham modestly desired only to gain the
cave, a place which was at the end of the field, and
te this no one objected ; on the contrary, Ephron
offered him at the same time, the adjoining field.
And this is in favor of the good intention of Ephron,
since he could have sold to him the cave alone at a cost-
ly price.— And Abraham bcwed down himself
(again). — An expression, again, of esteem, thank-
fulness, and at the same time, of a declinature, but,
also, an introduction to what follows. He presses,
repeatedly, for a definite purchase. The answer of
Ephron: "The field, four hundred shekels," etc.,
announces again the price in courtly terms. Knobel
explains : "A piece of land of so little value could
not be the matter of a long transaction between
two rich men." But it is the more distinct echo of
the offer of the present, and with thi# utters an ex-
cuse or apology for the demand, bpcause he (Abra-
ham) would insist upon having it thus. — And Abra-
ham weighed. — "At that time none of the states
had stamped coins which could be reckoned, but
pieces of the metals were introduced in the course of
trade, and these pieces were of definite weight, and,
indeed, also marked with designations of the weight,
but it was necessary to weigh these pieces in order
to guard against fraud " (see Winer, article Miinzen).
Knobel. The use of coins for the greater con-
venience of original barter, has been regarded as
the invention of the PhcenicianB, as also the inven-
tion of letters is ascribed to them. — Current
money with the merchant. — The Hebrew term is
"TIBS izs, passing over, transitive ; i. e., current,
fitted for exchange in merchandise. The idea of the
iJistinc(ion between light pieces, and those of fiiU
weight, existed ilready. Keil ; ' The rhekel of sil-

ver used in trade was about 2*74 Parisian grains, and
the price of the land, therefore, about 260 dollars, a
very considerable sum for the time." The Rabhins
ascribe the high price to the covetousnese of Ephron
Delitzsch, however, reminds us, that Jacob purchased
a piece of ground for 100 na""!!?;? (Gen. xxxiii. 19),
and the ground and limits upon which Samaria wm
built, cost two talents, i. e., 6,000 heavy shekels ot
silver (1 Kings xvi. 24). For the shekel see Delitzsch,
p. 426. [Also article in Kitto on " Weights md
Measures," and in S.mith's "Dictionary." — A. G.]
It must be observed, too, that we cannot judge ol
the relation between the price and the field, since
we do not know its bounds. — Machpelah, which
■was before Mamre. — For these local relations
compare Delitzsch and Keil, and also v. Raumer,
p. 202. [Compare also Robinson ; " Researches,"
vol. ii. pp. 431-462 ; Stanley: " History of the Jew.
Church." This cave, so jealously guarded by the
Mohammedans, has recently been entered by the
Prince of Wales with his suite. Dean Stanley, who
was permitted to enter the cave, says that the shrines
" are what the Biblical narrative would lead us to
expect, and there is evidence that the Moham-
medans have carefully guarded these sacred spots,
and they stand as the confirmation of our Christian
faith." — A. G.] The cave lay ^3Sb (ver. 17 ; comp
ver. 19) before Mamre, i. e., over against the oak
grove of Miimre ; Keil and Knobel think eastward,
Delitzsch southerly. But the expression here doea
not appear to refer to any quarter of the heavens.
The valley of Hebron runs from north to south, in
a southeasterly direction. Mamre and Machpelah
must have been situated over against each other in
the two sides, or the two ends, of this valley. Since
the structure Haram, which the Mohammedan trad.-
tion (without doubt, a continuation of the earliei
Christian tradition,) designates as the cave of Mach-
pelah, or as Abraham's grave, and which the Moham-
medan power jealously guards against the entrance
of Jews or Christians, lies upon the mountain-slope
towards the east, it is clear that Mamre must be
sought upon the end of the valley, or mountain-
slope toward the west (the eastern fide of the
same). Here lies the height Numeidi, which Eosen-
miiller says is the land of Mamre. We must then hold
that the grove of Mamre descended into the valley,
and that Abraham dwelt here in the valley at the
edge of the grove. Still the opposition in locality
(the vis-d-vis) may be defined from the high ground
which lies northerly from Hebron, and is called
Nimre or Nemreh (=Mamre?), but even then also
Abraham must have dwelt at the foot of this emi-
nence. However, according to the old Christian
tradition (Schubert, Robinson, Seetzen, Ritter and
others), this Hebron of Abraham (Wady el Rame or
Ramet el Chalil, with its ruins of old walls and
foundations) lay about an hour northward from the
present city. This view is abandoned by the most
recent commentators, since this would require too
great a distance between Mamre and Hebron. So
much seems at least to be established, viz., that i;he
tradition in regard to Machpelah is confirmed, then
that the tradition concerning Mamre and the loc»
tion of Mamre, must be determined by the situation
of Machpelah. [In regard to the words of St
Stephen, Acts. vii. 16, Wordsworth holds thai
Abraham purchased two burial-places, the first, the
cave of Machpelah, the second at Sichar or Shcchem ;
and that it is by design that the one should be com

478

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

municated to us by the Holy Spirit, speaking by
Moses, the Hebrew legislator, and the other by the
Hellenist Stephen, when he pleaded before the Jew-
ish Sanhedrim the cause of the faithful oj all
nations, p. 103. See also Alexander " on the Acts."
— A. (>.] — And the field of Ephron Tvas made
Bure. — The record of the transaction is very minute ;
first, in regard to the purchase price and the wit-
nesses (ver. 16), then in regard to the piece of ground
(the cave, the field and all the trees) (ver. 1*7), finally,
in reference to the right of possession (again with
the mention of witnesses) (ver. 18) ; as If a legal
contract was made and executed. Even the burial
of Sarah belongs to the confirmation of the posses-
sion, as is apparent from the forms of ver. 19, and
from the conclusion of the account in ver. 20,

DOCTEINAL AUD ETHICAL.
(tTpon oh. xxii. 20-24.)

1. See the Exegetical and Critical remarks.

2. Joy follows upon sorrow, comfort succeeds
the conflict. The message which Abraham received
was very providential, and comes at the right mo-
ment. Isaac was saved. Soon Abraham must think
of his marriage, and of the establishment of his
family through him. The opportune account from
Mesopotamia of the children of his brother Nahor
laid the foundation for the hope in him, that he
might find in his family a suitable bride for Isaac.
Rebekah also is mentioned in the report. Rebekah ap-
pears as the youngest branch of the cliildren of Nahor,
his grandchild through Bethuel. She is in so far a
late-birth, as Isaac was. Her brother Laban, who,
in some respects, forms a parallel to Ishmael, the
brother of Isaac, first appears later in the history.

3. It avaUs not for the race to be hasty, the race
is not always to the swift. Nahor precedes Abraham
with his twelve sons, as Ishmael does Isaac. In the
line of Abraham, the twelve sons appear first in the
third generation.

4. The message from Nahor's house, the sign of
a relationship and love, sanctified through a reference
to higher ends.

5. Love excites the thoughts of the loved ones
in the distance, forme the greeting, and devises also
the messages in primitive times. Between the
earliest messengers, the angels of God, and the
latest form of human communication, the telegraph,
there is every possible form of communication and
kind of messengers ; but they all ought to serve, and
all shall, in accordance with their idea, serve the
purposes of love and the kingdom of God. — The
importance of the newspaper. — A pious man re-
marks : I have only two moulding books, the one is
the Bible, the other the newspaper. — We should view
all the events of the times in the light of God.

6. Nahor, the brother of Abraham, stands still
in a spiritual relationship with him ; both his mes-
lage, and the piety and nobleness of his grandchild
Rebekah, prove this. But he is clearly less refined
than Abraham. Abraham suffers the espousal of
Hagar to be pressed upon him, because he had no
children; but Nahor, who had already eight children
by Milcah, took in addition to her a concubine,
Reumah. — Contrasts of this kind teach us to esti-
mate the higher direction of the partriarchal life,
13 e. g. also the history of Lot, will be estimated in
'.be mirror of the history of Sodom.

(TTpon oh. xxiii.i

1. See the Exegetical and Critical reicarkB.

2. Sarah. " It was in the land of promise tha:
Sarah, the ancestress of Israel, died. The Old
Testament relates the end of no woman's life bo
particularly as the end of the life of Sarah — for she
is historically the most important woman of the old
covenant. She is the mother of the seed of promise,
and in him of all believers (1 Pet. iii. 6). She is the
Mary of the old Testament In her unshaken faith
Mary rises still higher than Sarah, but the Scriptures
neither record the length of her life, nor her death.
This occurs because the son whom Sarah bare was
not greater than herself, but Mary bore a son before
whose glory all her own personality fades and van-
ishes away," etc. Delitzsch.

3. Abraham, the fatlier of believers, also a mode!
of the customary courtliness, and a proof how this
courtliness is, at the same time, an expression of re-
gard, of human love and gratitude, a polished form
of human friendship, and a protection of personality
and truth. [Religion does not consist entirely in actt
of worship, in great self-denials or heroic virtues,
but in all the daily concerns and acts of our lives.
It moulds and regulates our joys and sorrows; it
affects our relations ; it enters into our business.
Thus we have the faith and piety of Abraham, pre-
sented in the ordinary changes, the joys, the sorrows,
and the business transactions of his life. — A. G.]

4. Our history is a living portraiture of the court-
liness and urbanity general in the remote antiquity
and in the East.

6. The traffic and purchase of Abraham, through
out, a testimony of Israelitish prudence and fore-
sight, but free from all Jewish meanness and covet
ousness.

6. The gradual development of money, or of the
measures in value of earthly things, proceeding from
the rating of the nobler metals, especially of silver,
according to its weight. The importance of the
Phoenicians in this respect.

7. A precious gain, the gain of a burial posses-
sion for her descendants, is connected with the death
of Sarah. " The first real-estate property of the
patriarchs was a grave. This is the only good which
they buy from the world, the only enduring thing
they find here below, etc. In that sepulchre Abra-
ham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, were laid, there
Jacob laid Leah, and there Jacob himself would rest
after his death, even in death itself a confessor of his
faith in the promise. This place of the dead becomes
the punctum saliens of the possession of the promised
land. It was designedly thus minutely described, as
the glorious acquisition of the ancestors of Israel. It
was indeed the bond which ever bound the descend-
ants of Abraham in Egypt to the land of promise,
drew with magnetic power their desires thither, and,
collected in Canaan, they should know where the
ashes of their fathers rested, and that they are called
to inherit the promise, for which their fathers were
here laid in the grave." Delitzsch. — The cave Mach-
pelah became for the Israelites the sacred grave of
the old covenant, which they won again with the
conquest of Canaan, just as the Christians in the crU'
sades reconquered the sacred grave of the new cove-
nant, and with it Palestine. And the Christiiins also,
like the Jews, have lost again their sacred grave end
their holy land, because they have not inwardly
adhered sufficiently to the faith of the fathers, who
beyond the sacred grave looked for the ctenial oiti

CHAP. XXII. 20— XXIII. 1-20.

47£

Df God : because they hare sought too much " the
living among tht dead." Even now the last desire
of the orthodox Jews is for a grave at Jerusalem, in
Canaan. [The transaction in securing this burial-
nlace waa, not as some have thought, to secure a
itle to the land of promise, that was perfect and
ecure in the sovereign promise of God : but it
ffaa: 1. A declaration of the faith of Abraham in
the promise ; 2. a pledge and memorial to his de-
Boendants, when in captivity, of their interest in the
land.— A. G.l

8. Although the ancients did not easily receive
a stranger into their family tombs (among the
Greeks and Romans usage forbade it), the Hittites
are ready to receive Sarah into their best family
sepulchres, as Joseph of Arimathea took the body
of our Lord into his own tomb. This is a strong
testimony to the impression which Abraham, and
Sarah also, had made upon them, to their reverence
and attachment for the patriarchal couple. They ap-
pear also, like Abimelech at Gerar, to have had their
original monotheism awakened and strengthened by
their intercourse with Abraham, whom they honor as
a " Prince of God."

9. Hebron, the first royal city of David, is situated
five hours southerly from Bethlehem, his native city.
How deeply the present spiritual relations of Hebron
lie below the splendor of the royal city of David !
Its inhabitants cultivate the vine, cotton, have glass-
works, and live " in constant feuds with the Bethle-
hemites." V. Kaumer.

10. The custom of burial and the sanctification
of the grave, after the intimation, ch. xv. 15, appears
here in a striking and impressive manner.

11. In order to preserve his hope for Canaan
rare, Abraham could not entangle himself with the
iJ&ananites, thus : 1. He could not use, in common
with the heathen, their sepulchre ; 2. he could not
receive as a present a possession in the land. [This
Otapter is interesting ■\s containing the first record
of mourning for the dead, of burial, of property in
land, of purchase of land, of silver as a medium of
purchase, and of a standard of weight. Muepht, p.
HI.— A. G.]

HOMILETICAI, AKD PEACTIOAL.

(rpon oh. xxii. 20-24.)

Human consolation follows the great conflict and
lictory of faith. — The joyful message which Abraham
received : a. From his home ; b. from his blood rela-
tions ; c. from his spiritual kindred. — The destination
and the blessing of the ties of relationship, in the
widest sense. — The end and the blessing of all com-
munication in the world. — All human messengers
should be messengers of love, in joy and sorrow. —
Salutations, messages, letters, journals, are aU also
under the conduct of divine providence. Human
missions are accompanied by divine missions. — A
people spring from children, or how significantly
Rebekah here comes forward from her conceal-
ment.— The joy of a loving participation in the
happiness of companions— neighbors. Starke : (A
picture of Syria and Babylon.) Ps. cxii. 2 ; cxxvii. 3.
— OsiANBEit : God usually refreshes and quickens
his people again, after temptation. — Calwee, Hand-
buch: When Isaac was about to be offered, God
allows him to hear that bis future wife was bom and
educated.

(TTpon ctu zsiii.)

The richly blessed end of Sarah as it appears : 1
In the quenchless memory of her age by Israel ; 2.
in the mourning of Abraham ; 3. in his care for hei
grave ; 4. in the esteem of the Hittites (every ona
is ready to admit her into his sepulchre) ; 5. in the
opportunity for the securing of the sepulchre as t
possession by Abraham. — The whole chapter instmo
tive on the gi-ave, as is chapter fifth on death, the
eleventh chapter of John on the resurrection from
the grave ; 1. Of death ; * 2. of mourning ; 3. of the
acquisition of sepulchres ; 4. of the burial itself; 5.
of hope over the grave. — The true mourning a sanc-
tified feeling of death : 1. A fellow-feeling of death,
with the dead ; 2. an anticipation of death, or a liv-
ing preparation for one's own death ; 3. a believing
sense of the end or destination of death, to be made
useful to the life. — Sarah's grave a sign of life ; 1. A
monument of faith, a token of hope ; 2. an image
of the state of rest for the patriarchs ; 3. a sign of the
home and of the longing of Israel ; 4. a sign or
prognostic of the New-Testament graves. — The sol-
emn burial of the corpse: 1. An expression of the
esteem of personality even in its dead image ; 2. an
expression of the hope of a new life.f — The sancti-
fication of the grave for a family sepulchre, fore-
shadowing the sanctification of the church-yards oi
God's-acres. — Abraham the father of believers, also
the founder of a believing consecration of the grave
— offers themes for funeral discourses, dedication
of church-yards, and at mourning solemnities. — The
first possession which Abraham bought was a grave
for Sarah, for his household, for himself even. —
The choice of the grave: 1. Significanily situated (a
double cave) ; 2. still more suitably (at the end of
the field). — Israel's first possession of the soil : the
grave of Sarah ; the first earthly house of the Chris-
tian ; the grave of Christ and the graves of the
martyrs. — Ver. 2. The mourning of Abraham : 1.
Its sincerity (as he left his pursuits and sat or lay
before the corpse) ; 2. its limit, and the preservation
of his piety (as he rose up from before the corpse,
and purchased the grave). — 'Abraham himself must
have had his own mortality brought to his mind by
the death of Sarah, since he cared for a common
grave. — Vers. 9, IS. Abraham's traffic ; 1. In his
transparency ; 2. his purity ; 3. his carefulness and
security.— Abraham and the Hittites a lively image
of the Eastern courtliness in the early times. — The
true politeness of spirit as a cultivation of hearty
human friendliness, in its meaning : 1. Upon what
it rests (respect for our fellows and self-respect) ; 2.
what it effects (the true position toward our neigh-
bors, as an olive-branch of peace and a. protection
of personal honor).— The mysterious sepulchre at
Hebron. — The Mohammedans as the intelligent pro-
tectors of the graves of the East until the time of its
restitution. — Starke : (There is no ground for the
saying of the Rabbins, that Sarah died from sorrow
when she learned of the sacrifice of Isaac). — The
fear of God makes no one insensible to feeling, aa
the Stoics have asserted (Job xiv. 5 ; 1 Thess. iv,
13 ; Ps. xxxix. 6, 6). — Ver. 13. There is a referenc«

* [The patriarcli had encountered othei' trialw, but ha
had hitherto been b-pared this of death. But now death en-
ters. No health, relations, affections, can resist the march
and power of death. Abraham has in heart parted with hit
children, now he must part actually from her who had
shared all his trials and hopes.— A. G.]

t [In that grave was implied the hope of Hesurroctioa
"WOHDSWORTH, p. 104. — A. G.l

480

GENESIS, OR THE FIBST BOOK OF MOSES

here to the first money transaction, for the land wag
not to be received ag a present, or be held without
price, by Abraham, but by his successors, hence he
must pay for what he obtains (Acts vii. 5). This
was, however, plainly the ordering of God, that
Abraham, through a purchase of a burial-place with
money, should have a foothold, and some possession
of property, as a pledge of the future possession. —
God also shows that he takes the dead into his care
and protection, and he would never do this had he
not a purpose to reawaken the dead. — Cramer: We
should proceed with gentleness and modesty in our
dealings with any one. — Bibl. Tub.: Purchases
should be made with prudence, that we may not give
cause for controversy (1 Cor. vi. V). — We should veil
in a seemly way the bodies of the dead, and bear
them reverently to the grave. — Lisco : Thus Abra-
ham gained the first possession in the land of prom-
ise; here he would bury Sarah, here he himself

would be buried ; thus he testifies to his faith in tb«
certainty of the divine promise made to him, as in a
later case the prophet Jeremiah, just before the exile,
testified his faith in the return of Israel from its ban-
ishment, by the purchase of the field of Hanamea'
at Anathoth (Jer. xxxii.). — Calwee, Handbueh ,
The possession of a burying-pkce as his own, satis-
fied the pious pilgrim, and is for him a pledge of the
full possession of the land by his successors. — Schro-
der; Ver. 1. Then also the believer may recollect
how God has written all his days in his book. Pg.
cxxxix. 16 (Berleb. Bibl.).— Yer. 2. The tear of sor-
sow has its right in the heart, because it is a human
heart : but there is a despair concerning death, as
concerning sin. — It is thouglitfuUy tender to lay the
children of the mother earth again in her bosom (Sir.
xL 1). — The money with which he secures the cave
is the blessing of God ; thus God procures for him
peculiarly a possession in the laud of promise.

TWELFTH SECTION.

Abraham^ s care for Isaac's marriage. Eliezej'^s wooing of the bride for Isaac,
ing of a pious bride-wooing. Isaac's marriage.

The theocratic fmmd-

Chapter XXIV. 1-67.

1 And Abraham was old, and well stricken [advanced] in age : and the Lord had

2 blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant' of his house,

3 that ruled over all that he had, Put, 1 pray ihee, thy hand under my thigh : And 1
will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that
thou shalt not take a wife unto my son, of the daughters of the Canaa.nites, among

4 whom I dwell : But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a

5 wife unto my son Isaac. And the servant said uuto him, Peradventure, the woman
will not be wihing to follow me into this land ; must I needs bring thy son again into

6 the land from whence thou earnest? And Abraham said unto him, Beware that thou
bring not my son thither again.

7 The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house, and from the land
of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware unto me, saying, Unto thy
seed will I give this land, he shall send his angel before thee, and thou shalt take a

8 wife unto my son from thence. And if the woman will not be willing to follow thee,
then thou shalt be clear from this thine oath : only bring not my son thither again.

9 And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware to
him concerning that matter.

10 And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed ; for
all the goods of his master Twith every kind of oo.<!tiy gooda] were in his hand: and he arose

11 and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. And he made his camels to kneel
dawn without the city by a well of water, at the time of the evening, even at the time

12 that wo nen go out to draw water. And he said, 0 Lord God of my master Abraham,
I pray thee send me good speed ^ this day, and show kindness unto my master Abra-

13 hsm. Behold I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the

14 city come out to draw water : And let it come to pass that the damse] to whom I shall
say. Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink ; and she sliall say, Drink,
and I will give thy camels drink also ; let the same he she that thou hast appointed foi
thy servant Isaac ; and thereby shall I know that thou hast showed kindne.ss unto my
master.

CHAP. XXrV. 1-67. 48"

15 And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that behold, Eebekah came ou^
who was born to Bethael, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, witk

16 her pitcher upon her shoulder. And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin;
neither had any man known her ; and she went down to the well and filled her pitcher,

17 and came up. And the servant ran to meet her, and said. Let me, I pray thee, drink

18 a httle water from thy pitcher. And she said, Drink, my lord ; and she hasted, and let

19 down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. And when she had done givii g
him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drin c-

20 ing. And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the

21 well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. And the man, wondering at her, held
his peace [waiting to know], to wit whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or

22 not. And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden
ear [nosej ring, of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands, of ten shekels

23 weight of gold, And said. Whose daughter art thou? tell me, I pray thee: is there

24 room in thy father's house for us to lodge in? And she said unto him, I am the
2.5 daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor. She said, more-

26 over, unto him. We have both straw and provender enough, and room "to lodge in. And

27 the man bowed down his head, and worshipped the Lord. And he. said, Blessed be
the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his
mercy and his truth : T leing in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my

28 master's brethren. And the damsel ran and told them of her mother's house these
things.

29 And Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban [the white]: and Laban ran

30 out unto the man, unto the well. And it came to pass, when he saw the ear [nose] ring
and bracelets upon his sister's hands, and when he heard the words of Eebekah his
sister, saying, Thus spake tlie man unto me ; that he came unto the man, ana behol.

31 he stood by the camels at the well. And he said. Come in, thou blessed of the Lord
wherefore standest thou without? for I have prepared the house, and room for thf
camels.

32 And the man came into the house : and he [Laban] ungirded his camels, and gave
straw and provender for his camels, and water to wash his feet, and the men's feet tha'

33 were with him. And there was set [as the imperf. Kai of nizj^] meat before him to eat : but
he said, 1 will not eat until I have told mine errand. And he [Laban] said, speak on.

34, 85 And he said, I am Abraham's servant. And the Lord hath blessed my master
greatly, and he is become great; and he hath given him flocks, and herds, and silver,

36 and gold, and men-servants, ana maid-servants, and camels, and asses. And Sarah, my
master's wife, bare a son to my master when she was old : and unto him hath he given

37 all that he hath. And my master made me swear, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife

38 to my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I dwell. But thou shalt '

39 go unto my father's house, and to ray kindred, and take a wife unto my son. And I

40 said unto my master, Peradventure the woman will not follow me. And he said unto
me. The Lord, beforn whom I walk, will send his angel with thee, and will prosper thy
way; and thou shalt take a wife for my son of my kindred and of my father's house.

41 Then shalt thou be clear from this mine oath [the oath given by me] when thou comest to

42 my kindred ; and if they give not thee one, thou shalt be clear from my oath. And 1
came this day unto the well, and said, 0 Lord God of my master Abraham, if now

43 thou do prosper my way which I go : Behold, I stand by the well of water ; and it
shall come to pass, when the virgin cometh forth to draw water, and I say unto her
Give me, I pray thee, a Httle water of thy pitcher [13, bucket; a jug similar to a pail or bucket,

44 of wide mouth] to drink : And she say to me. Both drink thou, and I will also draw for
thy camels : let the same he the woman whom the Lord hath appointed out for my

45 master's son. And before I had done speaking in my heart [in myself], behold, Rebekah
came forth with her pitcher on her shoulder ; and she went down unto the well, and

46 drew water , and I said unto her. Let me drink, I pray thee. And she made hnste,
and let down her pitcher from her shoulder, and said, Drink, and I will give thy camels

i7 drink also : so I drank, and she made the camels drink also. And I asked her, and said,
Whose daughter art thou? And she said. The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor's son,
whom Milcah bare unto him : and I put the ear [nose] ring upon her face, and the

31

482

GEJTESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

61
62

63

66

67

48 bracelets upon lier hands. And I bowed down my head and worshipped the Lord,
and blessed the Lord God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way,

49 to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son. And now if ye will [are ready to]
deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me : and if not, tell me : that I may turn to

50 the right hand or to the left. Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing
proceedetli from the Lord; we cannot speak [in our own choice] unto thee bad or good.

51 Behold Eebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master's son's wife^

52 as the Lo;d hath spoken. And it came to pass, that, when Abraham's servant heard

63 their words, he worshipped the Lord, bowing himself to the earth. And the servant
brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to

54 Eebekah : he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things. And they
did eat and drink, he and the men that were with him, and tarried all night ; and they

55 rose up in the morning, and he said. Send me .away unto my master. And her brother
and her mother said. Let the damsel abide with us a few days [a circle of days], at the least

56 ten [a decade] ; after that she shall go. And he said unto them. Hinder me not, seeing

57 the Lord hath prospered my way ; send me away, that I may go to my master. An-d

58 they said. We will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth. And they called
Eebekah, and said unto her. Wilt thou go with this man ? And she said, I

59 will go. And they sent away Eebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's

60 servant, and his men. And they blessed Eebekah, and said unto her. Thou art our
sister ; be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess tie gate
of those which hate them [enemies].

And Eebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed
the man : and the servant took Eebekah, and went his way. And Isaac came from

ths way of [visit to] the well Lahai-roi [of the living— animating, qnictening-Tision] ; for he dwelt

[had his station] in the south country. And Isaac went out [now northwards] to meditate in
the field [the northern field-region] at the eventide : and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and,

64 behold, the camels were coming. And Eebekah lifted up her eyes ; and when she saw

65 Isaac, she lighted off the camel. For she had said' unto the servant. What man is
this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said. It is my master:
therefore she took a veil and covered herself And the servant told Isaac all things
that he had done. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Ee-
bekah, and she became his wife ; and he loved her : and Isaac was comforted after his
mother's death.

[' Ver. 2.^Heb. his serva-nt, the elder of his house. — A, G.

[2 Ver. 12. — Heb. cause it to occur. — A. Q.]

[> Ver. S8.— Nb aX , if thou shall not.— A.. G.]

(* Ver. 65.— Heb. and said.— A. G.]

GENEEAL EBMAEKS.

To the chapter upon the sepulchre and the burial
of the dead, there follows now a chapter upon the
wooing of the hride. The former has greater
strength of expression, grounded in the last need,
death and the care for the dead ; the latter has
greater richness and life, and glows in all the fresh-
ness and fulness of a sacred, biblical idyll, the first
pearl in that string of pearls, in the religious glorifi-
cation of the human bridal state which runs down
through the wooing of Rachel by Jacob, the little
book of Ruth, to its culmination in the Song of
Songs. Abraham was warned by the death of Sarah,
to set the concerns of his house in order, to seek a
bride for Isaac, and thus to provide for his descend-
»Ets. The narrative joins one beautiful trait to
another, until the circle is complete ; the spirit of his
master Abraham, who hiid instructed him, is clearly
reflected in the faithful and prudent bridal jourr.ey of
nis servant, and Rebekah appears from the tvecinning
%n the glorious, lovely and boldly-determined Liaiden,

peculiarly fitted for the quiet, patient Isaac. " Hu-
manly speaking, the following history belongs to the
most attractive portions of the first book of Moses ;
we are tempted to call it a biblical idyll. Everything
in these verses, down to the most minute part, ia
finished and elaborated with inimitable beauty."
Schroder. Delitzsch refers to the excellent treat-
ment of this narrative by F. C. V. Movers. The
fundamental thought in the narrative ia the provi-
dence of God in Isaac's marriage. It appears in
Abraham's believing foresight and care for Isaac, in
the faithfulness and prudence of his servant, in the
happy meeting of Rebekah and the servant, in the
vivid life picture and character of Rebekah, in the
hospitahty and the pious spirit of her house, even
in the self-interested conduct of Laban, in the meet-
ing of Isaac and Rebekah, in the movement of her
heart, and in his love. " It is thus through the provi
dence of God that Rebekah became the wife of Isaac,
and an ancestress of the people of God." Knobel.
The documentary hypothesis falls into perplexity
here, since, accovdingto cb. ixiii and ch. ixv. 19, tht

CHAP. XXIV. 1-67.

483

ftandamental writing must have related this marriage.
It relieves itself with the conjecture that the brief
Elohistic narration has been displaced by this longer
Jehovistic narrative. Knobel finds in the fact that
the mission proceeds from Abraham, and the report
'b made to Isaac, although he has no real ground for
the conjecture, as also in similar cases, the traces
that the narrative is not genuine. [Which is much
the same as if he had said, since the narrative is not
constructed as I think it should have been, it cannot
be genuine. — A. G.] It may be divided into the fol-
lowing particular portions : 1. The arrangement of
the theocratic journey for the bride, the spiritual
image and character of the bride (vers. 1-9) ;
2. the journey for the bride, and the choice of the
bride (vers. 10-21); 3. the entrance into the house
of the bride (vers. 22-33) ; 4. the wooing of the
bride (vers. 34-49) ; 5. the rewards for the bride
(vera. 60-54) ; 6. the bridal journey (vers. 64-61);
7. the meeting of the bridegroom and the bride
(vers. 62-67).

EXBGETICAL AND CBITICAL.

1. The arraTigement of the theocratic journey for
the bride (vers. 1-9). — And Abraham. — The mo-
lives for his arrangement : 1. After Sarah's death
his age warned him to provide for Isaac's marriage.
2. the blessing of Jehovah warns him, he must now
through the marriage of his son, do his own part,
that the blessing might be preserved. His faith and
his acta of faith must correspond to the promise of
blessing of Jehovah. Isaac could not marry a
Canaanitess, but only a Shemitess, one who was of
equal birth in a theocratic point of view. It might
possibly be from his own ancestral home, and the
account which he had received of the home of
Nahor, favored his hope. He could not think of
Lot's daughters — Unto his eldest * servant. — It
IS usually inferred from ch. xv. 2, that EUezer of
Damascus is here meant. Gerlach says it is not
probable, because he is not named. For the same
reason the Calwee Handbuch concludes that he is
intended, because otherwise the servant would be
named in so important a mission, and this inference
is just. Eleazer was peculiarly fitted for this mis-
sion, as an old man in the school of Abraham
(more than 60 years had elapsed since ch. xv. 2).
Eleazer thus stands for all tune as the type of all
pious and prudent bride-wooers. He is a steward or
ruler of the whole hou.'ie, thus a trusted servant.
[The word servant like the word elder, is an official
title. Bush refers to Gen. xl. 30 ; Ex. xii. 30 ; Deut.
xxxiv. 5 ; Heb. iii. 6 ; and for elder to Gen. 1. 7 ;
Ruthiv. 2; Tim. v. 17.— A. G.] Still the present
mission of Abraham is so important, that he lays
him under the obligations of an oath. — Put thy
hand under my thigh. — This usage in the oath is
referred to only in one other place (ch. xlvii. 2H).
The person who took the oath, was to place his
hand under the thigh of him to whom it was given.
Borne refer this rite to a heathen idea or imagina-
tion. "It points to the generating member, which,
•s the organ ci the generative strength of nature.

• [Here the term elder approaches its oflBcial ai^ifica-
tion. Mdrphy, p. 353. — A. G.]

[" The elder was not a title of age, but of Q;ffice, It passed
infio the Church, coming down to us from the Jewish
OLuroh.'' Jacobus.— A. G.)

had a kind of saoredness among the ancients, and ia
the Phallus (or Bacchus) worship, had a kind of re-
ligious honor (Arnoe. advers. Gent. 6), e. g. : among
the Egyptians (Herod., ii. 48 ; Plutarch ; Theo-
doret), among the Syrians (Lucian), at times even
among the Hebrews (1 Kings xv. 13 ?). It is record-
ed of the Egyptian Bedouin in modem times, that
in a solemn asseveration or oath he places his hand
upon the generative organ (Sonnim. : ' Travels,
ii. p. 474)." Knobel. According to the Jewish ides
(which the Targums, Jonathan, Jarchi, Tuoh, etc.,
follow), the rite relates to the generative member in
its relations to God, by virtue of circumcision. Von
Bohlen, Gesenius, Knobel, bring together these two
ideas or explanations. The explanation of the an-
cients, that Abraham, with reference to the promise
of the covenant, "had in his mind the promised seed
of the covenant, the future Christ," is a mystical and
Christian idea, not improperly adduced here, remarks
Delitzsch, although the thought is " usually regarded
as belonging to the New Testament (see Steippel-
MANN ; ' The Christian Oath,' p. 22). It is doubtful
whether 'opKo^ and cJpKip, tesiari and testiculn.^^ stand
in a relation referring back to this custom." Since
the hand in the oath has always the signification of
pledging oneself, we must inquire first of all, what
rite-forms of the hand in the person who takes the
oath, usually appear. But now Abraham, when he
takes the oath (eh. xiv. 22), raises his hand to heaven,
before those around him, when he worshipped the
El Eljon, the heavenly exalted God (comp. Rev. x.
5-6). According to Ezek. xx. 5, the object of the
hand is generally to mark the subject in respect to
which the obligation is taken. In this idea the
Christian oath is taken upon the gospel, or even upon
a chest of relics. When, therefore, Eleazer and
Joseph give the oath, in that they pl^ce their hands
upon the thigh of the one swearing them, the act
had a special meaning. The thigh is the symbol of
posterity ; in Israel the symbol of the promised pos-
terity, with the included idea of the promise. Gen.
xlvi. 26 ; Ex. i. 5. Eleazer and Joseph thus must
swear by the posterity, the promise and the hope of
Abraham and Israel.* 'This promise should be
changed into a curse for them if they did not regard
the oath. This oath was required in Eleazer because
he did not belong to the house of Abraham, in Jo-
seph, because, as a prince in the land of Egypt, he
might be tempted to be false to the faith of the
promise. It is sufficient to regard the thigh as the
symbol of the whole posterity, the generative organ
as symbolical of the immediately succeeding generar
tion. — By Jehovah [It is not an ordinary marriage
which is here about to be made, which would fail
under the providence of Elohim ; but a marriage
which concerns the kingdom of God, and therefore,
Jehovah appears in the whole narrative. Keil, p.
183. — A. G.], the God of heaven. — Eleazer knows
the God of Abraham, and the faith of the promise.
He should swear by the God of the promises, the
God of Abraham, and with this the rite of laying
the hand upon the thigh corresponds. — That thou
Shalt not take a wife. — Eleazer does not appear
as the guardian of Isaac, now forty years old, after
the death of Abraham (Knobel), but the negation in

* [Since the (renerative virtue in the patriarch was
through the promise blessed and sanctified by Jehovah, its
seat was a sacred place, by contact with which the person
swearing placed himself in union with Jehovah, the God
of the promise. Baumgarten, p. 241. Kurtz regarls thi
thigh as the seat of strength and firmness. — A. G.;"

184

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSSS.

his oa'h designatea only the negative pide of his mis-
sion. Since Abraliam had appointed hira to gain a
bride for Isaac, he might easily, as an old man, have
given free play to his own opinion, and viened a
brilliant match in Canaan as advantageous for Isaac's
future. Abraham himself certainly exercises a
patriarchal and guardian-like care over the patient
and yielding Isaac, who, although forty years of age,
appears not to have thought of riai'riage, but
mourned his mother in earnest, devout contempl.ition.
It involves also the definite patriarchal and theo-
cratic union under the providence of Jehovah. —
Peradventure the woman will not be ■willing.
— The servant has not an equal measure of faith with
Abraham. Since the journey to Mesopotamia for a
Shemitic bride is thus strongly enjoined, and Isaac
must not marry a Canaanitess, it appears to him that
it may easily happen that he must tnke Isaac back to
Mesopotamia, if he should indeed be married. — Be-
ware thou. — Abraliam opposes him. Asthefather
of faith upon the promise, of the people of the fu-
ture, he had the watch-word, "never backward."
To the syllogism of the reflecting and calculathig
servant, he opposes the syllogism of faith. Its
major premise : Jehovah had brought him out of
his fatherland into a strange laud; its minor: he
had promised to his seed the land of Canaan ; its
conclusion : therefore he will crown the mission of
Eleazer, through the leading of his angel, with a suc-
cessful issue. In this assurance he can easily quiet
the sworn servant with the explanation, if the other-
wise proper wife will not follow him from Mesopo-
tamia, ho should be clear from his oath.

2. The journey for the bride, and the choice of the
bride (ver. 10-21). — And the servant took. — The
ten camels, and the accompanying train of servants,
must, on the one hand, bear the presents and repre-
sent the riches of his master ; and on the other hand,
are already carefully prepared, and destined for the
caravan of the bride and her maidens. He provides
himself, in case of success, with every kind of jewels
from the treasures of his master, which came later
into legitimate use. He could take of every kind
which he wished, they were all at his disposal ; Abra-
ham risking all upon the issue of this journey. — To
Mesopotamia (Aram,* of the two rivers.) —
Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and Tigris,
Padan-Aram (ch. xxv. 20), according to Knobel, an
Elohistic expression ; upon Egyptian monuments,
Neherin = Naharaina. — To the city of Nahor —
i. e., to Haran (see ch. xi. .31 ; xii. 4). — By a well

of water at the time of the evening Ks, the

arrangement of the stately caravan, so also the en-
campment here reveals the master-servant. The
lions find the gazelles by the springs of water. Elea-
zer would here, in a peaceful way, find the bride of
Isaac. The camels lie down at the well of water
without the city, at evening, not to rest for the night,
but to rest temporarily, and during the delay.
(When the camels kneel down they are unloaded,
since their burden lies upon the ground.) — Even
the time that women go out to dra-w ■water. —
The maidens and women in the East still bring the
water they need from the well at evening (Von
St^HUBERT, ii. p. 4U1 ; Robinson, " Palestine," ii. p.
.3.il).f They held their female conversations at the
wells, as the men did in the gate. — O Lord God of
my master. — He had done his part, but knew that

* [Aram included more than Mesopotamia.— A. G.l
» tPielorial Bible.— A. G.l

the result depended upon the blessing of God. Ii
humility he calls upon Jehovah, the God of his mas-
ter Abraham, for whose sake he would hear him.-
Send me good speed (grant that it may come tc
meet, anticipate me), i. e., what he wished, Keil adds
The usual explanation, however, seems more signifi-
cant, the success appointed by God cannot he secured
by force ; Jehovah causes that it shall meet the pious.
Wc emphasize, the coming to meet. Now he deter-
mines the sign for the discovery of I he bride dest ned
by God for Isaac. The sign consists in this, thai
she should go far beyond his request, in her friend-
liness and readiness to seiwe him. His request
merely expresses the desire that he might sip a little
water from her pitcher ; her trial consists in this,
that she should give him to drink fully, and in
addition, with voluntary friendliness, give to hil
camels also. This proof of love was, on the one
hand, certainly not usual, but on the other, it was
not unheard of, nor prohibited by any custom.
NiEBUHR ( " Travels," ii. p. 410) has still experienced
the same or similar volunteered service (ct)mp. Robin-
son, "Palestine," ii. p. 351). But we should recol-
lect that many things of the kind to-day, are imita-
tions of the partriarchal tradition, as e. g. also, the
previously mentioned oath of the Bedouin, with the
hand upon the thigh. — Before he had done speat.
ing. — She came already, to the surprise of the
narrator himself. — Behold Rebekah. — She is no
other than Rebekah, the grandchild of Nahor, the
legitimate daughter born to Bethuel, son of .Milcah.
She had thus the quality of tiieocraiic descent in an
eminent degree. [On both sides, maternal as well as
paternal. — A. G.] Then she was very beautiful, as
Sarah before, and Rachel alter her, a tender maiden,
pure from contact with any man. And how politely
( "my lord," ), how graciously ( " she hasted and let
down "), with what animation (" she hasted, ran "),
and how cheerfully she fulfilled all the conditions of
the sign chosen and determined. — The Kad upon hei
shoulder is rather a bucket, or wide-moulhed jar
than a pitcher, otherwise it would not be fitted to
give the camels drink. [This jar was sometimes
borne on the head, and sometimes strapped upon the
shoulder. The n3 is the same term used for the
vessels borne by the men of Gideon, and which were
broken with a blow, Judg. vii. 20 : and differs from
the nan , the term for bottle in the narrative of
Hagar. — A. G.]

3. The sojourn at the home of the bride (vers
21-33). — Wondering at her, held his peace
(■waiting). — Knobel prefers the explanation of nsil
by Gesenius : attentive look, view, following the
Septuagint and Vulgate. Delitzsch and Keil prefei
the explanation, wondered, wax astonished. The fol-
lowing phrase, held his peace in order to know, is in
favor of the latter explanation.* The attentive, in-
quiring look was not limited through the silence, but
through the astonishment. He restrained himself in
his astoiushment. She had indeed fulfilled the sign,
and as to his prayer all was clear, but as to his
reflection the question now first arose, was she a
Shemitess ? was she single ? would she be willing to
go with him? — The man took a golden ear-(nose)
ring. — The present which he now makes her could
not have been a bridal present, but simply a friendlj
recognition and re"ward of her friendly service (al

* [Keil urges also, that the Hithp. form of the verb t<
look, would be to look toimd here and therfl restleaali
which would not Kuit the sense here. — A. G.l

CHAP. XXIV. 1-67.

483

though " the nose-ring is now the usual engagement
present among the Bedouins.") Delitzsoh. The con-
viction that the right person was found here truly
finds expression, otherwise he would have been re-
garding her at too lavish an expense. At this moment
Rebekah had even somewhat disconcerted the aged
Eliezer. The ring was a golden nose-ring, worn from
the central wall of the nose, of about a half sheliel
in weight. The two bracelets of gold, worn upon the
wrist, were each of about five shekels weight (see
Winer, art. Sckmuck. Isa. iii. 18 ff.). Eliezer's heart
ki'.ew well what would rejoice the heart of even a
pious maiden, and with this present, the choice of
which expresses his assurance, introduces his ques-
tion as to her family. The question as to entertain-
ment in her house is an utterance of the fuU assurance
of his hope. It reveals the working of his mind, in
so far as he asks the second question, with out waiting
for the answer to the first. Kebekah's answer accords
entirely with his wish. She answers also his second
question, but as the prudent Rebekah, with the reser-
vation which became her, for it did not belong to her
expressly to invite the strange man in. But Eliezer
knew enough, as is evident from his profound
bowing before Jehovah, and his praise and thanks-
giving, [ion is the free grace, with which Je-
hovah had given the promise to Abraham, PiTrs the
faithfulness and truth with which he fulfils the
promise. The two words often occur in the Scrip-
tures. Baumgarten, p. 243. — A. G.] For Rebekah
the prayer is a mysterious, joyful announcement
from the home of Abraham, and beautiful is the
contrast that she thereupon hastens away, while the
servant completes his prayer. Of her mother's
house. — Bethuel was living, and therefore the
maiden-like presentiment of a love-suit reveals itself
18 she hastens to her mother's confidence. — -And
Laban ran. — As the first mention of Rebekah (ch.
xxii. 23) prepares the way for this narrative, so here
we make beforehand the acquaintance of Laban, who
later exerts so important an influence upon the history
of Jacob. Still the narrator has motives also for this
allusion in the present history. His invitation of his
own accord to Eliezer, to come into the house of his
father, and the prominence which be has in the en-
gagement of Rebekah, with and before his father,
prove the great influence which he had in his parental
home. His sister Rebekah appears also with similar
energy in comparison with Isaac. There was, doubt
less in the very arrangement of the patriarchal home,
special room for the dynamic efficiency of a strong
personality, in contrast with the retiring nature of
the more receptive character. Laban appears always
to have led Ids father Bethuel, as Abraham led his
son Isaac : and Rebekah exercises a stronger influence
upon the history of her house than Sarah or Rachel
upon theirs. The sacred writer now appears to go
hack and bring up the narrative. — And it came to
pass, when he saw — but purposely, to bring into
prominence this motive with Laban, since he places
the gold ornaments in the first rank, and the words
of Eliezer, which Rebekah reports, in the second.
We have here evidently a trait of that covetousness
vrhich appears so prominently in the later history of
Laban. There may be also a characteristic of the
courtly accommodation and exaggeration in the re-
ligious expression he uses, when he invites Eliezer, as
"the blessed of Jehovah," i c, in a name of God
Brhich was not usual with him, and which heprobiibly
earn id from the form of exoression which the servant

had used (although this cannot bo asserted with cer
tainty, since the calling upon Jehovah had alreadj
its beginnings in the house of Therah). But there la
no more necessity, on account of these features, of mis-
understanding the real central thing in Laban's statj
of mind, than, on account of similar traits, of misun-
derstanding the character of Lot * (see ch. xxxi. 2t).
His words of invitation have been made the founda-
tion of an Advent song : Wherefore wilt thou stand
without, etc. — And the men's feet. — The servants
who accompanied Eliezer are here mentioned for the
first time. That Laban took care for them also com-
pletes the expression of his pohte hospitality. — I
will not eat. — " No one had asked him af to the
object of his journey, for that would have been a
violation of the Eastern usages of hospitality, which
places these and similar questions after the meal.
But the servant of Abraham unburdens himself."
Delitzsch. A new mark of his faithful service, of
his prudence and full assurance of hope.

4. The suit for the bride (vers. 34^9). The
speech of Eliezer. The first speech in the Bible. A
simple historical account of his jouiney, and still at
the same time an example of a wise speech, which
weaves skilfully the motives he would present with
the account he gives. The motives from kindred
are fir-st urged : the mission is from Abraham. He
is proud of being Abraham's servant. Then the hu-
man interests. Abraham has grown vei-y rich and
great, and has one only legitimate son and heir. But
even the human motive is religiously sanctified. His
wealth and iiis son are peculiar blessings of God.
Now follows the religious motive. Especially the
oath to take no Canaanitess, but a Shemitess of his
own race. This concern must have awakened in
Nahor's and Bethuel's house not only kindred feel-
ings, but also laid its claims upon the conscience.
_ That arrested migration of Therah rested as a silent
reproach upon the conscience of the family ; the
house of Bethuel might now enter again into direct
and blessed fellowship, through the granting of Re-
bekah. This religious motive was strengthened
through the statement of the trustful hope of Abra^
ham, for a successful issue of the mission. Then,
again, in the highest measure, through the recital
of his prayer, and how the sign determined up(ja
had been fulfilled. And here, as a result of this
recital, the human motive is urged again — the indirect
praise of Rebekah ; she had proved herself uncon-
sciously a moral ideal of a maiden worthy of love.
But finally, with the pride of a free, God-entrusted
suitor, he presses his suit upon them and demands
an instant decision. He urges his opinion, that they
would be refusing kindness and truth (PHNl lOn)
towards his master, if they should give him a denial,
because, indeed, they were not only his blood-rela-
tions, but also his theocratic spiritual kindred, never-
theless he would not beg of them a bride for the son
of Abraham. If they would not deal thus kindly
and truly, he would go inio the same city, into the
same land, to the right or to the left, especially to
the other sons of Nahor, as he had already intimated
in his previous words that he should be freed from
his oath when he had used all possible efforts. — My
master's brother's daughter, i. e., in the widei
sense. His granddaughter, or the daughter of the
son of his br ither.

* [Ttere if a striking contrast between Jacob and La-
ban; starting from points in many respects alike, the on*
gradually becumes better, the »ther worse. See Wobd*
WOBTH, p, 107.— A. G-.]

186

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES

6. The betrothal of the bride (vers. 50-54). Za-
ban and Belhuel. The decision. " Rebekah's brother
joins in the decision. The custom, according to
which the brother must interest himself for the sister
(ch. xxxiv. 6 ; xi. 26 ; Judg. xxi. 22 ; 1 Sam. xiii.
22), justified him in so doing." Enobel. Keil, with
others, remarks, this usage grows out of polygamy,
through which the father might easUy come to have
less concern for the children (daughters) of the less
beloved wife. They recognize in the whole affair
the will of Jehovah ; they have neither good nor evil,
i. e , indeed, nothing to speak (Numb. xxiv. 18, etc.).
The consent of Rebekah was not sought in the be-
trothal itself, but in the far less important point of
the immediate departure. From this it follows that
they were sure of her consent to the union, although
the authoritative powers of the house must decide
upon it. — Worshipped the Lord, bowing down
to the earth. — A mute attestation of thankfulness,
a sign of a mind moved with astonishment and joy.
But notice hero also the haste ;' his ofiBcial zeal cuts
short bis prayer. [Baumgarten calls attention to
this prayer of the servant, in hia present circum-
stances, and surrounded by those who did not honor
Jehovah, as a proof how well Abraham had instruct-
ed and trained hia houaehold. — A. G.] At first the
bridal-presents for the bride must be produced, then
the betrothal-presents for the family, especially for
Laban and his mother. With respect to the last-
named presents, they are an honorable form of the
later, at least, usual purchiise of the bride (see Winer :
" Marriage "). The first were given to the bride, in
the name of the bridegroom, after the existing cus-
tom, according to which the bridegroom sent to the
biide presents, before the marriage, which should
have the effect to cement the union — a custom still
prevalent in the East (see Knoeel, p. 204 *). A
sheplierd prince in Canaan might purchase the ne-
cessary articles of this kind from Phcsnician and Ara-
maic caravans. — And they did eat and drink. —
Now first they could enjoy their food and driuk,
wliich would naturally constitute an evening feast.

6. The bridal journey (vers. 54-61). — Send me
away, that I may go to my master, — If it was
bold in EUezer to insist upon an immediate decision,
the successful issue makes him now, in his ofiBcial
zeal, still bolder. His earnestness assumes the ap-
pearance of harshness, and it can be excused only by
his great joy, and his great anxiety to bring the affair
to a happy issue, before anything should occur to
make a disturbance. A few days, or a tenth of days,
i. e., not as Keil thinks, a few or much more ten days,
but at least ten days. An indefinite number of days
is an indefinite period, which might easily be pro-
tracted into a long period. But since Eliezer will not
consent to ten days, Rebekah must decide, and her
declaration is characteristic again of her vigorous,
determined, bold mind. She is equally ready for a
departure. She says with modest but decided
brevity, T(ist . The sudden departure could hardly
have occurred on the next day ; it is sufificient that it
was immediately prepared. — Rebekah their sister.
— This is literally true only of Laban. Rebekah
truly became also through her betrothal, the niece
of her parents. — And her nurse. — Deborah (ch.
XXXV. 8). The nurse in noble families usually re-
mained (2 Kings xi. 2) a permanent and valued com-
panion of he'r foster-child. — And they blessed
Rebekah. — The words of blessing form a little

* [AIbo Pictorial Bible, and the books of travels.— A. G.]

song. They emphaaize it that Rebekah is their sistei
for they are proud of her dim but great hopes. — Bo
thou the mother of (grovr to) thousands of mil-
lions This wish of a countless host of descendants

(not of children alone, that would be senseless) is so
far not hyperbohcal, as in the origin and growth of
the people of Israel, saying nothing of the church
of believers, it has been richly fulfilled. The blesS'
ing of children was the highest happiness of the
Hebrew woman. " It is still thus in the East (VoL-
NET ; " Travels," ii. p. 359)." Knobel.— Let thy
seed possess (see ch. xxii. 11). The house of Na-
hor itself formed a certain opposition to the heathen,
and well knew also that Abraham and the childrer
of Abraham should complete the opposition. Thesf
intuitions were doubtless refreshed thfough the com
munication of the servant. We ought not, however,
to be surprised that the two clauses of this verse
represent Abraham's hope, rather in respect to the
number than the character of his seed. — And her
damsels. — The stately company of damsels corres-
ponded not only to the stately equipage and approach
of the suitor, but was an actual necessity, since she
was going in to a strange land, under the leading of
strange men. '' Laban gave, however, only one maid-
en to each of hia daughters at her marriage (ch.
xxix. 24, 29)." Knobeh

Y. The meeting of the bridegroom and the bride
(vers. 62-67). — And Isaac came, — The apparently
confused narrative here is found to be a clear one,
upon the supposition of a clear view of the land.
The wells of Hagar alluded to, lay still southerly
from Beer-aheba. If Eliezer journeyed home from
Mesopotamia, or the northeaat, he must have come
to Hebron to Abraham, before he could have been
visible to Isaac, in the way to these weUs, or gen-
erally in hia stationa in the farther south. But if
he was earlier visible to the yoimg bridegroom, it
foUowa, that he must now have gone from Hebron
northwards into the field. The allusion to the wells
aa to his residence in the south region, is made with
the purpose of bringing into prominence again, how
it occurred, through a happy providence, that ho
went so far to meet the bride.* He had returned in
a happier frame from his visit to these wells, which
were of greater importance to him, since he usually
had his outposts in the south. But now he went out
from Hebron (for Sarah's tent was certainly still at
Hebron, ver. 67) into the peculiar field, or cultivated
region, without any intimation that Rebekah would
meet him from that side, on the way down from
Bethlehem. Delitzsch : " He came from his arrival
at the wella, not as Hupfeld and Ewald explain ; h e
had even reached the wells." Delitzsch, however,
thinks the meeting took place in the region of the
wells of Hagar, and that Isaac had for the sake of
meditation removed his residence from Hebron into
the south. The oak-grove of Mamre must certainly
have been large enough to give opportunity for medi-
tation. Isaac doubtless went into the south region,
not to lead any technically hermit hfe, but to over-
see the flocks of his father. Delitzsch also conjec-
tures that he was laying the affair of his marriage
before the Lord, at these wells. But the authoi
rather points to the fact, that he was still clinging to
his grief over his mother Sarah. [If, howevor.
Abraham was now residing at Beer-aheba, then Isaac

* [The " South Country." The 3J3 includes more than
the country south of Palestine. The' south country may
have embraced Hebron. Comp. ch. xiii. 3. — A. G.]

CHAP. XXIV. 1-67.

4b";

may have met the caravan to the northward of this
place. Sarah's tent would of course be taken with
Abraham in his removals. — A. G.] — At the even-
tide.— "Aa the evening turned itself hither — drew
on." Delitzsch. — Went out to mourn (meditate).
— nwb. Explanations: 1. For the purpose of think-
ing. Septuagint, Vulgate, Baumgarten, Delitzsch.
2. In order to pray. Targums, Arabic version, Lu-
ther, and others. 3. For deliberation. Aquila and
others. 4. For the purpose of walking, exercise.
Syriac, Aben Ezra, Kinchi. 5. To bring the trav-
eler ( / ) Bottcher. 6. For lamentation. Kuobel.
In order to give himself alone, and undisturbed,
to mourning the death of his mother. [The first
three explanations may well be thrown together,
since thought, prayer, and deliberation, or medita-
tion, are seldom separated in the experience of the
pious. — A. G.] Knobel correctly quotes, in favor of
this, the frequent signification of tl'^ia and ver. 67.
One might almost think it was in the field of Ephron,
but then we should have to seek the cave of Mach-
pelah northerly from Hebron. But the remark of
Knobel " that Isaac first after the death of Abraham,
according to the Elohist (ch. xxv. II), removed into
the southern country," is of no moment, since we
must distinguish between the mere resting-place of a
subordinate, and the chief abode of a shepherd-
prince. — She lighted off the camel. — Another in-
stance of the rapid, energetic Rebekah. " Fell from
the camel, i. c, threw herself oif from the animal
she rode, sprang quickly down, and indeed as a mark
of her reverence for Isaac, for she recognized him
as a man of rank. This custom is frequently men-
tioned in the Old Testament (1 Sam. xxv. 23 ; 2
Kingsv. 21), even by this same writer(Josh. xv. 18);
it appears also, elsewhere among .the ancients, e. g.,
among the Romans (Liv. xxiv. 44). In the East, to-
day, the rider descends from the animal he rides
when he meets a distiguished person (Niebuhr :
' Arabia,' p. 60, and the 'Description of his Trav-
els,' i. p. 239 ; JoLiFFE : ' Travels,' p. 274), and it
is required of Jews and Christians when they meet
a Mohammedan of rank (Niebuhr, etc.)." Knobel.
— What man is this. — She thus assumes that Elie-
zer knew him. A womanly presentiment. — There-
fore she took a veU. — Keil : " The mantle-Mke
Arabian veil for the head." "The bride appears
before the bridegroom veiled, hence the nubere viro.
Plin. H. N., 21, 22. When the two came together
the veil was removed. The custom still exists in the
E=,3t (Russel, etc.)." Knobel.— All things that he
had done. — Meeting his young master, the self-im-
portance of the old servant appears more freely in
his words. — Into his mother Sarah's tent. — The
tent of Sarah was reserved for the new mistress, al-
though Abraham was again married. It lay in He-
brfin, and there is no reason for the inference of
Knobel, from ver. 62, that it must be sought in Beer-
sheba (comp. ch. xxxi. 33). The wives also of the Be-
douin chiefs have their own tents. — And he loved
her. — She became the object of his pecuhar bridal
love. — And Isaac was comforted. — [The word
death is not in the original. It seems as if the Holy
Spirit would not conclude this beautiful and joyful
narrrative with a word of sorrow — death. — Woeds-
WOEIK, p. 109. — A. G.] UntU this occurred he had
mourned the death of his mother, from three to four
years. Since the great mournings lasted from thirty
to seventy days (ch. 1. 8 ; Numb. xx. 29 ; Dent, xxxiv.
S), Knobel cannot firji anything here of the three or

four years' mourning of Isaac. Bui there is a plaii
distinction between the customary mournings and
the weight of sadness in the life of a retiring ant
elegiac nature. Isaac appears to have clung to hit
mother Sarah, much as Jacob did afterwards to hii
mother Rebekah.

DOOTEINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. See the Critical and Exegetical remarks. T.iii
chapter evidently presents a picture for all time, of
a sacred bride-wooing. Abraham designates as tha
chief requisite of a blessed theocratic marriage,
spiritual kindred and equality of birth. Tlie Shem-
ites of his father's house did not indeed stand upon
the same line of theocratic hopes with himself, but
they were still acquainted with his hopes and recog-
nized them ; they were free from the tendency of the
grosser heathenism, and the result shows that Re-
bekah, the daughter from the home of Nahor, had a
clearer insight into theocratic things than Isaac him-
self. And although, on the other hand, the Canaan-
ites, at the time of Abraham, were not so sunken in
corruption as the Canaanitish generations at the time
of Joshua ; although there were a Melchizedec, an
Abimelech, and similar characters, and around them
circles who feared God, among the people ; still all
this was a waning blessing, which the curse gradu-
ally overwhelms, as the history of Sodom shows,
and Abraham, who knew the end of the Canaanites
because Canaan was promised to him, could not
mingle the future of his race with the race of the
Canaanites. The rlKmy eV t^ KaAw is according to
Plato's Symposion, or the instruction of Diotima, a
peculiar spiritual impulse of Eros, after the Greek
ideal ; but Abraham in the theocratic history has
realized this fundamental principle in a far higher
sense (see John i. 13).

2. The oath upon the loins of Abraham (see
the exegetical notes under the first paragraph). It
should be observed that Abraham himself here
causes the oath to be taken.

3. The Angel of the LohI, who, as the Angel of
the covenant, promised Isaac the heir of the cove-
nant to Abraham, will, according to the assurance of
Abraham, mediate and secure a marriage suited to
the covenant.

4. The journey and position of Eliezer at the
well in Haran, his aim and his prayer, prove that two
things belong to a happy marriage : human foresight
and wisdom, and the blessing of Jehovah ; i. e., not
merely the general blessing of God, but the blessing
of the God of the covenant.

5. The mark which Eliezer fixed upon as the sign
by which he should recognize the bride selected by
Jehovah for Isaac, shows what an important estimate
was placed upon genuine good works in the house of
the father of the faithful, especially upon human
friendliness, hospitality, kindness to animals and
men. The cheerful service which Rebekah gives to
the aged EUezer, shows a love of men free from any
sensual interest. But that on his side, EUezer places
a high estimate upon her beauty, and in his conduct
treats her in a youthful and complimentary way
shows the glorious power and effect of her beauty.

6. The scripture has throughout a free estimat*
of the importance of beauty. It places the beau-
tiful with the good, in the praise of* the creation, af
the Greeks place the good with the beautiful. Bu-
in the beauty of the ancestresses of Israel (Sarab

48S

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Rebekah, Rachel,) it fiees the symbolical manifesta-
tion of a consecrated, beautiful life of the soul. We
must distinguish clearly iu reference to the estimate
of the beautiful, the purely Christian standpoint,
from the eccletiiastieal and monkish. This last has
drawn from the words, " he was without form or
comeliness " (Is. liii. 2), the inference, that the most
beautiful among the children of men (Ps. xlv. 3)
was of an extraordinarily disagreeable appearance.
The moral idea, and the moral estimate of the lux-
nry, in the presents of Eliezer.

1. The expression rnstl IBO, which runs through
the whole Old Testament as a description of the di-
vine grace and truth (see Micah vii. 20), and even in
the New Testament (John i. 17), appears here in a
remarkable manner for the first tinje, in reference to
the conduct of man with man. " Thus also," says
Delitzsch, " mutual proofs of love between men are
"ipn, and the mutual truly intended, faitiiful acts be-
tween men are n^S." We must, however, hold,
mdf'ed, that these ideas even in reference to the re-
lations of man to man, have a theocratic definireness
and peculiarity. The house of Nahor must prove,
through its love to Abraham, that it went with him
In spirit, and through its truth preserves its connec-
tion with him. Under these circimastances, the re-
fusal of their daughter would have been theocratic
felony.

8. The importance of pious mothers for the king-
dom of God.

9. The elevated distinction of the wife, in the
history, and for the history of the kingdom of God.

10. Eliezer's bride-wooing, the first speech in the
Bible, a fit beginuing for the whole circle of biblical
speeches.

11. Eliezer, the earthly messenger of Abraham,
In the convoy of the heaveoly messengers. A pious
diplomat, accompanied by the Angel of the Lord.
The diplomats of this world are often accompanied
by demons.

12. The propensity of Isaac for retirement and
mourning, agrees with his passive individuality,
and with his fearful and affecting experiences in his
childhood upon Moriah. If, in after times, he does
not seem fully to understand the great consequence
of his father, and clings to and pines for his mother,
this is explained by his history ; but we see also how
very greatly the hopes of Abraham were endangered
through this retiring and melancholy propensity.
But Abraham saw the right way to relief. Rebekah
was a consoling providential gift from Jehovah for
Isaac, and he was rescued from the lonely way of the
recluse, since he now entered fully upon the way of
the future of Israel

HOMILETIOAL AND PBACTICAL.

Abraham's marriage-suit for his son Isaac. — The
eanctification of the bride-wooing. — The qualifica-
tions of a blessed bride. — The life pictures in this
history ; Abraham, Eliezer, Rebekah, Laban, Isaac.
— Tlie mother in the history of the founding of tlie
kingdom of God. — The two remarkable meetings (that
Df Eliezer and Rebekah, and that of Rebekah and
Isaac), a testimony for the old proverb that " mar-
riages are made in heaven." — How this proverb has
'\ii significance : a. In the narrower sense, in the
a arriage of the pious ; b. in tlie wider sense, in the
marriage of the ungodly (the providence of judg-

ment" , c. in the sense of a divine discipline anj in-
struction, leading from the way of evil to .ne way of
virtue and salvation. — Rebekah as a maiden, virgin,
bride, wife, mother. — (The heroine at last acted too
purely as a heroine. She must repent. She saw her
Jacob no more after their separation). — The coopera-
tion of parents in the marriage of their children ,
a. Its justice or propriety ; b. its limits. — Eliezer in
his faithfulness, prudence and piety. — Eliezer, an ex
ample of the way in which the blessing of the Lord,
and the faithfulness of men, meet together in one. —
Eliezer's petition and thanksgiving. — The import ol
beauty in the kingdom of God.— Rebekah's charming
service, the peculiar, fundamental trait of a noble,
pious womanliness. — The blessing of an unfeigned
human friendliness. — Especially in the female sex. —
Eliezer's speech the first in the Bible : a. As the
speech of a servant ; b. of a master ; c. which turns
the heart to the master. — The love and truth of God,
as a foundation for love and truth among men. — The
bridal feast at Haran. — Detain me noi^ or the unre-
strained eagerness to reach the goal. — The caravan
of Rebekah, or the kingdom of God under the
figure of a journeying pilgrim and wanderer.* —
Isaac's and Rebekah's meeting. — Isaac's transforma-
tion.—The blessing of pions love. — Rebekah in the
tent of Sarah, or tlie joining of a new blessing to
the old.

1. Vers. 1-9. Starke; Certainly it was no small
thing, since Abraham is represented as a prince,
that Eliezer, next to his master, shouldhave supreme
command in all the house. The word " servant,"
therefore, is not a term of contempt here, but a
truly marked name of honor, as the word T:s
is elsewhere used also (Ex. v. 21, etc.). Joseph was
such a servant afterward in the house of Pliaraoh
the king (ch. xxxix. 4). — Luther : It is truly in the
arrangement of a household a great, valuable gift, to
have a faithful servant or maiden, since the dishon-
esty and wickedness of servants is a common com-
plaint the world over. — Cuamkr: The blessmg ol
God makes rich without toil (Prov. x. 22 ; Ps.
cxxviii. 4). When one has something important be-
fore him, let him attend to it with prudence and un-
der good advice. (There follow here several remarks
upon the true marriage, and upon the duties of
parents and children in contracting marriage.) (Jer.
xxix. 6; 1 Kings xi. 4.) Langk : Ver. 5. Whoever
allows himself to be used in important concerns, does
well to seek beforehand full instructions. — The Angel
(Heb. i 14: Ps. xxxiv. 8). — Cramer: Homes and
goods are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife
comes from the Lord (Prov. xix. 14). — Schbodee:
The hoary head should impel us to set our household
in order (Calvin). — The last labor of each of the
patriarchs, is to attend to the necessary dispositions
and arrangements with respect to their successors
(Drechsler).^What Abraham in his faith here avoids,
was expressly forbidden to the people of Abraham
in the law (ch. xviii. 19 ; Ex. xxxiv. 16 ; Deut. vii.
1-3). Natural prudence would have led Abraham to
contract an alliance with one of the Canaanitish fam
ilies through the marriage of Isaac, to have thus se
cured for himself support and protection, and indeed
thus to have taken the first step toward the posses
gion of the land of Canaan; but he had learned

* [Tliose who would see the resemblanoel'sre alliflfed to
elevated into a type, and drawn out at length, may eonsuli
"SVoitDswonTH, ]i. 107, who is rich in these— at times fauciea
and at times very striking suggestions.— A. G 1

CHAP. XXIV. 1-67.

4S«

already that God directed his way, etc. (Roos). — It
occurs even to-day, in the East, that the marriage of
children is arranged by the parents, before the young
persons have seen each other. Sunilar occurrence,
ch. xxi. 21. — The doctrine we draw from this pas-
sage, is this, that parents should talie care for their
sons and daugliters, that they may be advanced to
an honorable marriage state, although parents at
times misuse their power and right, and constrain
children to take those in marriage whom they have
not loved. Such parents should be punished, for
they have no parental heart or disposition, but are as
blocks or stones, etc. (Luther). — Here the angels are
the serviints of the sacred marriage (Lutheb
against " The Romish Celibacy "). [Parents in dis-
posing of their children, should carefully consult the
welfare of their souls, and their furtherance in the
way to heaven. Henry. — A. G.]

2. Vers. 10-21. Starke: (.ill the goods of his
master were in his hand. The Jews infer from this
that Eliezer had taken an inventory of his master's
goods with him to Haran, that he might persuade
more readily the bride of Isaac to go with him !)
Ver. 14. Upon the desire of Eliezer to recognize
the bride through a sign. We see that God himself
was not displeased with it. But it does not follow,
therefore, that we should follow this example, since
that would be to tempt God. (But the general truth
that the cheerful readiness to render service to the
aged and helpless, and an affable demeanor, are to
be viewed as qualities in maidens which render them
worthy of love, and desirable in marriage, is, how-
ever, truly contained in this example.) — Cramer :
Ver. 11. A remindiug us of our duty, to relieve the
animals from their toil, and to feed and water them
at the proper time. — ^Ver. 11. A Christian must be-
gin his bride-wooing with prayer. — MuscuLUS : To
be a creature of God, is common to all ; to be beau-
tiful is the mark of special favor. — (Upon ver. 19.
This was a great offer surely, since it is well known
that when camels have had nothing to drink for sev-
eral days, they drink for a long time after one
another before they are satisfied). — Christian parents
should train their children, especially their daughters,
not to idleness and pride, but to household duties and
work. — Ver. 21. A man often does something in the
simplicity of his heart, and knows not what end God
will make it serve. — We may serve our neighbors in
a greater measure than they desire. — Lisco : The
ring. Either a semicircular ring, as a diadem for
the brow, pendent above the nose, or the customary
nose-ring of the East (Isa. iii. 21 ; Ezek. xvi. 12 ;
Prov. xi. 22). — Calwer Handbuch : A remarkable
hearing of prayer.— Schrodke : The Arabians still
call Mesopotamia El Dsehesireh, i. e., the island. —
At one sign from the camel's driver the camel kneels
down; at another he rises up. — The Arabian ge-
ographers still recognize the fountains without the
city, which provide the needy inhabitants with water.
— Valerius Herbebqer: A young person, also,
should not, as dazzled and blinded, cUng to one only,
and think that if he could not obtain that one, he
must go out from the world, but should ever look to
the Lord, and see whither he wiU lead him. What
God gives prospers well, but what men and the lust
of the eye gives, that becomes a pure purgatory.
(But although the understanding, and, indeed, the
spiritual understanding, should direct the affair, stUI
the choice itself remains a matter of the heart).
[We here learn to be particular in commending our
iffiirs to the conduct and care of divine providence

It IB our wisdom to follow providence, but folly U
force it. Henry. — A. G.]

8. Vers. 22-33. Starke : (Upon ver. 22 Is
not in opposition with 1 Tim. ii. 9, 10 ; 2 Tim. iii
4,6, to put on these ornaments? We answer:
1. Rebekah had no conceit of herself in connectioE
with them ; 2. as Sarah was a princess, so Rebekah
became the daughter of a prince, and we cannot re-
fuse to distinguished persons a certain preeminenca
in clothing and ornaments ; 3. the great abundanc«
of gold, precious stones and jewels in the Levitical
cultus, was not to contribute to pride.) — Cramer :
Ver. 27. If God has heard us, we should thank hJTn.
— Ver. 31. Blessed of the Lord. An honorable
title of the believer in the Old Testament (Ps. xxxvii,
22, etc.). — To be obliging, mild, hospitable, is a
Christian virtue. — Calwer Handbuch: (The brace-
lets were 42 ducats, the rmg 2 ducats).* — Schroder :
One may hold this before the sour hypocrites, who
hold it a part of spirituality and peculiar sanctity
not to wear gold or silver. God permits the pomp,
splendor and ornaments at a marriage feast. Ever,
the dance cannot be condemned, if it is carried on
in a chaste, moral and honorable way. Luther.
[The hypothetical "if" shows the douijtfulness of
this announcement even in Luther's mind, and in
the circumstances by which he was surrounded.
— A. G.] — Ver. 31. Upon Laban^s sonorous words.
As soon as a living consciousness of God springs up
in any one, there enters, as its consequence, a sacred
horror of going beyond one's own stand-point (Heng-
stenberg). (But although Laban speaks here beyond
his own proper measure, still we are not justified in
denying his piety).

4. Vers. 34-49. Starke : Upon ver. 35. Herein
Eliezer shows his prudence. He knew well that a
mother would never give her daughter to a man who
lived more than a hundred miles away, in scanty,
perhaps needy circumstances. He thus also, when
he says, " The Lord hath blessed my master," turns
away from his master every suspicion that he had
gained such great wealth in any wrong way. — Upon
ver. 37. Hence they could not entertain the thought,
if Abraham is so rich why so great and expensive a
journey? (he could indeed have easily taken a Ca-
naanitess). — Upon ver. 47. In verses 22, 23, it is said,
the servant had given her the presents before he had
asked after her relationship, here the reverse seems
to be true ; but the two are easily reconciled upon
the supposition that he brought out the presents be-
fore the question, but after it, laid them upon her.f
(They are rather reconciled upon the theory, that he
here gives the order of things as Ae would have acted,
while he himself above, in the joy of his heart, a little
too hastily, or in the strong assurance of a prosperous
issue, had actually done both things at the same time,
leaving out of view, that by the presupposition and
statement of the question here, he declares the friend-
liness of the fanuly of Bethuel.) — To the right hana
or to the left. Nahor left several sons, and EHezer
was not therefore confined to one line of Nahor's
descendants. — The Christian suitor must not seek to
constrain by power the consent of the bride, of her
parents and friends, but leave all to the providence
of God. — Schroder : The fulness and particularity
with which the servant makes his narrative, agrees

* fThe bracelets were from four to five ounces ia weigh
— their value would depend upon tbe precious stones con*
nected with them. BuiH, ii p. 43. — A. G.]

t [This IS clearly the proper way of reconciling the twf
statements. — A. G.]

190

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST B(;OK OF MOSES.

perfectly with the character of the affectionate, in-
teUigent, and aged parents. He knows how to put
every lever into play ; he uses every possible means.
— While in verse 14 he had used the common term
maiden, he uses here with great dihgence, in his cir-
cumstantial speech, the more elevated term virgin.
[The distinction referred to is that between Bethulah
and Almah. The latter appears in Is. vii. 14. See
Wordsworth. — A. G.] — The nose-ring, the golden
ring, which penetrated the middle wall of the nose,
hung down over the mouth, was a female ornament
of the ancient East (Ezek. xvi. 12), and remains so
still, according to Niebuhr and Arvieux. About the
size of a dollar, it frequently surrounded the whole
mouth. It is at present also used among the Ara-
bians as an engagement present,

5. Vers. 60-54.' Staeke: Upon ver. SO. The
received conjecture that Bethuel stands in the back-
ground because he was old or sick. Otherwise it
appears as if the brother had somewhat to say in the
marriage of his sister. — Upon ver. 52. Eliezer must
have been a most devout worshipper (vers. 12, 26,
27). — Christian (pious) marriages are not by chance,
but made by God. — Bibl. Wirt. : When parents see
that God deals with their children in a favorable way,
they should not have too much unseasonable consid-
eration or hesitancy. — -Schroder : Of a so-called
purchase-price (for the wife) (eh. xxix. ; Exod. xxii.
16, 17), which was usually analogous to the price of
a slave, — as the Arab of to-day purchases his bride
perhaps for from three to five camels — and of our
word marriage,* from to buy, or to hire, there is
nothing said here, since the suitor divided richly his
jewels between Laban and the mother.

6. Vers. 54-61. Starke: Upon ver. 55. Be-
cause she must go with him to about 1 24, or, accord-
ing to another reckoning, 128 miles. The Jews have
received it as a rule that there should be at least ten
months between the engagement and the home-
bringing of the bride. (The Jews understand cia"'
to mean a year, and under the tenth, ten months.) —
Lanoe : Although Eliezer would not be detained seve-
ral days, it is not necessary to conclude that the de-
parture took place on the very next day. (He reminds

• f Gennan : heiraUien from lieirtn, i. e., mietlten kaufen.]

us, with good reason, that Rebekah had her things tj
arrange and pack for the departure, etc. It is cep
tain that they hasted, and did not remain more than
ten days). Upon ver. 56. A Christian must guard
his time carefully. — Pious parents should not con-
strain their children to a, marriage to which they
have no inclination. — 0 ye maidens, see that the
pious Rebekah has found her bridegroom, not as she
gave way to idleness, or entered the unseemly dances,
but as she discharged her duty. Follow her example,
fear God and labor diligently, God will bring you to
the one for whom he has assigned you. — Osiandeb:
The desire of pious people for a blessing upon others
are mighty prayers before God, and therefore are
never in vain.

7. Vers. 62-67. Starke: Nothing is said here of
Abraham, but he will doubtless receive his daughter-
in-law in the most friendly manner and with many ben-
edictions, and the account given hereof by Eliezer must
have aiforded much satisfaction, and furnished mat-
ter for praise to God. (An allegorical explanation
of the marriage of Isaac, in reference to the marriage
of Christ with his Church, is here introduced). — Upon
ver. 62. Whoever will be free must know how he
is to support and care for his wife. — (Osiander:
Married men must love, not hate or strike their
wives.) — A happy and well-sustained marriage, miti-
gates greatly the adversities of this hfe. (Sir. xxxvi.
24.) — Schroder : The twilight resting upon the field
is, in nature, what the vesper-bell is in the Church.
— Rebekah throws herself from the animal she rode,
immediately, in an impulsive, hasty manner. — The
Arabian woman still comes down from her camel
when she meets a man of the same or higher rank
than herself. Niebuhr was a witness of such a meet-
ing (1 Sam. XXV. 23 ; Ps. xlv. 12).— The bride was
constantly led veiled to the bridegroom. After the
completed marriage, he could first see her with her
face unveiled. — In ver. 16 above, as also Rachel, ch.
xxix. 9, Rebekah was engaged in her duties, and
therefore, as was customary, without the veil. — (The
above-quoted allegory of Rambach : As that (mar-
riage of Isaac) happened according to the appoint-
ment of his father Abraham, so this (espousal of
Christ) is according to the good pleasure of the
Father, etc.)

THIETEENTH SECTION.

Abraham's second Marriage. Keturah and her Sons. Abraham's death ai-d his burial.

Chapter XXV. 1-10.

Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah [inpepse. v»p^, <i->«.-«i<»].

And she bare him Zimran [=Simrl. Celebrated in song, renowned], and Jokshan [foivjerj. and
Medan [strife], and Midian' [contention], and Ishbak [leaving, forsaking], and Shuah J oowed, sad
—pit, grave]. And Jokshan begat Sheba [man ; the Sabteans], and Dedan [Pfirst; lowconntry,
lowlands]. And the Sons of Dedan were Asshiirira [plural of Asshur. Fuist: bero, etrtagth] and

Letushim [hammered, sharpened], and Leummim [people]. And the sons ot Miaian ; Bphali

[darkness, gloomy], and Epher [=oplier; a young animal, calf], and HanOch [ lmtiat<idj, aild Abldak

CHAP. XXV. 1-10.

4in

r&ther of wiadom, the wise], and Bldaatl [Oesenius : whom God has called]. All these were the chjl

dren of Keturah.
6, 6 And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. But unto the sons of the concu
bines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and [separating] sent them away from

7 Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country. And these an
the days of the years of Abraham's life which he lived, an hundred threescore and

8 fifteen years. Then Abraham gave up the ghost,'' and died in a good old age, an old
man, and full [satisfied with life ; see oh. xxxT. 29] of years; and was gathered to his people.

9 And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of
10 Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before [easterly from] Mamre; The field

which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth : there was Abraham buried, and Sarab
his wife.

[* Vsr. 2. — Medan, Judge, and Midiau, one who measures. Murphy.— A. G.]
'« Ter. 8.— Lit., Breathed out.-A. G.]

'GENEBAI, KEMAEKS.

The present section is closely connected with the
following (vers. 12-18) which treats of Ishmael, and
with the whole history of Isaac, under the common
idea of the descendaTits of Abraham. It introduces
first these descendants in the widest idea of the
word : the sons of Keturah. Then those in a
narrower sense : the family of Ishmael. And upon
these, those in the most restricted sense : Isaac and
his sons. The writer adheres to the same method
here which he haa followed in the presentation of the
tabular view of the nations. He begins in his descrip-
tion with those most remote, then proceeds to those
nearer, and finally comes to those standing nearest
the centre. We cannot, however, make the Tholedoth
(generations) here the place of a division in the
history, since the end of the life of Abraham marks
distinctly a section which is closed at the beginning
of the history of Isaac ; and thus, as the genealogy
of Keturah is interwoven with the history of Abra-
ham, so the genealogy of Ishmael is connected with
the idstory of Isaac. Knobel holds that the section
ver. 1-18 belongs to the original writing. But it is
not Elohistic merely because it contains genealogies,
but because of the universal relation of the tribes
here referred to. Knobel remarks upon the two
genealogies of Keturah and Hagar, that the tribes
dwelt in western Arabia and Arabia Petrea, and also
ill the northern half of Arabia Felix, while the
descendants of Joktau (ch. x. 26 ff) belonged to
southern Arabia, at least in the earliest time. " From
tlie Abrahamic horde (?) there were thus divisions
who went to the east, south-east, and south, where,
however, they found original Arabian inhabitants,
with whom they mingled and formed new tribes.
We are not, therefore, to understand that the tribes
here mentioned in each case were descended entirely
from Abraham. It io not intended, even, that these
tribes alone peopled the regions described ; rather they
were inhabited by other tribes also, e. g., Amalekites,
Horites, Edomites, and others. The Arabs, who are
truly S5 very dependent upon the Hebrew traditions,
agree essentially with the Hebrew accounts. They
distinguish : 1. Original Arabs in different parts of
Arabia; 2. Katanites in Yemen and Hhadramant,
and 8. Abrahamites in Iledjaz, Nejd, etc., but trace
back the last-named to Ishmael, who turned his course
to Mecca, and joined the tribe Djorhomites,with whom
Sugar herself was buried. (See Ibn Coteiba, ed. by
Wustenfold, pp. 18, 30 ff. Abplfeda : Hi^t. Anteial.,

ed. by Fleischer, p. 190 fif.)" Knobel. [Also article
"Arabia," in Kitto and in Smith. — ^A. G.]

EXEGETICAl AND CEITICAL.

1. Vers. 1-4. Abraham and Keturah. — Then
again Abraham took a wife. — The sense of this
statement evidently is : 1. That Abraham took
Keturah first after the death of Sarah, and had six
sons by her, thus at an age of 137 years and upward
(Abraham was ten years older than Sarah, who died
aged 127 years); 2. that Keturah, although united
with Abraham according to the nature of monogamy,
enjoyed only the rights of a concubine (see ver. 6,
comp. 1 Chron. i. 32). The first point is opposed
by Keil : " It is generally held that the marriage
of Abraham, with Keturah was concluded after the
death of Sarah, and that the power of Abraham at
so great an age, to beget still six sons, is explained
upon the ground that the Almighty God had endowed
his body, already dead, with new fife and generative
strength, for the generating of the son of promise.
This idea has, however, no sure ground upon which
it rests, since it is not said that Abraham took
Keturah to wife first after the death of Sarah, etc.
This supposition is precarious, and does not agree
well with the declaration that Abraham had sent
away the sons of his concubines with presents during
his own lifetime," etc. Keil appears desirous to save
the literal expression, that Abraham's body was dead
when he was a hundred years old (Rom. iv. 19) but
in the effort comes into direct conflict with the moral
picture of the life of Abraham, who even in hia
younger years had only taken Hagar at the sugges-
tion of Sarah, in impatience as to the faith of the
promise, and thus certainly would not in later years,
and when there was no such motive, have violated
the marriage rights of Sarah by taking another wife.*
He might also send the sons of Keturah away from
his house before they were from thirty to forty yeara
of age, as he had before sent Ishmael away. The
expression as to the dead body evidently cannot b«
understood in an absolute sense, otherwise the cod

* [It is not unusual for the author to go back and bring
up the narrative, especially at the close of one section, or al
the beginning of another ; but it is not probable that this
is the case here. We may hold to the literal sense of thfl
words, that Abraham's body was dead, i. e., dead as to off-
spring, and yet hold that the energy miraculously given u
it for the conception of Isaac was continued after Sar*li'
death.— A. G.l

492

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

ception of Isaac even could not be spoken of. But
if, however, there is a miracle in the conception
of Isaac, it follows only that the facts of our
history are to be viewed as extraordinary, not as
something incredible. — And she bare him (see
1 Chron. i, 32). — 1. Keturah's sonx: Zlmram.
ZoiiBpi-v or Zefifipai/, etc. in the Scptuagint. Knobel
compares it with Za^pdfj.^ the royal city of Ktvat5oKo\-
Ktraij westwards from Mecca, upon the Red Sea,
gpokeu of in Ptolem^us, 6, 7, 5, etc. Still he is in
doubt. According to Delitzsch they lie nearer the
Zemareni (Plin. vi. 32). — Jokshan. — Knobkl ;
" Probably the KaaaapTrai (in Ptolem. vi.,7, 6) upon
the Red Sea." Keil suggests the Himjaric tribe of
Jakisch, in southern Arabia. — Medan and Midian.
— Knobel : " Without doubt MoSiaca, upon the east-
ern coast of the Ailanitic galf, and MaSiafia, a tract
to the north-east of this, in Ptolem. vi. 1 ; ii. 27.
The two tribes appear to have been united. The
Arabian geographers regard a place, Madjain, as tl'e
residence of the father-in-law of Moses." — Ishbak.
Knobel ; " Perhaps the name is still preserved in
Schobeck, a place in the land of the Edomites." —
Shuah. — Knobel ; " It must be sought in or near
the Edomites, shice a friend of the Edomite, Job,
belonged to this tribe (Job ii. 11)." Other explana-
tions may be seen in Delitzsch and Keil. — 2. Jok-
ehan's sonx : Sheba. — Probably the Sabaians men-
tioned in connection with Tema (Job. vi. 19). The
plunderers of the oxen and asses of Job (Job i. 15).
— Dedan. — Named in Jer. xxv. 23, in connection
with Tema and Buz, as a commercial people. — 3.
Tke softs of Uedan: Ashurim, compare with the
tribe Asyr ; Letushim, with the Banu Leits ; Le-
ununim, with the Banu Lam. — A. The sons of
Midian : Epha. — Named in Isa. Ix. 6, in connection
with Midian, a people trading in gold and incense. —
Epher. — The Banu Ghifar in Hedjaz ; Hanoch,
compare with the place Ranakye.^ three days journey
northerly from Medina: Abidah and Eldaah.
"Compare with the tribes Abida and Wadaah, in
the vicinity of Asyr." Keil. For the more particular
and detailed combination of these names with Arabic
tribes, see Knobel, p. 188-190. [The attempt to
identify these tribes, and fix their locality, has not
been very successful. The more full and accurate
explorations of Arabia may shed more light upon
what is now very obscure — although it is probable
that m their eternal wars and tumults, their fixed
limits, and probably the tribes themselves, have been
lost.— A. G.]

2. Vers. 5, 6. Ahralia-m's bequests. — All that
he had, — i. e.. The herds and essential parts of his
possessions. Isaac was the chief heir of his legit-
imate marriage. This final distinction was previous-
ly a subject of divine appointment, and had been
sjso confirmed by Abraham (ch. xxiv. 36), and finds
expression in the arrangements for Isaac's marriage.
— The sons of the concubines. — In comparison
with Sarah, the mistress, even Keturah was a wife
of a secondary rank. Tliis relation of degrees is not
identical with concubinage, nor with a morganitic
marriage. It is connected, beyond doubt, with the
diversity in the right of inheritance on the part of
the children. — Gave gifts.— He doubtless established
them as youthful nomads, with small herds and flocks,
»nd the servants belonging with them. — Unto the
east country. — To Arabia. [In the widest sense, eastr
erly, east, and south-east. — A. G.] This separation
was not occasioned merely by the necessities of
oomadic chiefs, but also for the free possession of

the inheritance by Isaac (see c'l. xiii. 11 ; ixxvi. G|
Delitzsch thinks that he had aLeady, during his life.
time, passed over his possessions to Isaac. Undel
patriarchal relations, there is no true sense in which
that could be done. But when the necessities of the
other sons were satisfied, the inheritance was thereby
secured exclusively to Isaac. " The Mosaic, and in-
deed patriarclial usage recognized only a so-called
mtestate inheritance, i. e., one independent of ihe final
arrangement of the testator, determined according to
law, by a lineal and graded succession. If, therefore,
Abraham would not leave the sons of his concubines
to go unprovided for, he must in his own lifetime
endow them with gifts." Delitzsch.

3. Vers. 7—10. Abraham's age^ d^ath.^ burial.^ and
grave. — And these are the days. — The import-
ance of the length of Abraham's life is here also
brought into strong relief through the expression
which is fitly chosen. One hundred and seventy-five
years. — An old man and full of years. — [Of years
is not in the original. Abraham was full, saihfied.
A. G.] According to the promise ch. xiii. 15, comp.
ch. XXXV. 29. — And was gathered. — The expression
is similar to that: come to hi^ fathers (ch. xv. 16),
or shall be gathered to his fathers (Judg. ii. 10), and
presupposes continued personal existence, since it
designates especially the being gathered into Sheol,
with those who have gone before, but also points
without doubt, to a communion in a deeper sense
with the pious fathers on the other side of death. In
later days Abraham's bosom became the peculiar aim
and goal of the dying saints (Luke xvi. 22).— And
they buried him. — Ishmael* takes his part in the
burial, not as Knobel thinks, because he was first
removed after this ; but because he was not so fai
removed but that the sad and heavy tidings could
reach him, and because he was still a renowned son
of Abraham, favored with a special blessing (ch. xvii.
10. — In the cave of Machpelah. — It should be
observed with what definiteness even the buiial of
Abraham in iiis hereditary sepulchre is here recorded.

DOCTEINAL AST) ETHICAL.

1. Delitzsch : " Keturah was not, like Hagar, ii
concubine during the lifetime of the bride : so far
AuGUSTiN : De civ. dei, xvi. 34, correctly rests upon
this fact in his controversy with the opponents of
secundee nuptim. But still she is, ver. 6 (comp 1 Chron.
i. 32), UJjbiss; she does not stand upon the level
with Sarah, the peculiar, only one, the mother of the
son of promise. There is no stain, moreover, cleaving
to this second marriage. Even the relation to Ketu-
rah promotes, in its measure, the divine scheme of
blessing, for the new life which (ch. xvii.) came upon
the old, exhausted nature and strength of Abraham,
and the word of promise, which destined him to be
the father of a mass of nations, authenticates itself
in this second marriage."

2. The second marriage of Abraham has also ita
special reason in the social necessities and habits of
the aged and lonely nomad. The word (Gen. ii. 24)
holds true of Isaac.

* [Ishmael, although not the promised send, was yet thft
subject of a special blcHsing. The sons of Keturah had no
particular blessing. Islimael is, tbcrefoi-e, properly asBO-
ciatcd with Isaac, m paying the last offices to their deceased
father. Muephy, p. 3(i0.— A. G.]

CHAP. XXV. 1-10.

49a

8. Physiology speaks of a partial appearance of
1 certain' rejuvenation of life in tiiose who have
reached a great age ; new teeth, etc. These physio-
logical phenomena appear to have reached a full
development in the life of Abraham. We should
perhaps hold — that these epochs of rejuvenation in
the course of life appear more frequently in the
patriarchs, living nearer to the paradisiac time and
state. [We must not, however, overlook the fact,
that the regeneration in Abraham's case was super-
natural.— A. G.]

4. The Abrahamites in the wider sense, who par-
tially peopled Arabia, must form the broad basis for
the theocratic faith of Abraham, and become a
bridge between Judaism and Christianity on the one
hand, and heathenism on the other. — Gerlach : "All
these are heads of Arabian tribes, but they are in
great part unknown. Those who a7e best known are
the (ver. 2) Midianites, on the east of the Ailanitic
gulf. A mercantile people (oh. xxxvii. 28) often
afterwards at war with Israel (especially Judg.
viii.) who in the time of the kings, have already
disappeared from the history." Bunsen : " The
Arabians are still Saracens, i. e., east-landers (comp.
ch. xxix. 1)."

5. The days of the years. The life-time is spent
in the days of the years, and at its end the years ap-
pear as days. [Abraham is now in all respects com-
plete as to his life ; he has rendered the highest
obedience (ch. xxii.), he has secured a grave in the
land of promise (ch. xxiii.), he has cared for the
marriage of the son of promise (ch. xxiv.), he has
dismissed the sous of nature merely (vers. 5, 6), and
finally he has come to a good age and is satisfied
with life. Then Abraham dies. Baumgaeten, p.
246.— A. G.]

6. Gathered to his people. The choice of the
expression here rests upon a good ground ; Abraham
has become a father in an eminent and pecuhav sense.
Essentially, moreover, the expression is the same
with that fch. xv. \f>\ come to his fathers, lie with
the fathers (Deut. xxxi. 16), be gathered with the
fathers (Judg. ii. 10). "These expressions do not
mean merely to die, for SIJ and niQ are constantly
jomed together (vers. 8, 17; ch. xxxv. 29, etc.), nor
to be buried in a family burial-place with relatives,
because the burial is expressed still by ^Sp (vers. 9 ;
ch. XV. 15, etc.), and because they are used of those
who were not buried with their fathers, but in other
places, e. g., Moses, David, etc., as well as of those
m whose tombs the first one of the fathers was laid,
e. g., Solomon and Ahab (1 Kings xi. 43 ; xxii. 40)."
Knobel. But there is no ground for his assertion,
that these expressions, however, are derived from
burials in common public grounds, and then trans-
ferred to the admission into Sheol. We should not
jonfound with this harsh assumption the fact, that
a more or less common burial represented perhaps
the reunion on the other side of the grave. But the
pecuhar church-yards or large public burial-places
were unknown to the patriarchal nomads. Jacob
did not bring the body of his Rachel to Hebron.
There must have been developed already with Enoch
a definite consciousness of the faith of immortality
(Heb. xi. 5). Delitzsch : " As the weariness with
life on the part of the patriarchs was not only a
turning away from the miseries of the present state,
but a turning to that state beyond the present, free
from these miseries, so the union with the fathers is
not one ot the corpse only, but of the persons. That

death did not, as it might have appeared from Gen
iii. 19, put an end to the individual continued exiat
euce of the man, was an idea widely spread through
the after-paradisiac humanity, which has its ulti.
mate (?) source and vindication in that grace of God
testified to man at the same time with his anger,"
etc. The consciousness of immortality no mora
takes its origin after the fall, than the conscience
(Rom. ii. 14, 15). The hope of life in the patriarchi
was surely something more (Heb. xi. 13) than amero
consciousness of immortality. But death and thf
state beyond it has evidently, in the view of the pa-
triarchs, a foreshadowing and. gleam of that NeW'
Testament peace, which was somewhat obscured
during the Mosaic period, imder the light of the law,
and the more developed feeling of guilt and death
To the very rich literature upon this subject belong '.
BoTTCHER: de fnferin, etc.; CEhiee: Veteris Testa-
menti sententia de rebus post mortem fuiuris illus-
trata ; the writings of Gideon Brecher, Engelbert,
Schumann ; " The presupposition of the christian
doctrine of Immortality stated," H. Schultz. Upon
Sheol consult the Bible Dictionaries.*

1. Was gathered to his people, or those of hia
race, to his fathers — to 70 home to them, thus to go
home — lie or rest with them ; a symbolical, rich, glo-
rious declaration of a personal life in the other
world, and of a union with those of like mind or
character.

8. The connection of Ishmael with Isaac in the
burial of Abraham presents the former in a favor-
able aspect, as Esau appears in a favorable light in
his conduct towards Jacob at hia return to Canaan.

HOMILETICAL AND PBACTICAl.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. — How
God fulfils to Abraham all his promises : 1. The
promise of a rich life (father of a mass of nations,
of a great age) ; 2. the promise of a peaceful death
(siitisfied with life, full of days, an honorable burial),
— The Abrahamites, or children of Abraham: ].
Common characteristic religiousness, spirituality,
wide-spread, ruling the world ; 2. distinctions (Ara-
bian and Jew, Mohammed and Christ, Mohammedan-
ism and the Christian world). — Abraham's bequests,
a modification of the strictness of the right of in-
heritance.— Days of Abraham, or this full age even,
at last only a circle of days. — Abraham died in fiitli
(Heb. xi. 13) — The present and future in the burial
of Abraham: 1. On this side, the present, liis two
sons alone in the cave of Machpelah with the corpse ;
2. on that side, the future, a community of people, the
companions of Abraham, to whose society he joins
himself. — Abraham died on the way to perfection :
1. How far perfected ? 2. how far still not perfect?

Starke: (Upon the division of Arabia in the
wider sense.)- — Cramer : The second or third mar.
riage is not prohibited to widowers or widows ; still
all prudence and care ought to be exercised (Rom
vii. 8 ; 1 Cor. vii. 39 ; Tob. iii. 8).—£ibl. Wir^
Pious and prudent householders act well when to.
the sake of good order they make Cirir bequestii
among their children and heirs (Is. iixviii. 1). —
(Since Isaac was born in the hundredth year of A bra

* [Also an Excursus of Prof. Tatlbe Lewis on Gen.
xxxvn. 35, below, and the wide literature here open to fch«
English reader ; embracing the doctrine of " the intermedi-
ate state," and the controversies upon tte into""TT^diat^
place.— A. G.l

494

GENESIS, OB THE FIBST BOOK OF MOSES.

ham, and Jacob and Esau in the sixtieth year of
Isaac, and in the twentieth year of bis married state,
BO Jacob must have been fifteen years old at the
death of Abraham.) (Sir. xiv. 16, 17.) — The pious
even are subject to death, still their death is held
precious by the Lord. — What God promises his chil-
dren, that he certainly keeps for them (ch. xv. 15 ;
Ps. xxxiii. 4). — To die at a tranquil age and in a tran-
quil time, is an act of God's kindness and love. —
Cramer: The cross and adversity make one yielding
and willing to die. — The souls of the dead have their
certain places ; they are in the hand of God, and no
evil befalls them (Wis. iii. 1 ; 2 Cor. v. 8). — Lisco :
Faith in immortality is indeed never expresaly assert-
ed in the Holy Scriptures (see however Matt. xxli.
32), but is everywhere assumed^ for without this faith
the whole revelation of God would be vain and nu-
gatory ; the Scripture doctrine of the resurrection
of the body includes the doctrine of immortality ; is
impossible indeed without this. This truth is set in
its fullest and clearest light by Christ (2 Tim. i. 10).
— Calwer Handbuch: We see, moreover, from
these verses, how the Bible relates only the true his-
tory. Had it been a myth or poem it would have
left Abraham at the highest step of the glory of his
faith, and passed over in silence this union with
Keturah at the age of a hundred and forty years.
Abraham is presented to us as an instance and type
of faith, but not as one artistically drawn and beau-
tified, but as one taken from actual life, not even as
k (superhuman) perfect behever, but as one such.

who leaves us to find the first perfect one in hit
great descendant, and points us to him.

SoHRonER : The satisfaction with life well agreei
with a heavenly-minded man (Roos). — To kis people.
The words sound as if Abraham went from one peo-
ple to another, and from one city to another. An
illustrious and remarkable testimony to the resurrec.
tion and tlie future life (Luther). — Smce Abraham
himself was laid there (in the cave of Machpelah) to
rest, he takes possession in his own person of this
promised land (Drechsler). [And while his body
was laid there as if to take possession of the prom-
ised land, his soul has gone to his people to take
possession of that which the promised land typified,
or heaven. — A. G.] — For the character of Abraham
see ScHRonER, p. 442, where, however, the image
and form of Sarah is thrown too much in the shade,
[In the section now completed the sacred writer
descends from the general to the special, from the
distant to the near, from the class to the individual.
He dissects the soul of man, and discloses to our
view the whole process of the spiritual life, from the
new-bom babe to the perfect man. The Lord calls,
and his obedience to the call is the moment of his
new birth. The second stage of his spiritual life
presents itself to our view when Abraham believed
the promise, and the Lord counted it to him for
righteousness, and he enters into covenant with God.
The last great act of his spiritual life is the surren-
der of his only son to the wUl of God. Mukpht, p.
362.— A. G.]

B.

ISAAC, AND HIS FAITH-ENDURANCE. Ch. XXV. 12— XXVm. 9.

FIRST SECTION.

Isaac and Ishmael.

Chapter XXV. 11-18.

11 And it came to pass after tte death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaai,,
and [but] Isaac dwelt bj the well Lahai-roi [wellsof the quickener of vision],

12 Now [and] these are the generations [ genealogieB, Toiedoth] of Ishmael, Abraham's

13 son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's handmaid, bare unto Abraham. And these
are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names according to their generations :

the first-born of Ishmael, Nebajoth [heights ; Nabathei, a tribe of Northern Arabia] ; and Kedai

14 [dark skin. An Arabian tribe], and Adbeel [miracle of God], and Mibsam [sweet odor]. And
Mishma [hearing, report, what is heard], and Dumah [silence, solitude], and Massah [bearing, burden.

desert, uncultivated region], Jetut

eastward] ; These are the sons

15 uttering what is said], Hadar [inner apartment, tent], and Tema

16 [seven! a nomadic village], Naphish [reci-eation], and Kedemah

of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns [fixed abodes], and by their castles;

17 twelve princes according to their nations. And these are the years of the life of Ish'
mael : an hundred and thirty and seven years ; and he gave up the ghost and died ;

18 and was gathered unto his people. And they dwelt from Havilah [a region of Arabia inhab

ited by the descendants of Joctan, upon the eastern boundary of the Ishmaelites] unto Shur [a place east of

ard [in the direction of 1
eastward of on his brethranj
Ver. 18.— lit., he fell down, or it fell to him.— A. Q.l

Egypt, in the borders of the desert], that is before Egypt, as thou goest toWE
Assyria : and he died ' in the presence of all his brethren [he settled eaat-

CHAP. XXV. 11-18.

495

GENERAX. KEMAHES.
S<>« the remarks upon the previous section.

EXEGETICAi AND CRITICAL.

1. Ver. 11. Isaac after the death of Abraham. —
God blessed Isaac. — The blessing of Abraham
continues in the blessing of Isaac ; this is manifest-
ed in his welfare and prosperity, or rather in a grate-
ful consciousness which refers his welfare to the
kindness of God. We read: Elohim blessed Isaac ;
for Isaac, as future ancestor of Edom and Jacob,
sustained now a universal relation. In earthly re-
spects Edom is Isaac's heir as well as Jacob, or even
by preference. — By the well Lahai.roi. — By the
well of Hagar. According to eh. xxxv. 27, Jacob
met his aged father Isaac at Hebron. Doubtless this
city bore the same relation from the time of Abra-
ham onwards ; Hebron was the principal residence,
Beer-sheba the principal station for overseeing their
Socks. At this station Isaac, as steward of his
father, had already taken up his abode, and in con-
sequence of his love of solitude and seclusion he
became so fond of it that now he dwelt here regu-
larly, without yielding up the principal residence at
Hebron ; he even moved his tent from Beer-sheba
farther into the deep solitude of Hagar's well.

2. Vers. 12-16. The Toledoth of Ishmael.
[Upon the documentary hypothesis, each of these
phrases marks the beginning of a new document.
But if we are to regard each of these documents as
the work of a separate author, then this author con-
tributes only seven verses to the narrative. This is
obviously running the theory into the ground, and
shows how unreasonable it is to regard these phrases
as indicating any change of author. They open new
themes or sections of the history. — A. G.] Here
also it is obvious that the Toledoth of Genesis does
not begin the separate section of the history, but
frequently concludes them. In ch. iv. and v. the
first human race, together with the Toledoth of
Adam, is dismissed from tiistory. So is it also in
ch. X., in respect to the heathen nations, descendants
of Japheth, Ham, and Shem. Oh. xi. dismisses the
less theocratic Shemites, together with their Tole-
doth. In ch. xxii. 20, the Nahorites, the last of the
Shemites and nearest to Abraham, retire from the
history, just as the Haranites, or Lot and his descend-
ants in oh. xix. 36 ; and as the Abrahamites de-
scending from Keturah, in ch. xxv. ; and in our
section the Ishmaelites. After the close of the his-
tory of Isaac the Edomites, ch. xxxvi. 1, disap-
pear. The theocracy permits no branch of the human
race to vanish out of its circle of vision without fxinff
ii in its consciousness. In ch, xxxvii. 2 Jacob also
retires into the background as compared with the
histoiy of his sons. With the Toledoth of Ishmael
oomp. 1 Chron. i. 28-31. — Whom Hagar the
Egyptian. — Besides the names of the twelve sons
of Ishmael that here present themselves, there oc-
curs also (1 Chron. v. 10) the name of the Hagar-
jtes, Ishmaelites called after the mother, whose name
is no doubt assumed in one or more of the names
before us. In respect to the frequent occurrence of
the name Hagar in Arabic authors, see Knobel, p.
211. — Nebajoth and Eedar. — Delitzsch: "The
names of the twelve sons of Ishmael are in part
well known. Nebajoth and Kedar are not only
mentioned together in Is. Ix. 7, but also by Plin. :
Bisi. Nat., 6, 1 {Nabatcei et Cedrci ; Kaidhar and

N4bat (Nabt) are also known to Arabian historians
as descendants of Ishmael. In respect to the mean,
ing of the word Nabatseans, both in a stricter and a
more comprehensive sense, as also in regard to theit
abodes in Arabia Petrea and beyond, see Knobel,
Delitzsch, Keil. — The Kadarenes, described Is. xxL
17 as good bowmen, lived in the desert between
Arabia Petrea and Babylonia (Is. xlii. 11; Ps. cxx.
5). " The Rabbins use their name to denote the Ar&
bians in general." Knobel. — Adbeel and Mibsam,
— In respect to these names, as well as to that of
Kedma, we can only reach conjectures (see Knobel).
— Mishma (Septuagint and Vulgate : Masma). —
Connected by Knobel with Mairranitj'eis of Ptol., vi.
7, 21. In Arabic authors we have beni Mismah.—
Duma. — Probably Dumath al Djendel, on the bor
der between Syria and Babylonia. — Massa. — Ap-
parently the same as Vlairavoi, on the northeast side
of Duma according to Ptol., v. 19, 2. — Hadar (a
more correct reading, 1 Chron. i. 30, is "!"jn , ajs
compared with the maritime country Chathth, famous
among the ancient Arabians on account of its lances),
between Omam and Bahrein. For further informa-
tion see Knobel, etc. — Hadar is taken together with
Thema, which Knobel connects with &(noi of Ptol-
emy, on the Persian Gulf, or with the Arabic banu
Teim, a celebrated tribe in Hamasa, probably differ-
ent from the Tema, Is. xxi, 14 ; Jer, xxv. 23 ; Job
vi. 19. — Jetnr, Naphisch (see 1 Chron. v. 18).—
" Neighbors to the Israelites on the east side of Jor
dan. Knobel refers Jetur to the Iturseans. Th«
present Druses are probably their descendants." — ■
Kedma. — " As a separate Arabic tribe we can only
refer it, in its narrower sense, to Cig i;3 , who in
Judg. vi. 3, 33 ; vii. 1 2, are distinguished from other
Arabians, and must have dwelt in the vicinity of the
country east of Jordan. Perhaps they are the same
with those enumerated with the Moabites and Am-
monites in Is. xi. 14 and Ezek. xxv. 4, 10." Kno-
bel. The sons of the East in a more comprehensive
sense denotes the Arabians generally, the Saracens.
— By their towns, sind by their castles, i. e.,
their movable and fixed habitations. — Twelve
princes according to their nations (Lange ren-
ders " to their nations "). — The translation, accord-
ing to their nations, can only mean, as moulded,
determined by their nations. We hold, therefore,
the expression to mean : twelve princes chosen for
governing and representing their twelve tribes.

3. Vers. 17, 18. The death of Ishmael and the
expansion of the Ishmaelites. — The years of the
life of Ishmael. — This hale man attained only an
age of a hundred and thirty -seven years, while on the
contrary, the more delicate appearing Isaac reaches
the age of a hundred and eighty years. Possibly
the natural passions of the one consumed life sooner ;
no doubt also the quiet, peaceful, believing disposi-
tion of the other, exercised a hfe-prolonging influ-
ence. Ishmael dies, the Ishmaelites spread them-
selves abroad. — From Havilah unto Shur. — •
Havilah, see ch. x. 29. Knobel: "From Chaulan
in the south to the eastern boundary of Egypt."
Sohur. From Egypt to the east in the direction of
Assyria. According to Josephus: " Antiq." i. 12, 4,
the Ishmaelites dwelt from the Euphrates to the Red
Sea. — In the presence of all his brethren, i. e.,
Hebrews, Edomites, and the children of Keturah.
If we understand by Havilah the Chaulotaeans on the
boundary of Arabia Petrea (Keil), we must assign a
dififerent meaning to these words. Keil : " Frou-

496

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

southeast to southwest." Knobei, : "From south-
cast to northwest." Delitzsoh : " The capital of
the Ishmaelitio tribes was Hezaz, situated south of
remen. From this they spread themselves to the
west side of the Siniaitic peninsula, and still further
in a northerly and northeasterly direction beyond
Arabia Petrea and Descrta to the countiies under
Assyrian sway." [He died. He had fallen into the
lot of his inheritance. The Heb. word includes the
idea of a deliberate settlement, and an assertion by
force of his rights and possessions. Thus the prom-
ise uttered before his birth was now fulfilled. — A. G.]

DOCTBINAIi AND ETHICAl.

1. Ishmael in his development precedes Isaac, as
Esau precedes Jacob, as the world gets the start of
the Isingdom of heaven. It loolis well for the devel-
opment of Ishmael that he buries his father in com-
pany with his brother Isaac, though the latter had
been preferred to him.

2. The twelve princes of Ishmael are also men-
tioned as witnesses that God has faithfully fulfilled his
promises concerning their ancestor (cii. xvi. 10, l"/,
20). The Arabs, too, count twelve sons of Ishmacd.

3. The Ishmaelites, the germ of the Arabic peo-
ple in its historic significance. The country of Ara-
bia. Its history. Mohammed. The mission of the
Mohammedans. The mission among the Moham-
medans. Since Ishmael did not subject himself to
Israel, he bus become subject to the Turli.

4. Ishmael's genealogy seems to have been pre-
served in the house of Isaac, just as Therah's in the
jouse of Abraham, or as the genealogy of the na-
tions in liouse of Shem. The father's house does
not lose the memory or the trace of tlie lost son .

5. How the blessing of Abraham descends upon
Isaac. The hereditary blessing in the descendants
of Abraham, an antithesis to the hereditary curse in
the descendants of Adam generally. The inclination
to solitude in the Hie of Isaac. The nature, rights,
and limit of contemplation. Contemplative charac-
ters. History of a contemplative life.

HOMXLETICAL AND PRACTICAL.

See Doctrinal and Ethical. — Isaac the blessed son
of a blessed father. The great divine miracle, that
the blessing of a saving faith was preserved in one
line (in spite of all partial obscurations) from Adam
to Christ. — Isaac's inclination to solitary contempla-
tion.— Perhaps he believed already that a special
blessing was confined to that particular place, the
well of vision. — That Isaac selected Hagar'swell as a
favorite spot, testifies to the nobiUty of his soul (for
Hagar was the rival of his mother, and Ishmael was
her sen). — Ishmael's death; or the robust often die
before the feeble. — From Ishmael, a child once lan-
guislring and perishing from thirst in the wilderness,
God's providence made a great (world-conquering)
nation. — We may in fact best comprehend the patri-
archal triad by regarding Abraham as constituting
especially an example of faith, Isaac an example of
love, Jacob an example of hope. We have promi-
nently presented to us the still more predominaiing
features : the man of the deeds of faith, the man of the
ffufferings of faith, the man of the struggles of faith.

Starke : The temporal blessing (of Isaac) a pre-
lude: a. Aa an earnest fot the whole land of Ca-

naan ; b. as a type and pledge cf the eternal and
spiritual blessing of salvation in Christ. — Misma,
Duma, Masa. From these three names, meaning:
hearing, iilence, potietwe, the Hebrews formed the
proverb: We must hear many things, keep secret
many things, and suffer many things. — (The Ishmael
ites called Hagarites after Hagar. In later times
they preferred to be called Saracens, after Sarah, aa
if dwelling in the tents of Sarah.) — Ver. 17. Soma
cite this to prove the happy death of Ishmael, som«
to prove the contrary. Luther does not wish to de-
cide, but leaves it with God — Ver. 18. (Ps. cxii. 2.)
— What God promises he will surely perform. Let
U8 only have faith in his promises (Gen. xvii. 20;
xxi. li).—BiU. Wirt. : People of no note may be-
come eminent and distinguished persons if it is God's
will (Gen. xli. 40-43).

Lisro : Ishmael becomes the ancestor of the
Bedouins of Arabia; these, therefore, and the Edom-
ites descending from Esau, are the nations nearest
related to the Hebrews, — Calwer Hmidhiich : The
father's blessing descends upon the children. — After
Abraham, that hero of faith, had gone to his rest,
Isaac appears in the foreground of the history. In
his character love appears predominant, the less
powerful and independent love, or love itself with
its weaknesses. He appears as a gentle, pliable linli
between Abraham and Jacob, possessing neither the
manly strength of the father nor of the son. Never-
theless, he wears an amiable aspect, which, when
closely viewed, immediately wins our affections. He
does not make his appearance as a fictitious and an
artfully enjbellished personage, but as a historical
character ; so much so, that his faults appear in the
foreground, whilst his good qualities fall into the
background and lie concealed to the superficial ob-
server. Isaac is' of a predominantly kind nature,
and therefore appears reserved, outwardly, but in-
wardly and really, frank. — Schroder : As to the char-
acter of Abraham and Isaac, see pp. 442 and 443.
With Abraham, who, as father of the faithftd, was to
begin the long line of believing souls, and in whose
peculiar form of life their life was to have its way
prepared, everything is vigorous and peculiarly inde-
pendent. With Isaac, on the contrary, who only
continues this line, everything appeared perfectly
arranged, just as it is with Joshua in relation to
Moses, etc. — (Hengsteneerg: However, we must
not mistake the peculiar characteristics of Isaac,
Joshua, Elisha.) — It seems lo me, one might know
that he is the son of a dead body, but on this very
account is he eminently a gift of God (ZieglerX —
Could the memory of the knife drawn over him by
the hand of the father ever become extinguished in
the mind of the son ? Perhaps this affords us a par-
tial solution of his life and character (Krumm.). —
Let us not overlook the fact that he was the only
monogamist among the patriarchs, remaining satis-
fied with his Rebekah. Abraham's piety descends
as an heritage to Isaac, therelbre the grace of God
also descends upon Isaac (Val. Herberger) — The
dwelling of Isaac at a place so important in the life
of Ishmael (Hagar'swell), attests his friendly relation
to his step-brother. — Gathered unto his people. A
beautiful and charming description of immortality.
We are now living among the gross people of this
world, who seek but little after God, yea, in the verj
kingdom of the devil. But when we depart from this
wretched life, we shall die peacefully, and be gath-
ered unto our people, and there will be no distress,
no misery, no tribulation, but peace and rest. (Luther)

CHAP. XXV. 19-34.

197

SECOND SECTION,

Jacob and Esau.

Chapter XXV. 19-34.

19 And these are the generations' [genealogies] of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham

20 begat Isa^c : And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to- wife, the
daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan-Aram [from Mesopotamia], the sister to Laban

21 the Syrian. And Isaac entreated tiie Lord [jehovah] for his wife, because she was

22 barren: and the Lord was entreated 'of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. Ana
the children struggled together [thrust, jostled each other] within her ; and she said, If it be

23 so, why am I tlus?" And she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said unto
her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people" shall be separated
from thy bowels ; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people ; and the

elder shall serve the younger [the greater shall serve the less].

24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her

25 womb. And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment;'' and they called

26 his name Esau [covered with hair]. And after that came his brother out, and his hand
took hold on Esau's heel ; and his name was called Jacob [heel-catcher] ; and Isaac was

27 threescore years old when she bare them. And the boys grew : and Esau was a cun-
ning hunter [a man knowing the hunt], a man of the field [a wild rover, not an husbandman] ; and

28 Jacob was a plain ° [discreet, sedate] man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, be-
cause he did eat of his venison [game was in his mouth his iavorite food] : but Rebekah loved
Jacob.

29 And Jacob [once] sod pottage ; and Esau came from the field, and he was faint.

30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee [let me devour greedily], with that same recj
pottage [from the red— this red, here] ; for I am faint : therefore was his name called Edom

31, 32 [sedj. And Jacob said. Sell me this day [first] thy birthright. And Esau said.
Behold, I am at the point to die [going to die] : and wliat profit shall this birthright do to

33 me ? And Jacob said. Swear to me this day ; and he sware unto him : ■ and he sold

34 his birthright unto Jacob. Tlien Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and
he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way : thus Esau despised his birthright.

\} Ver 19.— The ri'lbin is more than genealogies. See note on ver. 4, ch. ii. — A. G-.)
[" Ver. 22.— Lit., If so, for what this am I.— A. G.]

[" Ver. 23.— D'^lh and D^ISJKP are here used as synonymous, although there is ground for the distiuctlon whicb
refers the former to the nations generally, and the latter to the peculiar people of God.— A. G.]

[* Ver. 25. — [All over like a hairy garment ; literally, the whole of hnn as a mantle of hair. — A. G.]
[* Ver. 27. — Dpi , perfect, peaceful, in his disposition, as compared with the rude, roving Esau.— A. G.]

GENERAL PKELIMINABY EEMAEKS.

1, According to Knobel we have, in the present
Dirrstion, as in ch. 26, a mixture of different records
upon an Elohistic basis by means of the Jehovistie
supplement. It is enough to say, that in our section
the theocratic point of view prevails. [Keil remarks
that if the name of God occurs less frequently here,
it is due partly to the historic material, which gives
less occasion to use this name, since Jehovah ap-
peared more frequently to Abraham than to Isaac
and Jacob ; and partly to the fact that the previous
revelations of God formed titles or designations for
the God of the Covenant, as " God of Abraham,"
" God of my father," which are equivalent in signifi-
cance with Jehovah. — A. G.] It introduces the
election of Jacob in opposition to Esau. The order
of the Toledoth Knobel explains thus : " The author
usually arranges them, in the first place, according to

32

the individual patriarchs, after he has recorded the
death of the father. Next begins the proper hi.story
of the patriarchs, e. g., ch. x. 1 ; xi. 27 : xxv. 13;
xxxvi. 1 ; xxxvii. 2. We have already made the re-
mark that the Toledoth frequently dispose of a more
general sequence of history, in order to pass over to
a more special one. Delitzsch finds three "tran-
sitions " in the history of Jacob. The first reaching
to the departure of Jacob, ch. xxv. 19-xxviii. 9 ; the
second to Jacob's departure from Laban, eh. xxxii. 1
(a section, however, in which nothing in regard to
Isaac occurs) ; the third, from Jacob's return to the
death of Isaac, ch. xxxv. 29. But this section, too,
is merely a history of Jacob, except the three verses
in ch. xxxv. 27-29. On the other hand it is pre-
eminently the history W Joseph and of the rest of
the sons of Jacob, which begins at ch. xxxvii. 2,
where, according to Knobel, the history of Jacob
should first begin. In the separate biographies we

498

tiENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

»re to distinguish the theocratic stages of the life of
the patriarchs, from the periods of their huma,ii
decrepitude and decease, in which the new theocratic
generation already becomes prominent. This history
has four sections : Kebekah's barrenness and Isaac's
Intercession; Rebekah's pregnancy and the divine
disclosure of her condition; the antithesis in the
nature of the sons reflecting itself in the divided love
of the parents ; and Esau's prodigality of his birth-
right, parting with it for a mess of pottage. In the
second section we have the prophetic preface, in the
third and fourth the typical prelude to the entire fu-
ture history of the antithesis between Jacob and
Esau, Israel and Edom.

2. The points of light in the life of Isaac appear
previous to this narrative. These are his child-like
inquiries and his patieotsilenee upon Moriah(ch.xxii.);
his love to Rebekah (ch. usiv.) ; his brotherly commu-
nion with Ishmael at the burial of Abraham, and his
residing at the well Lahai-Roi (ch. xxv.). Here we
now read first of his earnest intercession on account
of the barrenness of Rebekah ; then, moreover, of
his preference of Esau because he was fond of game.
Somewhat later Jehovah appeared unto him at Gerar,
preventing him from imitating his father Abraham
in going to Egypt during the famine, although he
imitates him in passing off Rebekah for his sister.
In this, too, he differs from Abraham, that he began
to devote himself to agriculture (ch. xxvi. 12). He
suffers himself, however, to be supplanted by the
Philistines, and one well after another is taken away
from him, until he at last retains only one, and finds
rest at Beer-sheba. In the second appearance too
(ch. xxvi. 24), his deep humility is reflected in this, that
he preserves the promise of the blessing, receiving it
as he does for the sake of his father Abraham. He
now takes courage, and, as Abraham did, proclaims
the name of the Lord, and ventures to reprove the
conduct of Abimelech. His digging of wells, as well
as his tilling the soil, seems to indicate a progress
beyond Abraham. But then he is willing to trans-
mit to Esau the theocratic blessing of the birthright,
though Esau had shortly before sorely grieved him
by the marriage of two of the daughters of the
Hittites. The marked antithesis between Isaac's
vision power, his contemplative prominence, and his
short-sightedness in rospect to the present hfe, as
well as the weakness of his senses, appears most
strikingly in ch. xxvii. Rebekah proceeds now with
more energy, and Isaac dismisses Jacob with his
blessing, who i etums after many years to bury his
father. When Isaac blessed his sons his eyes had
already become dim, yet many years passed before
he died (from his one hundred and thirtieth to his
one hundred and eightieih year). Delitzsch exagger-
ates Isaac's weakness as Jai-iing him in everything a
mere copy of Abraham. " Even the wells he digs
are those of Abraham, destroyed by the Philistines,
and the names he gives to them are merely the •Id
ones renewed. He is the most passive of the three
patriarchs. His life flows away in a passive quiet-
ness, and almost the entire second half in senUe tor-
pidity (I). So passive, so secondary, or, so to speak,
so sunken or retired is the middle period in the pa-
triarchal history." We have referred to the points
In which he does not imitate Abraham, but is himself.
He does not go to Egypt during the famine, as Abra-
ham did ; he begins the transition from a nomadic to
and agricultural life, he digs new wells in addition
to the old ones, he lives in exclusive monogamous
wedlock, and even in his preference of Esau, the

game, surely, is not the only motive. If the extertiu
right of the firstborn impressed so deeply his passiv!
character (especially in connection with the lobust,
striking appeariince of Esau, seeming to fit hiiifpar-
ticularly to be heir of Canaan) ; there can be na
doubt, also, that he was repelled by traits in the early
life of Jacob. But most especially does he appeal
to have had a feeling for those sufferings of the first-
bom Ishmael, which he endured on his account.
And hence he appeared willing to make amends to
Esau, his own firstborn, a fact to which, at least, his
dwelUng at Hagar's well, and his brotherly union
with Ishmael, may point. It is evident that the ar-
dent Rebekah, by her animated, energetic declara
tions (ch. xxiv. 18, 19, 25, 28, 58, 64, 65; ch.
xxv. 22), formed a very significant complement to
Isaac, confiding more in the divin§ declarations as to
her boys than Isaac did, and therefore better able to
appreciate the deeper nature of Jacob. But when
Isaac, through his passiveness, fails in the perform-
ance of his duty, the courageous woman forgets her
vocation, and with artifice counsels Jacob to steal
the blessing from Isaac — a transgression for which
she had to atone in not seeing again her favorite son
after his migration. And even if Isaac was short-
sighted respecting his personal relations in this world,
yet the words of the blessing attest that his spiritual
sight of the divine promises had noi diminished with
his blinded eyes. It had its ground, moreover, in
the very laws of the psychical antithesis that jsaac, so
feeble in will and character, was attracted by the
wild and powerful Esau; while the brave, energetic
Rebekah found greater satisfaction in union with the
gentle Jacob. In the assumed zeal of her faith for
the preservation of a pure theocracy among the patri-
archs, she too excels Isaac. We should bear in mind
that they were Jews who relate so impartially the
Nahoritic Rebekah's superiority over the Abrahamio
Isaac. [" Consenting to be laid on the altar as a
sacrifice to God, Isaac had the stamp of submission
early and deeply impressed on his soul. Hence, in
the spiritual aspect of his character, he was the man
of patience, of acquiescence, of susceptibility, of
obedience. His qualities were those of the son, as
Abraham's were those of the father. He carried out,
but did not initiate ; he followed, but did not lead ;
he continued, but he did not commence. Accord-
ingly the docile and patient side of the saintly charac-
ter is now to be presented to our view." Muhpht,
p. Z61 —A. G.]

EXEGETICAL AST) CMTICAL.

1. Vers. 19-21. Rebekah's barrenneM, and
Isaac's intercession. — Padan-Aram. — Level, plain
of Aram : Hosea xii. 12, it reads, field of Aram.
Ch. xlviii. 1. Padan, Mesopotamia. Keil limits
the name to the large plain of the city of Haran,
surrounded by mountains, following the conjectures
of Knobel, who, however, regards Padan-Aram
as a specific Elohistic expression. According to
others, Mesopotamia is divided into two parts, and
here the level country is distinguished from the moun-
tainous region. But this does not apply to Haran.
To one travelling from Palestine to Mesopotamia
across the mountains, Mesopotamia is au extensive
plain. According to ver. 26, Isaac waited twenty
years for offspring. This was a new trial to him,
chough not to Abraham, who still lived. Since
the line of the blessing was to pass through Isaac, his
intercession was based upon a divine foundation ic

CHAP. XXT. 19-34.

49S

Jehovah's promise. [For Ma wife, with reference to,
literally before ; which Luther says is to be explained
spiritually, indicating the intensity of his prayer,
the single object before his mind. — " Entreated the
Iiord. The seed of promise must be sought from
Jehovah, so that it should be regarded, not as the
fruit of nature, but as the gift of divine grace." Keil,
p. 191.— A. G.]

2. \ «rs. 22, 23. RebekaKs pregnancy, and the
divine explanation of her condition. — The Hebrew
exoression ISSin^ denotes a severe struggling
with each other. Knobel will have it that this
feature was derived from the later enmities be-
tween the Israelites and Edomites, and quotes
oh. iv. 14 ; xvi. 12 ; xix. 30. " In Uke manner, ac-
cording to Apollod., 2, 2, 1, Acrisius and Proetus, two
brothers, had already quarrelled with each other in the
womb of their mothier about the dominion." That
such intimations and omens can have no real existence
is regarded as a settled matter in the prejudices of
this kind of criticism. — ^Why am I thus ? — We
see again the character of Rebekah in this very ex-
pression. According to Delitzsch, she was of a san-
guine temperament: rash in her actions, and as
easily discouraged. We would rather regard her
words as an ill-humored expression of a sanguine-
choleric temperament. It does not mean : why am I
yet living? (Delitzsch, referring to ch. xxvii. 46,
Knobel, Keil), but why am I so? i. e., in this condi-
tion. [Why this sore and strange struggle within me ?
— A. G.] — To inquire of the Lord. — According to
1 certain Jewish Midrash, she went to Salem (so
Knobel). According to DeUtzsch, she went rather
so Hagar's weU ; at all events, to a place sacred on
•ocount of revelations and the worship of Jehovah.
Luther thinks she went to Shem, others to Abraham
or Melchizedek, just as men inquired of the prophets
m the time of Samuel (1 Sam. ix. 9). The prophet
nearest to her, if she had wanted one, would have
been Isaa*. The phrase " she went " no doubt
means she retired to some quiet place, and there re-
ceived for herself the divine revelation. For in the
patriarchal history sacred visions determined as yet
sacred places, nor is it different at present. [StUl
the phrase seems to imply that there was some place
and mode of inquiring of the Lord. Perhaps, as
Theodoret suggests, at the family altar. — A.G.] Ac-
cording to Knobel, she received the experience indi-
cated as, in general, a sign of ill omen. Delitzsch
thinks she saw in it the s.nger of Jehovah. However,
we must not too sharpiy interpret her ill humor, on
account of the mysterious, painful, and uneasy con-
dition, and the alarming presentiment she may have
had of the contentions of her posterity. That she
■vas to be a mother of twins she did not know at
this time. — Two nations. — The divine answer is a
rhythmical oracle. (See Delitzsch.)

[Two nations are in thy womb ;
And two people from thy bowels shall be separated ;
And people shall be stronger than people ;
And the elder shall serve the younger.

Wordsworth. — A. G.]

with the prophetic elevation the poetic form appears
also. It appears very distinctly from this oracle,
that they would differ from the very womb of the
mother. Since Esnu's liberation is not predicted here,
Knobel regards this as a sign that the author lived at
a time before Edom threw off the yoke of Judah.
We know however, how the theocratic prophecies

gradually enlarge. The meaning of this ob.-icur«
revelation, clothed as it was in the genuine form of
prophecy, and which so greatly calmed her, she saw
in a certain measure explained in the relations that
had existed between Isaac and Ishmael.

3. Vers. 24-28. The birth of the twini 'Fh.
antithesis of their nature, and the divided pc'j tiaViiij
of the parents towards their children. — Behold,
there were twins. — The fulfilment of the oracle in
its personal, fundamental form. — And the first
came out red. — Of a reddish flesh color. His body,
hke a garment of skins, covered with hair. (Luxuri-
ance of the growth of the hair.) In the word ^SiaiX
there is an allusion to onx , in the word ^Sia
there is an allusion to ^"'Si!) . '' Arab authors derive
also the red-haired occidentals from Esau." KnobeL
Both marks characterize his sensual, hard nature. —
And his hand took hold on Esau's heel. — De-
litzsch : " It is not said that he held it already in
the womb of his mother (a position of twins not
considered possible by those who practise obstet-
rics), but that he followed his brother with such a
movement of his hand." Knobel contends against
the probability of this statement, since, according to
a work on obstetrics by Buseh, the birth of the
second child generally occurs an hour after that of
the first one, frequently later. The very least that
the expression can convey is, that Jacob followed
Esau sooner than is generally the case; upon his
heels, and, as it were, to take hold of his heel. Since
the fact, considered symbolically, does not speak in
his favor ; since it points out the crafty combatant
who seizes his opponent unawares by the heel, and
thus causes him to fall, there is the less ground for
imagining any forgery here. The signification of the
name " Jacob " is essentially the same with " suc-
cessor," as Knobel conjectures. Jacob's cunning
seems to have been stripped from him in his life's
career, deceived as he had been by Laban, and even
by his own sons, whilst there remains his holy pru-
dence, his deeper knowledge, and his incessant look-
ing to the divine promise. — A cunning hunter. —
Esau developed himself according to the omen. —
Because he did eat of his venison. — Literally,
"was in his mouth." — And Jacob was a plain
man. — on 1I3"'!<. Luther: a pious man. Kno-
bel : a blameless man, i. e., as a shepherd. " Hunt-
ing, pursued, not for the sake of self-defence or of
necessity, but for mere pleasure, as with Esau, the
author regards as something harsh and cruel, espe-
cially when compared with the shepherd-life so
highly esteemed by the Hebrews." Isaac's fond-
ness for venison, however, cannot be fully explained
by this. Gesenius emphasizes the antithesis oi gentle
ani wild. Delitzsch explains OFI, "with his whole
heart " devoted to God and the good, etc. Keil,
more happily, as " a disposition inclined to a domes-
tic, quiet life." The most obvious explanation of
the word in this place points out a man, modest,
correct, and sedate, in contrast with the wild, un-
steady, roving, and proud maimer of Esau's life.
Jacolj was modest, because he adhered to the custom
of his father, and stayed near the tents. — Because
hi did eat of his venison, lit., was in his mouth. This
weakness of the patriarch was not his only raotiva
in his preference of Esau, but it is particulariy men-
tioned here on account of the following narrative.
In like manner, Haman was a melancholy, indolent
man, fond of good living.

500

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

4. Vera. 29-34. The typical prelude of the histor-
ical antithesis between Jacob and Kfau. — Jacob sod

pottage A dish of lentiles, see ver. 34. — Feed

me. — Lit., "let me swallow," an expression for eat-
ng greedily, usb. According to Knobel, Esau, by
reason of his greediness, was not able to think of
the name, " lentiles," but points them out by the
words, "that Red!" At the most, "that Red"
might express his strong appetite, excited by the in-
viting color. The addition n'ill nHsn is generally
interpreted : " from that same Red." The repetition
in the original shows that his appetite was greatly
excited: "Let me swallow, I pray thee, some of
that Red, that Red there ! " We question, however,
whether he did not say rather : Peed vyith that Red,
me the Red one. Thus by a rude, witty play upon
words, he would have introduced the fact of his
afterward having been called " the red one." At all
events his name is not to be deduced from the red
pot1a£e. "In the words ■'jiTa'iX and isia above
there is indicated a different relation of the names
cilX (red-brown) and ^^SiC (hairy), but the one re-
ferring to ciis , that red, i. e., brown-yellow pot-
tage of lentiles, tpoiviKihwv, is there predominant.
Moreover, thousands of names, e. g., among the
Arabs (comp. AeuLFEnA's Hist. Anteisl.), have a
like fortuitous origin. But if any one should regard
it as accidental that the history of nations for several
thousand years should have been connected with a
pottage of lentiles, he will not look in vain for simi-
lar occurrences in perusing the pages of Oriental
history. [Therefore was his name called Edom.
There is no discrepancy in ascribing the name both
to his complexion and the color of the lentile broth.
The propriety of a name may surely be marked by
different circumstances. Nor is it unnatural to sup-
pose that such occasions should occur in the course
of life. Jacob, too, has the name given to him from
the circumstances of his birth, here confirmed. —
A. G.] It is scarcely necessary to say here, that
lentiles (adas) are still a favorite dish in Egypt and

Syria." Delitzsch. — Sell me this day Knobel,

as his manner is, regards this fact as improbable.
He thinks the object of the narrative is to answer
the question, how the birthright descended from
Esau to Jacob, and thus erroneously supposes that,
according to the Jewish view, the people of God,
from Adam down to Isaac, had always descended
from the line of the first-born. The text, however,
presents to our view the contrast between Esau's
carnal thinking and Jacob's believing sensibility, in
the measure of fanatical exaggeration, and according
to its conflict so decisive and typical for all time
The right of the first-born has its external and
internal aspects. The external preference consisted
in the headship over the brothers or the tribe ( ch.
ixvii. 29), and later also in a double portion of the
inheritance of the father. The internal preference
was the right of priesthood, and in the house of
Abraham, according to the supposition thus far as-
sumed, a share in the blessing of the promise (eh.
xxvii. 4, 27-29). [Which included the possession
iaf Canaan and the covenant fellowship with Jeho-
vah, and still more, the progenitorship of him in
whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed.
— A. G.] To acquire a rightful claim to this, was
nndoubtedly the principal aim in the bargain, as is
seen immediately from the answer of Esau : "lam
at the point to die ; " and also from the fact that

Esau appears not to have been limited in tia ex
temal inheritance. It is to the praise of Jacob thai
he appreciated so highly a promise extending into
the far future and referring to the invisible; the
realization of which, moreover, though he was on-
conscious of it, was already prepared in his very
being (either in his natural disposition or in his elec-
tion). The acuteness, too, with which he discerned
Esau's gross bondage to appetite, deservijs no cen-
sure. The selfishness of his nature by which he so
soon estimates his profits and takes advantage of his
brother, — this impure motive, as well as a fanatical
self-will arising from his excitement in respect to the
birthright, through which he anticipates God's provi-
dence, is all the more obvious in his cunningly avail-
ing himself of the present opportunity. [Yet it
must be borne in mind that he laid no necessity
upon Esau. He leaves him to accept or reject the
proposal. And Esau knew weU, though he did not
value it, what the birthright included. His own
words, " what profit shall it do to me, seeing I am
about to die ? " show clearly that he knew that it in
eluded iuvisible and future things, as well as the visi
ble and present. It was because he thus consciously
sold his birthright, and for such a consideration, that
the Apostle, Heb. xii. 16, calls him a profane person.
— A. G.] In Esau of course he was not mistaken.

— Behold I am at the point to die Esau, in

his carnal disposition, seems to regard only the pres-
ent and the things of this life, and of the things of
this life, the visible and the sensual only. He yields
the entire higher import of the birthright, the specific
blessing of Abraham, the inheritance of his posterity,
the right and land of the covenant, for the satisfac-
tion of a moment — and that, too, near his paternal
hearth, where he would soon have obtained a meal
He is therefore designated (Heb. xii. 16) as p4ff-n\os
or profane. — Swear to me this day. — Jacob's de
mand of an oath in this transaction evinces a veri
ungenerous suspicion, just as the taking of the oati
on the part of Esau shows a low sense of honor.—
And rose up and went his way. — As if nothing
happened. Repentance followed later.

DOCTBINAI, AND ETHICAL.

1. Rebekah's barrenness during twenty years.
The sons of Isaac, too, were to be asked for ; they
were to be children of faith, especially Jacob. Sa-
rah's example appears to occur again. Similar ex-
amples : Racliel, Hannah, Elizabeth. Even when
not viewed in the light of the Abrahamic promise
of the blessing, barrenness was regarded in the an-
cient Orient as a trial of special severity ; how much
more so in this case. Starke ; " Barrenness among
the patriarchs (Hebrews) was a painful occurrence.
It was sometimes the fruitful source of strife (Gen.
XXX. 2) ; tears were shed (1 Sam. i. 7) ; it was con-
sidered a reproach (Luke i. 25) ; it was even held fot
a curse." Here, however, Abraham could from his
own experience comfort them ; he lived fifteen years
after the birth of the children.

2. Isaac's intercession. It could be based upon
God's promise and Abraham's experience. Jehovah
heard him. He granted more than asked. Instead
of one child he received two. Undoubtedly Re-
bekah sustained his intercession by her prayers.

3. Rebekah's pregnancy, her painfiil sensation,
her ill-humor and alarming presentiments. The gen-
tle story of the hopeful maternal tempeia»ent it

CHAP. XXV. 19-34.

501

often of the Rreatest significance in history. Isaac,
In accordance with his disposition, prays to Jehovah ;
Rcbekah, after her manner of feehng, goes and asks
Jehovah. Undoubtedly she herself is the prophetess
to whom God reveals the manner and future of her
delivery. Jehovah speaks to her. The word of
"evclation, though dark, infuses into her an earnest
yet hopeful feeimg of joy, instead of maternal sad-
ness and despondency. Two brothers, as two na-
tions— two nations, to contend and fight with each
other from the very womb of the mother. The
larger, or elder, and externally more powerful, gov-
erned by the smaller, the younger, and apparently
the more feeble. In these three points the antithesis
between Ishmael and Isaac is reflected again. [The
Apostle, Rom. ix. 12, dwells upon this passage as
iffording a striking illustration and proof of the
doctrine he was then teaching. Isaac was chosen
over Ishmael, but further still, Jacob was chosen
over Ksau, though they were of the same covenant
mother, and prior to their birth. The choice, elec-
tion, was of grace. — A. G.]

4. Brothers unlike, hostile; twins even at en-
mity, whose physiological unconscious antipathy
shows itself already in the womb of the mother —
dark forebodings of the yet coming life, bearing
witness, however, that the life of man already, in its
coming into being, is a germinating seed of a future
individuality. This cannot be meant to express a
mutual hatred of the embrycs. Antipathies, hou-
ever, as well as sympathies, may be manifested in
the germinating life of man as in the animal and
vegetable kingdom.

6. The relation of prophecy and poetry appears in
the rhythmical form of the divine declaration as it is
laid before us. Common to both is the elevated lyrical
temperament manifesting itself in articulate rhythm.

6. The individuality of the twins is manifested
immediately by corresponding signs. Esau comes
into this world with a kind of hunter's dress cover-
ing his rough-red skin ; he is, and remains, Esau or
Edom. Jacob seems to be a combatant immediate-
ly ; an artful champion, who unawares seizes his
opponent by the heel, causing him to fall. But un-
der Jehovah's direction and training. Jacob, the heel-
holding straggler, becomes Israel, the wrestler with
God. In the name " Jacob " there is then intimated,
not only his inherited imperfection, but at the same
time his continual struggle, i. e., there exists a germ
of Jsrael in Jacob. Esau, in his wild rambles, be-
eooies an afier-play of Nimrod. Jacob is so domes-
tic and economical that he cooks the lentile broth
bi.asel( Esau appears to have inherited from Re-
bekah the rash, sanguine temperament, but without
Wnol ility of soul; from Isaac he derives a certain
*'Udne IS of good living — at least of game. Jacob
'nlieriled from Isaac the quiet, contemplative man-
PCT from Rebekah, however, a disposition for rapid,
pnident, cunning invention. Outwardly regarded,
Jacob on the whole resembled more the father, —
Esau the mother. This, however, seems to be the
I ery reason why Isaac preferred Esau, and Rebekah
Jacrb. The gentle Isaac, who wms to transmit to
one of his children the great promise of the future,
even the hope of Canaan, might have considered
Esau, not only in his character of first-born, but also
in that of a courageous and strong hunter, more
euitfble to hold and defend Abraham's prospects
amojgthe heathen, than Jacob, who was so similar
to himself in respect to domestic life. He might,
lierefore, understand the oracle given to Eebekah

in a sense different from that received by her ; or h«
might doubt, perhaps, its objective vaUdity, opposed
as it was to the customary right of succession. That
Esau's venison exercised an influence as to his posi-
tion towards Esau, is proved from the text. It might
be to him a delusive foretaste of the future conquesti
of Canaan. Esau's frank nobility of soul is seen
also in his promptly and zealously complying with
the request. Eebekah confided in her oracle and
understood her Jacob better. But even here there
cooperated that mutual power of attraction which
lay in the two antithetical temperaments. Without
doubt, Esau, the stately hunter, moved about in hia
paternal home as a youthful lord ; in which fact
Isaac thought that he saw a sign of future power.

7. Isaac's taste and Esau's greediness — thf tnn
prime features of a lickerish deportment. The weak-
ness of the fatner soon increases to the greediness
of the son. Isaac's contemplation and weakness as
to his senses reminds us of similar contrasts.

8. And Jacob sod pottage. Every human weak-
ness has its hour of temptation, and if we do not
watch and pray, it will come upon us like a thief

9. To sell one's birthright for a pottage of leu-
tiles : this expression has become the estabUshed ex-
pression for every exchange of eternal treasures,
honors, and hopes, for earthly, visible, and moment-
ary pleasures. No doubt the motto : Let us eat and
drink, etc., is an echo of Esau's expression. Yet
we are not at liberty to regard this moment of aban-
donment to appetite as an instance of a frame of
mind continual, fixed; nor can we refer the divine
reprobation, beginning with this moment, to his
future happiness. He was rejected relatively to the
prerogatives of the Abrahamio birthright. Notwith-
standing his manliness and placability, he was not
a man who had longings for the future, and therefore
could not be a patiiarch among the people of the
future (Mai. i. 3 ; Heb. xii. 17). Jacob, however,
was different ; he knew how to prize the promises,
in spite of those faults of weakness and craft, from
which God's training purified him.

10. Thus it stood with both children even before
their birth. The antithesis of their lives was
grounded in the depths of their individuahty, that
is, in the religious inclination of the one, and the
spiritual superficiality of the other. But these funda^
mental traits had their ground in the divine election
(Rom. ix. 11). The fundamental relations become
apparent, with respect to both, in a sinful manner.
They become apparent through the sins of both, but
they would have appeared, too, without their sinful
actions, by God's providence. The question is about
a destination, who was to be the proper bearer of
the covenant, not about happiness and perdition.

11. In their next conflict Jacob's ungenerous
negotiation increases to fraud. Thence his subse-
quent great sufferings and atonement. By the de-
ception of Laban, too, as well as by that of his sons,
must expiation be made. The bloody coat of many
colors, sent to him by his sons, reminded him of
Esau's coat, in which he approached his father. For
Jacob's opinion concerning the sufferings of his life,
see Gen. xlvii. 9. Starke: Paul, in quoting these
words, Rom. ix. 12, does not speak of an absolute
decree to eternal life or eternal damnation. Because
God was to establish his church among the posterity
of Jacob, and the Messiah was to come through them,
Esau's posterity, if desirous of salvation, must turn
to the worship of Jacob's God (John iv. 22). Upon
the idea of election, see Lanoe's Positive Dogmatic

802

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

irticle Ordo Salutis. [Also Tholuck, Meyer, Hodge
on the passage Rom. ix. 11. It seems well-nigh im-
possible to. escape the conviction that the Apostle
here teaches the sovereign choice of persons, not
aierely to the external blessings, but the interned
and spiritual blessings of his kingdom, i. e., to salva-
lion.— A. G.]

12. The present prophecy respecting Jacob and
Esau is farther developed in the blessings of Isaac
(ch. xxvii. ). Thus everything was historically ful-
filled. For Edom and Idumsea, see the Bible Diction-
aries ; also respecting the prophetic declaratious con-
cerning Edom. The prophet Obadiah represents
Edom as a type of the anti-theocratic (anti-Christian)
conduct of false and envious brothers. This typical
interpretation no more excludns the preaching of the
Gospel in Idumasa than similar and more definite
representations of Babel exclude the preaching of
Peter at Babylon.

13. The Hebr&ic, i. e., the profoundest concep-
tion of history, here comes into view again. All his-
tory develops itself from personal beginnings. The
personal is predominant in history.

14. The mystery of births ; of the like relation
between male and female nature ; of the unlike but
natural relations between the more and less gifted,
between noble and common; and of the different
degrees of natural dispositions — a reservation of God,
in his decrees of providence.

HOMZLETICAI.AND PRACTICAL.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical. The house of a
patriarch in its light and dark aspects : a. The di-
vine blessing and human piety ; b. human weakness
and sin. — Different directions of the parents. Con-
trasts of the children. — The trials in the life of
Isaac. — Children a blessing, an heritage of the Lord.
— The intercession and its answer. — ^Isaac's prayers,
Eebekah's inquiries. — Hoping mothers are to inquire
of the Lord. — Twin brothers not always twin spirits.
— Jacob and Esau. — The sale of the birthright for a
pottage of lentiles. — Edom's character in respect to
good and evil. (Saying of Lessing : Nothing in a man
is condemned as execrable if he only has the reputa-
tion of honor and integrity.) — Jacob's sin, to human
eyes, indissolubly connected with his higher strivings.
— It is reserved to the chemistry of God to separate
the dross of sin from the pure metal of a pious
striving (Mai. iii. 3). — The experience of the pious, a
succession of divine purifications. — Hereditary faults.
— Jacob's haste and eager grasping, the sign of the
severe expiatory penitential sorrows of his life. —
He wished to acquire externally, what God's grace
had put into his heart. — The first fault of Jacob a
harbinger of the second. — Hereditary virtues and
jereditary vices. — Divine election: 1. A predestina-
tion of Jacob's and Esau's theocratic position ; 2.
no decree as to their deportment. — Esau and Jacob ;
or a frank, noble disposition without subjectiveness,
without a desire, and even without a true sense of di-
vine things ; opposed to an enthusiastic feeling for the
eternal, yet tainted with self-deceit and dishonesty. —
Jacob, a man of the higher longing and hope. Esau,
a man of sensual pleasure, regardless of the future.

Staeke, Cramer; The true church is never re-
spected by the world as much as the great mass of
the children of the flesh ; we must not, therefore,
place the bushel by the largest heap. — Bibl. Tvh. :
Child'-cn are an heritage of the Lord (Ps. cxxvii. 3).

— Hall : Isaac asks for one son and he receives two
— Lange: Married people are under obligations ti
unite in prayer, especially on important occasions. —
Notwithstanding natural causes, God, as creator, re'
serves to himself the closing and opening of the
womb of mothers. This shows his sovereignty ove?
the human race (Jer. xxxi. 20). — Rebekah, in hei
impatience, may be a type of those who, having
been aroused by God, so that a struggle, necessarily
painful, takei place between spirit and flesh, soon
become impatient. — In an unfruitful conjugal life we
are to take comfort in this : 1. That God visited with
barrenness holy people in former times — Sarah,
Rachel, Hannah, EUsabeth ; 2. God best knows our
wants ; 3. we are not to render an account for chil-
dren, etc. ; 4. to die without children takes away, in a
certain degree, the bitterness of death ; 5. the times
are calamitous (Matt. xxiv. 19). In times of need
we are not to consult soothsayers, but God and his
word. — (The struggle of the flesh with the spirit in
the new life of the new-bom ; Rom. vii. 22, 23). —
Ver. 26. Gen. iii. Ifi. — Cramer: Within the pale of
the Christian Church we have different classes of peo-
ple : Jews and heathen (John x. 16), true believers
and hypocrites, good and evil (Matt. xiii. 47). God
does not judge after the advantages of theiiesh, of age,
of size and other things which concern the appear-
ance.— Bibl. Wirt. : Two churches are prefigured
here : one believing the promises of Christ ; the
other depending on a carnal advantage of antiquity
and extent. These two bodies will never come to an
agreement, until finally the true church, as the small-
er, will overcome the false by the victory of her
faith, and triumph over her in eternal blessedness
(1 John V. 4). — 0, children, remember what anxiety
you have cost your mothers. — Ver. 28. Lange : The
preference of parents for one or another of their
children may have its natural cause, and be sanctified,
but seldom does it keep within proper Umits. Proba-
bly Esau was more attached to his father, and Jacob
to his mother. (Isaac, probably, prefers venison, not
as a delicacy, but to make better and economical use
of his cattle ; and because wild animals are of no use
to the husbandman, but only cause destruction to
him.) — Ver. 29. The simplicity of early time. Jacob
sitting by the hearth and cooking, which is usually
the duty of the females. — ^Ver. 31. The apology for
Jacob (Luther and Calvin, indeed, approve of his
transaction on the ground of his right to the privilege
of the first-born by the divine promise). Though the
first-born was highly esteemed among the patriarchs,
Christ would not descend from one of the first-born
(indicating that he was the truefirst-born, who was to
procure for us the right of the first-bom from God).
[See, also, Rom. viii. 29; Col. i. 18; Rev. 1. 5; Heb.
xii.23. — A. G.] He claims to descend, not from Cain,
but from Selh ; not from Nahor, or Haran, but from
Abraham ; not from Ishmael, but from Isaac ; not
from Esau, but from Jacob ; not from the seven
elder sons of Jesse, but from David, and from Solo-
mon, who was one of David's younger sons. — (Ver.
27. The permission of hunting on certain conditions:
First, that the regular vocation be not neglected;
second, that our neighbor be not injured.) — Cramer:
In educating children we are to pay particular at-
tention to their dispositions, observing in what di-
rection each one inclines, for not every one is qual-
ified for all things (Prov. xx. 11 ; xxii. 6). — Godless
men, who, for the sake of temporary things, despise
and hazard the eternal (Phil. iii. 19).

Gerlach : The birth of many celebrated men ol

CHAT. XXVI. 1-22.

503

God, preceded by a long season of barrenness. —
Thereby the new-bom babe is to become not only
more endeared to the parents, who turn their whole
attention to it, but is especially to be regarded by
them as a supernatural gift of God, and thus become
a type of the Saviour's birth from a virgin. — The di-
vine prophecy : The patriarchs come into view only
(?) in reference to their descendants, with whom
they are considered as constituting a unity. For the
prophecy has not been fulfilled in respect to the
brothers as individuals. — Lisco : A frivolous con-
tempt of an advantage bestowed on him by God. —
So, also, an inconsiderate oath (Heb. xii. 16). — An
immoderate longmg after enjoyment sacrifices the
greatest for the least, the eternal for the temporal. —
Calwer Handbuch : Abraham too rejoiced in the
birth of these boys ; he lived yet 15 years after their
birth, and the narrative of his death and burial has
been, for historical purposes, considered first. When
the inherited blessing of the promise is the subject
treated of, the mere course of nature cannot decide
the issues, in order that all praise may be to God, and
not to men. — Schroder : (The Rabbins explaiu
Isaac's faithfulness to Rebekah from the fact of his
having been otfered in sacrifice to God (I Tim. iii. 2).
Isaac, to whom the very promise was given, is placed
after Ishmael, and Ishmael, possessing a temporal
promise only, is put far before him. He is lord over
other lords, counts 12 princes in his line, while
Isaac lived alone and without any children, like a
lifeless clod (Luther). — All the works of God begin
painfully, but they issue excellently and gloriously.
Earthly undertakings progress rapidly, and blaze up
like a fire made of paper, but sudden leaps seldom
prosper (Val. Herb.).— Every mother conceals a fu-
ture ; every maternal heart is full of presagings.
Her bodily pains, she interprets as spiritual throes
that await her. — The case of Rebekah presents con-
solation to awoman with child (Val. Herb.). — Caltin :
Rebekah probably inquired of God in prayer. — Her
example should teach us not to give way too much
to sadness in distress. We are to restrain, and
struggle with, ourselves. — Prophecy (even the hea-
then oracles) always assumes a solemn and metrical
style, etc. The prophet is a poet, as frequently the
poet is a prophet. — Her alarming presentiment did
not deceive Rebekah. The struggle within her indi-
cated the external and internal conflicts not only of
k«r children, but even of the nations which were to

descend from them. — This ver. 23 embraces al
times ; it is the history of the world, of the church,
and of individual hearts, enigmatically expressed
(Coats made of red camel's hair were worn by pool
people, also by prophets (Zach. xiii. 4 ; 2 Kings I
8).) — The Hebrew Admoni is also connected with
Adam ; Esau is a son of Adam, predominantly in
dined to the earth and earthly things. — (Isaac's bod-
ily nature appears feeble everywhere ; ch. xxvii
1, 19). Such persons are fond of choice and finei
viands. Wherever Abraham has calves' flesh, buttei
and milk, on special festive occasions, Isaac delights
in venison and wine (oh. xxvii. 3, 4, 25). — In the
Logos, as the first-born of aU creatures, the signifi-
cation of the first-born, both animal and human, has
its true, its ultimate, and divine foundation (Ziegler).
The father is pleased, that Esau, like IshmaiJ, ch.
xxi. 20, is a good hunter, and he regards it. as an
ornament to the first-born, who is to have the gov-
ernment (Luther). Esau becomes Edom, and there-
fore, still the more remains Esau merely ; Jacob, on
the other hand, becomes Israel (oh. xxxii. 28). — Ja-
cob is the man of hope. The possession that he
greatly desires is of a higher order : hopes depend-
ing on the birthright. He never strives after the
lower birthright privileges. (It is doubtful, also,
whether these were as fully developed at the time of
Abraham as at the time of Moses). — I am at the
point to die Sooner or later I will have to succumb
to the perils to which my vocation exposes me. A
thought expressed more than once by Arabic heroes
(Tuch). — Esau's insight into the future extended to
his death only. — Jacob's request that Esau should
swear. He is as eager for the future as Esau is for
the present. — (Lentiles, to this day, are a very fa-
vorite dish among the Arabs, being mostly eaten in
Palestine as a pottage. Robinson found tliem very
savory, etc.). — Want of faithful confidence in him
who had given him such a promise, it was this that
made Jacob wish to assist ijod with carnal subtilty,
as Abraham once with carnal wisdom. — Thou shall
not take advantage of thy brother. For the present,
no doubt, Jacob obscured the confidence of his
hopes, just as Abraham, by anticipation, obscured
his prospects. — As Ishmael had no claim for the bless-
ings of the birthright, because begotten Kara aapKo,
so Esau forfeits the blessings of his birthright, not
because begotten icciTct adpKa, but because inclined
Kara ffdpKa (Delitzsch).

THIRD SECTION.

/miJK in the region of Abimelech at Oerar. The manifestation of God, and confirmed promise. Eii

tmiiation of the maxim of his father. The exposure of Rebekah. The living figure of a

richly blessed, patient endurance.

Chapter XXVI. 1-22.

1 And there was [again] a famine in the land, besides the first [previous] famine thai
was in the 'lays of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines

2 unto Gerar. And the Lord [jehoTah] appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into

3 F/gypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of: Sojourn [as a stranger] in this land,

504

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

and I will be with thee, and will bless thee ; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I wil!
give all these countries, and I will perform [cause to stand] the oath which I sware untc

4 Abraham thy father ; And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and
will give to thy seed all these countries ; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the

5 earth be blessed [tless themselves] ; Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, aud kept my
(iharge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

*, 7 And Isaac dwelt in Gerar : And the men of the place asked him of his wife ; and
he said. She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, said he [thought he],
the men of the place should kill me for Eebekah ; because she was fair to look upon.

8 And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time,' that Abimelech king of the
- Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and behold, Isaac was sporting with

9 Ribekah his wife. And Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, of a surety [certainly]
she is thy wife : and how saidst thou. She is my sister? And Isaac said unto him,

10 Because I said [i thought], Lest I die for her. And Abimelech said, What is this that
thou hast done unto us ? one of the people might lightly " have hen with thy wife, and

1 ] thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us. And Abimelech charged all his people,
saying, He that toucheth [injures] tiiis man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

12 Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received [found, a. a] in the same year an hundred-

13 fold : and [thus] the Lord blessed him : And the man waxed great, and went forward,

14 and grew until he became very great: For he had possession of flocks, and possession

15 of herds, and great store of servants: and the Phihstines envied him. For all tbewella
which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Phihstines

16 had stopped them, and filled them with earth. And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go
from us ; for thou art much mightier than we.

17 And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley [(brook) valley— wady— a. G.]

18 of Gerar, and dwelt there. And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had
digged in the days of Abraham his father ; for tlie Philistines had stopped them after
the death of Abraham : and he called their names after [like] the names by which his

19 father had called tliem. And Isaac's servants digged in the valley [at the bottom], and

20 found there a well of springing [living] water. And the herdmen of Gerar did strive
with Isaac's herdmen, saying, The water is ours : and he called the name of the well

21 Ezek [contention] ; because they strove with him. And they digged another well, and
strove for that also : and he called the name of it Sitnah [enmity— adversary, Satan wells].

22 And he removed [brake up] from thence, and digged another well; and for that they
strove not: and he called the name of it Relioboth [wide room]; and he said, For now
the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.

\} Ver. 8. — When the days were drawn out. — A. G-.]

[" Ver. 10.— DSa3 , within a little j it lacks but little, as the Chaldee renders.— A. G.]

GENEEAIi PEELIMINAUr BEMARKS.

1. The present chapter (xxvi.) is the only one
devoted exclusively to traditions concerning Isaac.
The former narratives were, on the one hand, inter-
woven with Abraham's history, and, on the other,
contained the beginnings of the history of Esau and
Jacob. The section in the following chapter, but
more fully given in the beginning of chapter xxviii.,
foims a conclusion, in which the history of Isaac and
that of his sons are considered as one. This is fol-
owed by ch. xxxv. 27, like a melancholy echo ex-
tending over Isaac's long aud isolated life, during
which Rebekah disappears from the scene, deeply
grieved on account of her sons. We have here a
vivid hfe-pictiire, taken from the midst of Isaac's
pilgrimage, and representing clearly the fact that
Isaac' i composcdneas and- tranquillity draw after
(Ae»i jr4« blessivcfs. This thought, however, pci'-
viidee his whole history. He submits to suifer upon
M(riah, and thus receives a mysterious theocratic

consecration as a type of Christ. He waited for hie
bride until Abraham's and Eliezer's care procured
one for him without his co-operation, aud in this he
fared weU. During Eebekah's long barrenness he
seeks no remedy such as Abraham did in connection
with Hagar, but finally resorts to prayer, and is
richly compensated in the bestowal of twins. During
the famine he does not go to Egypt, but, according to
Jehovah's instruction, remains in Canaan, and here,
in ihe country of the Philistines, is most abundantly
blessed. He receives in silence the censure of
Abimelech for his deceptive statement respecting
Rebekah. He is exiled, and departs from Geiar.
He yields one well after another to the shepherds d
the Phihstines, ever receding, further and further ;
and yet the king of the Philistines applies to him
for an alUance, as to a mighty prince. Finally Isaac
knows how to reconcile himself to the strong decep-
tion prepared for him by Rebekah iind Jacob, aud
even this pliancy of temper is blessed to him, in thai'
he is thereby kept in the right theocralic diiiction

CHAP. XXVI. 1-

505

His passive conduct, too, at the marriage of his sons >
renders the difference between the true Esau and the
theocratic Jacob more distinct. His composure and
endurance seem infirmities ; these, however, with all
■yealmess of temperament, are evidently supported
by a power of the spirit and of faith. The moral
power in it is the self-restraint whereby, in opposi-
tion to his own wishes, he gives up his hasty purpose
to bless Esau. Isaac learned experimentally upon
Uoriah, that quietness, tranquillity, and confidence in
the Lord have a glorious issue. This experience is
stamped upon his whole careet. If we judge him
from the declarations concerning Rebekah at Gerar,
he appears to be the timid imitator of his father ;
though the assuming of his father's maxim in this
respect miy be explained from his modest, suscep-
tible nature. But that he does not imitate his father
slavishly, is seen especially from the fact of his quiet
Buffering without any resistance. This is made evi-
dent, too, by the fact that he does not, like Abraham,
go to Egypt during the famine. Moreover, he does
not take a concubine, as Abraham did; nor like him
does he look to divine revelation for the decision re-
specting the lawful heir, but holds himself sure of ii
by reason of the transmitted right of the first-born.
New and original traits appear in his transition to
agriculture, as well as in his zealous digging of wells.
The naming of the wells, taken away from him, has
something of humor, such as is peculiar to tranquil
minds. His pleasant disposition reveals itself not
only in his preference of venison, but by his peculiar
manner of preparing, for Abimelech of Gerar, and
his friends, a feast, even after the gentle reproof, and
before he made a covenant with him on the follow-
ing day. In his vocation, however, as patriarch, he
shows himself a man of spirit by building an altar
unto the Lord, and calling upon his name (ver. 25).
And while there are but two visions mentioned defi-
nitely during his Hfe (ver. 3, ver. 24), still there fol-
lows a higher spiritual life, and, at the same time,
a further development of the Ahrahamic promise
through the disposition he manifests in the blessing
of his sons. Our section may be divided as follows :
1. Isaac's sojourn in the country during the famine
in consequence of an injunction of Jehovah. Re-
newed promise (vers. 1-6) ; 2. Isaac's assertion that
Rebekah was his sister (vers. 7-11) ; 3. Isaac's pros-
perity ; his exile from the city of Gerar, and his set-
tlement in the valley of Gerar (vers. 12-17) ; 4.
Isaac's patience in what he endured from the Philis-
tines, and its blessing (vers. 18-22). Knobel regards
the present chapter as a Jehovistic supplement,
mingled with Elohistic elements. [In regard to the
numerous points of resemblance between Isaac and
Abraham, Kurtz has shown {Oesch., p. 226) that
these resemblances are not slavish imitations, but
ai'e marked by distinct peculiarities, and moreover,
that these similar experiences are not accidental, but
on the one hand, as the result of the divine provi-
dence, they flow from the same purpose and disci-
pline with the father and the son, and on the other
hand, «s far as they are the result of hnman choices,
thsy arise from an actual resemblance in their condi-
tion and hopes. Thus all believers in their expe-
riences are alike and yet unlike. — ^A. G.]

EXEGETICAL AND CKITICAl.

1. Vers. 1-6. Isaac's abode in the country. — A
famine. — It is distinguished from the famine in the

history of Abraham. Isaac, following the exampK
of his father, was on the point of going to Egypt,
but is arrested by divine interposition. " Isaac's
history commences with the same trial as the historj
of Abraham " (Delitzsch). This frequent calamit'
of antiquity occurs once more in the history of Ja
cob. — Isaac went unto Abimelech. — Not the on<
mentioned ch. xx. 21 (Kimchi, Schum, etc., Del.),
but his successor (Knobel). The same may be said
of Phichol (ch. xxi. 22). There is here, very proba-
bly, a different Abimelech, and with him anothei
Phichol. The former is expressly called king. Upon
this name Abimelech, as a standing title of the kings,
compare the title to the xxxivth Ps. with 1 Sam. xxl
11. — Oerar. — "The ruins of which, under the name
of Kirbet-el-Gerar, have been again discovered by
Rowjand, three leagues in a southeasterly direction
from Gaza." Del. Isaac mtends to go to Egypt,
but according to God's instruction, he is to remain
in Palestine as a stranger. — Go not down. — It is
characteristic that Abraham received the first divine
instruction to depart, Isaac to remain. God leads
every one according to his peculiar necessities. Even
in Canaan nothing shall be wanting to him. — All
these countries. — Extending the promise beyond
Canaan [or rather all the lands of the different Ca-
naanitish tribes. — A. G.] — I will be with thee. —
A promise of help, blessing, and protection, especial-
ly needed by Isaac. — I Will perform the oath. —
As for God, the divine oath was absolutely firm,
though, on the part of Abraham, it might have been
obscured. But since Abraham, on his p:irt, remaine(?
true to the covenant, it is renewed to the son bj
virtue of an oath, whilst in regard to the contents of
the promise, it is even enlarged. The one land of
Canaan is changed into many countries, the seed
multiplied as the stars of heaven, and as the sand
which is upon the sea-shore, becomes stars only ; and
the blessing of the nations (ch. xxii. 18) becomes in
his seed a voluntary blessing of the nations among
tliemselves. — Because that Abraham. — Literally,
for that. Abraham's obedience is brought out conspic-
uously through the use of the richest deuteronomic
terms. To the commendation of obedience in general,
follows in strict derivation: 1. the charge; 2. the
commandments ; 3. the institutions ; 4. the germ of
the Thorah in the plural, n"nni. [He kept the
charge of God, the special commission he had given
him ; his commandments, his express or occasional
orders ; his statutes, his stated prescriptions graven
on stone ; his law, the great doctrine of moral obU.
gations. MnBPHT, p. 874. His obedience was not
perfect, as we know, but it was unreserved, and
as it flows from a living faith, is thus honored of
God. — A. G.] The motive of the promise empha-
sizes the humility and low position of Isaac. He
must also, however, render the obedience of faith,
if Jehovah's blessing is to rest upon him, and, in-
deed, first of all, by remaining in the country.
Abraham had to go to Egypt, Jacob must go to
E"-ypt to die there, Isaac, the second patriarch, is
not to go to Egypt at all Notwithstanding the re-
semblance to the promise, ch. xxii., the new here is
unmistakable.

2. Vers. 7-11. Isaac's assertion respecting He-
bekah. In the declaration of Isaac the event here
resembles Abraham's experience, both in Egypt and
at Gerar, but as to all else, it differs entirely. With
regard to the declaration itself, it is true that Re-
bekah was also related to Isaac, but more distantij
than Sarah Co Abraham. It is evident from the nar

au6

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

rative itself that Isaac is not so seriously threatened
IB Abraham, although the inquiries of the people at
Gerar might have alarmed him. It is not by a
punishment inflicted upon a heathen prince, who
perhaps might have abducted the wife, but through
the intercourse of Isaac with Rebekah that the true
relation became known. That the Abimelech men-
tioned in this narrative is the same person who,
eighty years before, received Sarah into his harem,
appears plausible to Kurtz and Delitzsch, since it
may be taken for granted that as a man gray with
age he did not send for Rebekah and take her into
his harem. We reject these as superficial grounds.
The main point is, that Isaac appears in this narra-
tive as a very cautious man, while the severe edict
of Abimelech seems to suppose a solemn remem-
brance in the king's house of the former experience
with Abraham, The oath that follows seems also to
show that the new Abimelech avails himself of the
poUcy of his father, as well as Isaac. The windows
in old times were latticed openings for the hght to
enter, as found in the East at the present day.

3. Vers. 12-17. Isaac's prosperity and exile. —
Then Isaac sowed Besides planting trees, Abra-
ham was yet a mere nomad. Isaac begins to pursue
agriculture along with bis nomadic life ; and Jacob
seems to have continued it in a larger measure (eh.
xxxvii. V). "Many nomads of Arabia connect agricul-
ture with a nomadic life (see BuEKHAJinT : Syrien,
p. 430, etc.)." Knobel. This account agrees weU
with the locaUty at Gerar. The soil of Gaza is very
rich, a)id in Nuttar Abu Sumar, a tract northwest
of Elyea, the Arabs possess now storehouses for
their grain (see Robinson, i. p. 291, 292). Even at
the present time, in those countries (e. g., Hauran),
the soil yields a very rich produce (Buekhardt :
"Syria," p. 463). Knobel. [The hundred-fold is
a large and very rare product, and yet Babylonia is
said to have yielded two hundred and even three
hundred fold. Hkeod., i. p. 193; Muephy, p. 375.
— A. G.] " The exigency of the famine induced
Isaac to undertake agriculture, and in the very first
year his crops yielded a hundred-fold (Ci"l3)B}. The
agriculture of Isaac indicates already a more perma-
nent settlement in Palestine ; but agriculture and the
occupation of the nomadic life were first engaged in
equally by the Israelites in Egypt, and it was not
until their return from Egypt that agriculture became
the predominant employment." Delitzsch.- — And
the Philistines envied him. — Hostilities began
in their filling with earth the wells that Abraham
dug at Gerar, and which therefore belonged to Isaac.
This very act is already an indirect expulsion, for
without wells it is not possible that Isaac should live
a nomadic life at Gerar. [The digging of wells was
regarded as a sort of occupancy of the land, and
as conferring a kind of title to it ; and hence per-
haps the envy of the Philistines. — A. G.] " This
conduct was customary during wars (2 Kings ill. 26 ;
Is. XV. 6), and the Arabs fiU with earth the wells
along the route of the pilgrims if they do not re-
ceive the toll asked by them (Teoilo : Orientalisch^
Reisebeschreib., p. 682; Niebuhe ; 'Arab.' p. 362)."
Knobel. — Go from us. — Abimelech opetdy vents
his displeasure against Isaac. He banishes him from
his city, Gerar, and fi'om his country in the narrower
sense. — In the valley of Gerar. — The undulating
country Gurf-el-Gerar, through which flows a wady
(Rittee; Urdk. xiv. p. 804). Constantine erected a
monument in this valley (Sozom. 6, 32).

4. Vers. 18-22. Isaac's patient behavior under

the violation of his rights by the PhilistiTiei. ITiA
wells. — Digged again the wells. — Behind his bad
too, the Phihstines filled the wells which AbrahaU
dug. Knobel infers from verse 29 that the hostile
conduct of the Philistines was not mentioned in th(
more ancient record ! The discoveries of the wellt
(vers. 19, 21), too, must be regarded as identical with
the digging again, ver. 18 ! — The quarrels about the
wells seem to be connected with views respecting
the boundaries of Isaac's place of exile. He is
driven further and further by them. " Quarrels
about watering-places and pastures are common
among the Bedouins (see xiii. 7 ; Exod. ii. 17 ;
BuEKHAEDT ; ' Syria,' p. 628, and ' Bedouins,' p. 118).
Among the ancient Arabs, also, severe contesis arose
about watering-places (Hamasa, i. p. 122 f. 287).
In many regions the scarcity of water is such that
the Bedouins rather offer milk than water as a bev-
erage (Seetzen, ill. p. 21)." Knobel. Isaac yields
without any resistance ; still he erects a monument
to the injustice he suffered. The name of the second
well, nsa^a, from the verb "pttJ, brings to view an
enmity malignant and satanic. — A well of springing
water. — Running water (Lev. xiv. 5, etc.). — Reho-
both (ample room). — The third well was probably situ-
ated beyond the boundaries of Gerar ; for it is previous-
ly said that he had removed from thence, i. e., from the
valley of Gerar. The name Rehoboth indicates that
now by the guidance of Jehovah he had come to a
wide, open region. Ruhaibeh, a wady, southwest
from Elusa, and discovered by Robinson (i. 291 ff.),
together with the extended ruins of the city of the
same name, situated upon the top of a mountain,
remind us of this third well (Steadss : ' Sinai and
Golgotha,' p. 149)." Delitzsch. Robinson also dis-
covered further north, in a wady, Shutein, perhaps
the Sitnah of Isaac. Ruhaibeh is situated about
three hours in a southerly direction from Elusa and
about eight and a half Irom Beer-sheba, where the
main roads leading to Gaza and Hebron separate
from each other.

DOCTBINAl AND ETHICAL.

1. Delitzsch: " This chapter (xxvi.) Is composed
of these seven short, special, and peculiarly colored
narratives, which the Jehovist arranged. One-pur-
pose runs through all : to show, by a special narra-
tion of examples running through the first forty
years of Isaac's independent history, how even the
patriarch himself, though less distinguished in deeds
and sufferings, yet under Jehovah's blessing and pro-
tection comes forth out of all his fearful embarrass-
ments and ascends to still greater riches and honor."
His life, however, is not " the echo of the life of
Abraham;" but Isaac's meekness and gentleness
indicate rather a decisive progress, which, hke his
pure monogamy, was a type of New Testament rela-
tions.

2. The events related in the present section
belong undoubtedly to a time when Esau had not
reached the development of all his powers, for other-
wise this stately and powerful hunter would scarcely
have submitted so quietly to the infringements of
his rights by the Philistines.

3. The two visions which mark the life of Isaac
are entirely in accordance with his character and hii
point of view. In the first, Jehovah addresses him .
Go not down into Egypt ; in the second ; Fear not
The promises, however, wluch he receives, are fuy

CHAP. X5VI. l-2ii.

5{r.

ther developments of the Abrahamic promise. For
Isaac, moreover, Jehovah's promises become a divine
oath, i, e., to the firmest couiidenue of faith in his
breast

4. The three famines occurring in the history of
the three patriarchs constitute the fixed manifesta-
tions of one of the great national calamities of an-
tiquity, from which the pious have to suffer together
with the uugoiily; but in which the pious always
experience the special care of the Lord, assuring
them that all things worli together for good to them
that love God.

B. Isaac's imitation of his father in passing his
wife for his sister, incurs the more severe censure of
history than the same actions of Abraham, and it
has this time for its result the gradual expulsion from
Gerar. This ignominy, too, must have the more in-
clined him to yield patiently to the infringements
of his rights by the Philistines ; and thus he is again
blessed with the freedom of a new region, so that
the word is fulfilled in him : Blessed are the meek ;
for they shall inherit the earth.

6. Isaac and Abimeleoh, sons of their respective
fathers, and yet having each a peculiar character
according to their individual and finer traits.

1. Isaac, and the signs that appear of a willingness
to struggle bravely for the faith, though still subject
to his natural infirmities and obscured by them.

8. Isaac's energy in his agricultural undertak-
ings and in the diligent digging of wells.

9. The filling of the wells with earth, as taken in
a spiritual sense, indicates an old hatred of the Phil-
istines towards the children of God.

10. And thou ihould&t have brought guiltiness
upon us. The idea of guilt is the extension of cul-
pabihty over the future of the sinner ; and frequently
(as e. g. in public offences) more or less even to those
around us. Participation of sin is participation in its
corrupting and ruinous results.

HOMILETICAI, AND PKACTICAIj.

To the whole chapter. How the promises of
Abraham descend upon Isaac: 1. As the same
promises ; 2. as newly shaped in their development
"and confirmation. — Incidents of a life of faithful
suffering and rich with blessings, as presented in the
history of Isaac : Isaac during the famine ; in dan-
ger at Gerar ; as exposed to the jealousy of the
Phihstines ; during the exile ; in the strife about the
wells; in the visit of Abimelech; in the marriage
of Esau. — How Isaac gradually comes out of his dif-
ficulty : 1. From Gerar to the valley of Gerar ; 2.
from the valley of Gerar to Rehoboth ; 3. from Re-
hoboth to Beer-sheba. — Isaac as a digger of wells, a
type also of spiritual conduct : 1. In digging again
the wells of the father that are filled with earth ; 2.
in digging new weUs. — Isaac and Abimelech, or the
sons in relation to their fathers : 1. Resemblance;
2. difference. — The blessing of Isaac in his crops (at
the harvest-festival). — Malignant joy, a joy most de-
itructive to the maUgnant man himself [Words-
irorth, who finds types everywhere, says : " Here
ileo we have a type of what Christ, the pure Isaac, is
loing in the church. The weUs of ancient truth had

been choked up by error, but Christ reopened tbeni
and restored them to their primitive state and callec?
them by their old names," etc., p. 115.^A. G.]

Staeke : (What Moses narrates in this chaptei
appears to have happened before Esau and Jacob
were bom (see ver. 7). [More probably when thej
were about fifteen years old, after Abraham's death.
— A. G.] Regarding the Philistines and Philistia,
see Dictionaries.) The reason why God did not per-
mit Isaac to go to Egypt is not given, yet it may
have been that Isaac might experience the wonderful
providence and paternal care of God toward him.
Some (Calvin) assign the reason, that Isaac, because
not as far advanced in faith as his father Abraham,
might have been easily led astray by the idolatrous
Egyptians (the result shows, however, that it was
unnecessary this time). — / will give all these coun-
tries. Thy descendants through Esau shall receive
a great part of the southern countries, lying between
Canaan and Egypt. — Ver. o. It does not follow from
these four terms, which were frequently used after
the law was given upon Mt. Sinai, that Abraham al-
ready possessed the law of Moses, as the Jews as-
sert. Had this been the case, no doubt he would
have transmitted it to his children. Moses, how-
ever, chooses these expressions, which were in use
in his time, in order to point out clearly to the peo-
ple of Israel how Abraham had submitted himself
entirely to the divine will and command, and ear-
nestly abstained from everything to the contrary in
his walk before God. To these four terms there are
sometimes added two more, viz., rules and testimo-
nies.— OsiANDEE : There are no calamities in the
world from which even the pious do not sometimes
suffer. The best of it, however, is that God is their
protection and comfort (Ps. xci. 1). — We are to re-
member the divine promises, though ancient and
general, and apply them to ourselves. — Cramer : We
are to abide by God's command, for his word is a
light unto our path (Ps. cxix. 105). — Thus God
sometimes permits his people to stumble, that his
care over them may become known. — To ver. 10,
From this we see that the inhabitants of Gerar, not-
withstanding their idolatry, were stUl so conscien-
tious that they considered adultery a crime so great
as to involve the whole land in its punishment. —
Ceamee : Comely persons should be much more
watchful of themselves than others. — The woods
have ears and the fields eyes, therefore let no one
do anything thinking that no one sees and hears him,
— Strangers are to be protected. (Since Isaac pos-
sessed no property, perhaps he cultivated with the
king's permission an unfruitful tract of land, or hired
a piece of ground.)— It is the worst kind of jealousy
if we repine at another's prosperity without any
prospect of our own advantage.

Bibl Tub. . God blesses his people extraordinari-
ly in famine. — Cramee : Success creates jealousy ;
but let us not be surprised at this ; it is the course
of the world. — "Ver. 17. To suffer wrong, and therein
to exercise patience, is always better than to revenge
oneself and do wrong. — Christian, the Holy Scrip-
tures are also a well of living water; dig for
this incessantly. — Bibl. Tub.: The jealousy and
artifice of enemies cannot prevent or restrain tlit
blessing which the Lord designs fcr the jious.

608

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

FOURTH SECTION.

Isaac in Beer-sheha, Treaty of Peace with AbimeUch.

CHAPraR XXVL 23-33.

23, 24 And he went up from thence to Beer-sheba. And the Lord appeared unto him the
same [ftrat] night, and said, I ' am the God of Abraham thy father ; fear not, for 1 am
with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake

25 And he builded an altar there, and called upon [witnessed to] the name of the Lord, and
pitched his tent" there : and there Isaac's servants digged a well

26 . Then [and] Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath [posseBsion, oooupant]
one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain [seech, ixi. 22, commander] of his army

27 And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me [have treated me

28 with hatred], and have sent me away from you? And they said. We saw certainly " that
the Lord was with thee : and we said. Let there be now an oath betwixt us [on hoth sidej?],

29 even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee ; That ' thou wilt do
us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but
good, and have sent thee away in peace : thou art [thus art thou] now the blessed of the

30, 31 Lord. And he mad^ them a feast, and they did eat aud drink. And they rose up
betimes in the morning, and sware one to another : and Isaac sent them away, and they

32 departed from him in peace. And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's servants
came and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him. We

33 have found water. And he called it Shebah [seven; here in its signification : oath] : therefore
the name of the city is Beer-sheba unto this day.

[* Ver. 24— ■'DDN . The prononn is emphatic — I the God, etc.— A. G.J

ra Yer. 25.-13^^ . Not the usual word for the pitching a tent, see ver. 17. The term may he chosen -with referenci
to the permanence of his abode, or the increase of his family and retinue.— A. G.]
[8 ver. 28. — Lit., Seeing we have seen. — A. G.]
[• Ter. 29.— Lit., If thou shalt. The usual Hebrew form of an imprecation or oath.— A. G.]

EXEGETIOAX AND CRITICAL.

To Beer-sheba. — The former residence of Abra-
ham (ch. xxi. 33), and Isaac's foi-mer station for his
flocks. — The appearance of Jehovah. — A night vis-
ion ; a form winch now enters more definitely into
the history of the patriarchs. — The God of Abra-
ham, thy father. — In this way Jehovah reminds
him of the consistency of his covenant faithfulness,
but especially of his covenant with Abraham, —
Fear not. — This encouraging exhortation no doubt
refers to the disposition of Isaac. Abraham needed
such an encouragement, after having exposed himself
to the revenge of the Eastern kings on account of
his victory over them. Isaac needs it because of his
modest, timid disposition, and on account of the en-
mity of the Philistines, by whom he was driven from
place to place. Perhaps his heart foreboded that
Abimelech would yet follow him. He consecrates
his prolonged sojourn at Beer-sheba by the erection
of an altar, the establishment of a regulated worship,
and by a fixed settlement. — Then Abimelech
went to him. — By comparing this covenant act
with that between Abraham and Abimelech of Gerar,
the difference appears more strikingly. Abimelech,
in the present chapter, is accompanied not only by
the chief captain of his anny, but also by his friend,
I. e., Ahuzzith, his private counsellor. Isaac ani-
madverts on his hatred, but not like Abraham, on

the wells that had been taken away from him (see
ch. xxi. 25). Even in the boasting assertion oi
Abimelech respecting his conduct toward Isaac —
which the facts will not sustain — we recognize, ap-
parently, another Abimelech, less noble than the
former. This appears also in his demand of the im-
precatory oath (nbs). It is also peculiar to Isaac
that he permits a banquet, a feast of peace as it
were, to precede the making of the covenant. The
same day, after the departure of Abimelech, the ser-
vants, who had commenced some time before to dig
a new well, found water. Their message seems to
be a new reward of blessing, immediately followuig
the peaceable conduct of Isaac. Isaac names this
weD as Abraham had done the one before (ch. xxi.
31); thus the name Beer-sheba is given to it also.
[It is not said that this name was here given for the
first time ; but as the covenant concluded was the
renewal and confirmation of the covenant of Abra-
ham with the previous Abimelech, so the name is the
renewal and confirmation of that given by Abi aham.
The same name is appropriate to both occasions. —
A. G.] The existence of both these wells bears wit-
ness to the credibility of this fact. Keil. KnobeL
of course, regards this as an entirely different tradi
tion. But Delitz,=ch remarks : To all appearance,
Isaac, in the naming of this well, followed the exam-
ple of his father in naming the weU situated near it
since in other cases he renewed the old names of the

CHAP. XXVI. 23-33.

509

ireUa.— BuNSEN : To swear, to the Hebrew, signifies,
" to take sevenfold," or, " to bind oneself to seven
holy things, referring to the Aramaic idea of God as
Lord of Seven; i. e., of the seven planets (Sun,
Moon, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn)."
The remembrance of the seven sacrifices or pledges
of the covenant, is far more probable, unless the ex-
pression is to be regarded as signifying a seven-fold
degree of ordinary certainty.

DOOTBINAL AlTD ETHICAl.

1. Isaac's holy elevation of soul at his return
from the country of the Philistines to his old home,
Beer-sheba, crowned by a promise and a glorious ap-
pearance of God.

2. The divine promise renewed ; see above.

3. Isaac at Beer-sheba. He builds an altar to the
Lord before a tent for himself. In the establishment
of the worship of Jehovah, in this testimony to him,
as he calls upon his name, and in his preaching, he
is a worthy heir of his father.

4. Human covenants are well established, if a
divine covenant precedes and constitutes their basis.

5. Isaac in his yielding, his patient endurance
and concessions, a terror to the king.

6. Isaac's feast of peace with Abimelech, a sign
of his great inofifensiveness.

1. The solemnity of the well, and on the same
day with the feast of peace, or, the blessing of noble
conduct.

8. Abraham prefers to dwell in the plains (Moreh,
Mamre), and he planted trees. Isaac prefers to re-
side at wells, and he is fond of digging wells.

HOMILETICAIi AND PRACTICAL.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. The
rich contents of the term : God of Abraham. It de-
clares ; 1. That the eternal God has made a covenant
with us imperishable beings (Luke xx. 37, 38); 2.
the continuity, the unity, the unchangeableness, of
the revelation of Jehovah through all times and de-
velopments ; 3. the transmission of the hereditary
blessing from the believing father to the beheving
children. — How the expression, in the history of the
patriarchs, fear not (ch. xv. 1 ; xxvi. '24 ; xxviii. 15),
goes through the whole scriptures until it reaches its
full development in the. angelic message of the birth
of Christ (Luke ii. 10), and at the morning of his
resurrection.

Starke : Cramer : God always supports his
church, and builds it everywhere (Isa. li. 6). What-
ever a Christian undertakes, he ought to undertake
In the name of the Lord (CoL iiL 17). When a

man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his ene
mies to be at peace with him (Prov. xvi. 7 ; Gen. xxxiii
4). — Lawful alliances and oaths are permitted (Deut.
vi. 1 3). — Gerl ACH ; At this place, remarkable, al-
ready, during the life of Abraham, the Lord renewi
the assurance of his grace, as afterwards to Jacob
(ch. xlvi. 1) ; whilst, in the consecration of individual
places, he connected himself with the child-like faith
of the patriarchs, and satisfied the want to which it
gave rise.

Schroder : The least thing we sacrifice for thf
sake of God, he repays, by giving ua himself (Berl
Bib.). Whenever Jehovah calls himself God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he shows, thereby, in
each day's revelation of himself to Israel, the ground
and occasion of the same in the revelation that
is past — thus connecting the _new with the old,
while presenting the grace shown to the poster-
ity, as a necessary consequence of that which hi
had covenanted to their father.^' fathers. True re
ligion is essentially historical ; history (not fanciful
myths) is its foundation and limits. God is our God,
because he has made himself our God by repeated
acts in history. In the kingdom of God everything
develops and progresses ; there is do past without
a future, nor a future without a past. — Abraham re-
ceived the promise respecting the Messiah in the
name of all the faithful; if, now, Isaac and evei7
believer be blessed for the sake of Abraham, he is
blessed merely for the sake of the promise that was
given to Abraham, and, therefore, for the sake of
Christ (Roos). — Isaac is mindful of his sacerdotal
office, as soon as he takes up his abode (Berl. Bib.).
— The Abimelech mentioned here is more cunning
than his father, for he pretends to know nothing
about the taking away of Isaac's wells by his ser-
vants (Luther). — Such is the course of the world.
Now insolent, then mean. He who wishes to live in
peace with it (which is true of all believers) must be
able to bear and suffer (Roos). — The Abimelech of
ch. xxi. uses Elohim, a word proper to him ; the one
in the present chapter, not caring much about the
affair, says Jehovah, iDecause he constantly heard
Isaac make use of this divine name. He accommo-
dates himself to the feast of Isaac, as Laban in ch.
xxiv. (Rom. xii. 20; Jos. ix. 14; 2 Sara. iii. 2i) ;
Isa. XXV. 6 ; Luke xiv. 11.) — The divine blessing of
this conciliatory and humble love, did not exhaust
itself in temporal things. Isaac contended and suf-
fered for the sake of wells ; as to the wells which he
digged soon after his arrival at Beer-«heba, it hap-
pened on the very day he made the covenant and
swore, etc. — The relation, of which the name Beer-
sheba was the memorial, had ceased to exist. Bui
by the repetition of the fact, the name reg?.ined its
significance and power, and was the samo «i if now
given for the first time (Hengstenberg).

61U

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

FIFTH SECTION.

Isaac's sorrow over JSsau's marriage with the daughters of Canaan.

Chapter XXVI. 34, 85.
34 And Esau was forty years old wheu he took to wife Judith [ceiebra-cdi] the daughtei

of Beeri ' [heroic Bonl Fontanus j] the Hittite, and Bashemath [lovely, Diria , fragrance, epicy] the

3r» daughter of Elon [oak-grove, strength] the Hittite: Which were a grief of mind" [a heart-
sorrow] unto Isaac and Eebekah.

[' Ter. 34.— Beeri, of a well.— A. G.]

[• Ver. 35. — The margin, lit., bitterness of spirit. — A. G.]

EXEGETICAL AND CBITICAL.

Esau •was forty years old. — Isaac, therefore,
according to ch. xxv. 26, was about 100 years. — Ac-
cording to cii. . xxviii. 9, he took Mahalath as his
third wife, together with the two mentioned here.
These names are mostly different, as to form, from
those of ch. xxxvi. 2, etc. The points of resemblance
are, first, the number three ; secondly, the name of
Bashemath ; third, the designation of one of them as
the daughter of Elon, the other as a daughter of
Ishmael. In respect to the dissimilarities and their
solution, see K.nobel, p. 278, on ch. xxxvi. ; De-
LiTzscH, 606 ; Keil, 229. — Which w^ere a grief
of mind. — Lit. : " a bitterness of spirit." Their
Canaanitish descent, which, in itself, was mortifying
to Esau's parents, corresponds with the Canaanitish
conduct. It is characteristic of Esau, however, that,
without the counsel and consent of his parents, he
toolc to himself two wives at once, and these, too,
from the Canaanites. Bashemath, Ahuzzath, Maha-
lath (ch. xxviii. 9) are Arabic forms.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. Esau's ill-assorted marriage a continuance of
the prodigality in the disposal of his birthright.

2. The threefold offence : 1. Polygamy without
my necessary inducement ; 2. women of CanaanitiBh

origin ; 3. without tlie advice, and to the displeasure
of his parents.

3. The heart-sorrow of the parents orer the mis-
alliance of the son. — How it produced an effect in
the mind of Rebekah, different from that produced
in the mind of Isaac.

HOMILETICAL AND PEACTICAL.

See Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs.

Starke : Lange : Children ought not to marry
without the advice and consent of their parents, —
Cramer: Next to the perception of God's wrath,
there is no greater grief on earth than that caused
by children to their parents. — Gerlach : Esau may
be regarded as a heathen, already and before his ex-
pulsion from the hne of blessing. — Calwer Handb, :
Took two wives. Opposed to the beautiful example
of his father. — In addition to the trials undergone up
to this time, domestic troubles .are now added. It
is very possible that this act of disobedience toward
God and his parents, of which Esau became guilty
by his marriage, matured the resolution of Rebekah,
to act as related in ch. xxvii. — Schroder : The no-
tice respecting Esau, serves, preeminently, to prepare
for that which follows (Esau's action). A self-attest-
ation of his lawful expulsion from the chosen gen-
eration, and, at the same time, an actual warning to
Jacob. — Lamentation and grief of mind appeared
when he was old, and had hoped that his triate were
at an end (Luther).

SIXTH SECTION,

baat's preference for the natural firstborn, and Esau. Rebekah and Jacob steal from him the
theo'>ratic blessing. Esau^s blessing. Esau's hostility to Jacob. Rebehah's preparation for the
flight of Jacob, and his journey with reference to a theocratic marriage. Isaac's directions for the
journey of Jacob, the counterpart to the dismissal of Ishmael. Esau's pretended correction, of hit
Ul-assorted marru

Chapters XXVII.— XXVIII. 1-9.

1 And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he
could not see,' he called Esau his eldest son, and said unto him, My son: And he said

2 unto him, Behold, he.re am I. And he said, Behold, now I am old, I know not the daj

CHAPS, xxvn.— y..?-iii. 1-9.

511

3 of my death. Now therefore take, I pray thee, thy weapons [hunting weapons], th<

4 quiver, and thy how, and go out to the field, and take me some venison ; And make m«
savory meat [tasty ; fevorite ; festive dish. De Wette : dainty dish], such as I ]ove, and bring ti

5 to me, that I may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die. And Rebek&h heard
when Isaac spake to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison.
and to bring it.

6 And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying. Behold, I heard thy father speak

7 unto Esau thy brother, saying. Bring me venison, and make me savory meat, that I may

8 eat, and bless thee before the Lord before my death. Now therefore, my son, obey

9 my voice [strictly], according to that which I command thee. Go now to the flock
[small cattle], and fetch me from thence two good kids of the goats; and I will make

tO them savory meat for thy father, such as he loveth : And thou shalt bring it to thy

11 father, that he may eat, and that he may bless thee before his death. And Jacob said
to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth

12 man: My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver;

13 and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing. And his mother said unto him,
)4 Upon me le thy curse, my son : only obey my voice, and go fetch me them. And he

went, and fetched, and brought them to his mother : and his mother made savory meat

15 [dainty dish], such as his father loved. And Rebekah took goodly [costly] raiment of hei
eldest son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob hei

16 younger son : And she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands, and upon

17 the smooth [part] of his neck; And she gave the savory meat and tlie bread, which she
had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob.

18 And he came unto his father, and said, My father: And he said, Here am I; who

19 art thou, my son. And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy firstborn ; I have
done according as thou badest me : arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that

20 thy soul may bless me. And Isaac said unto his son. How is it that thou hast found
it so quickly, my son? And he said. Because the Lord thy God brouglit I'i to me

21 And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son,

22 whether thou he my very son Esau, or not. And Jacob went oear unto Isaac his
father ; and he felt him, and said. The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands arc the

23 hands of Esau. And he discerned him not, because . f ' inds were hairy, as his

24 brother Esau's hands: so he blessed him. And he said, A~t tucu [thou there] my very

25 son Esau? And he said, I am. And he said. Bring it near to me, and I will eat of
my son's venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him, and

26 he did eat: and he brought him wine, and he drank. And his father Isaac said unto

27 him. Come near now, and kiss me, my son. And he came near, and kissed him : and
he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said. See, the smell of my son

28 is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed : Therefore [thus] God give thee
of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth and plenty [the fulness] of corn and

29 wine: Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren,
and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee [thy mother's sons shall bow] : cursed le every
one that curseth thee, and blessed he he that blesseth thee.

30 And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob
was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother

31 came in from his hunting. And he also had made savory meat, and brought it unto hia
father, and said unto his father. Let my father arise, and eat of his son's venison, that

32 thy soul may bless me. And [then] Isaac his father said unto him. Who art thou ?

33 And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn Esau. And Isaac trembled very exceedingly

[shuddered in great terror above measure], and Said, Who ? where is he [who then was he] ? that

hath taken [hnnted] venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou

34 earnest, and have blessed him ? yea, and he shall be blessed. And when Esau heard
the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto

35 his father, Bless me, even me also, 0 my father. And he said. Thy brother came with

36 subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing. And he said, Is he not rightly named
[heel-holder, supplanter] Jacob ? for he hath supplantgd me these two times : he took away
my birthright [right of the flrstbom] ; and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing

37 A.nd he said. Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me ? And Isaac answered and said

512 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK. OF MOSES.

unto Esau, Behold, I liave made him thy lord, and all his brethren have I given to hint
for servants; and with corn and wine have I sustained- him [ha%elemiowedhimJ : and

38 what shall I do now unto thee, my son? And Esau said unto his father, Hast thoubuf
one blessing, my father ? bless me, even me also, 0 iny father. And Esau lifted up his

39 voice and wept. And [then] Isaac his father answered, and said unto him, Behold, thy
dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew ot heaven from above

40 And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother : and [but] it shall come
to pass when thou shalt have the dominion [inthecourseof thy wanderings], that- thou ghalt
break his yoke from off thy neck.

41 And Esau hated Jacob, because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him .
and Esau said in his heart [formed the design], The days of mourning for my [dead] father

42 are at hand, then will I slay my brother Jacob. And these words of Esau her elder
son were told to Rebekah : and she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and Biil^
unto him. Behold, thy brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing

43 to kill thee [goes ahout with revenge to kui thee].' Now therefore, my son, obey my voice;

44 and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother, to Haran : And tarry with him a few days

45 [sometime], until thy brother's fury turn away; Until thy brother's anger turn away
from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done to him : then I will send, and fetch

46 thee from thence: why should I be deprived also of you both r. one day? And
Kebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life, because of the (aughters of Heth : if
Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters
of the land, what good shall my life do me [what is life to me] ?

Ch. XXVIII. 1. And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto

2 him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padan-aram
[Mesopotamia], to the house of Bethuel, thy mother's father; and take thee a wife from

3 thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother. And God [the] Almighty
bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be [become] a

4 multitude' of people ; And give thee the blessing ot Abraham, to thee and to thy seed
with thee ; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger [of thy pilgrimage],

5 which God gave unto Abraham. And Isaac sent away Jacob : and he went to Padan-
aram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and
Esau's mother.

fi When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padan-aram.
to take him a wife from thence; and that, as he blessed him, he gave him a charge.

7 saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daugliters of Canaan ; And that Jacob obeyed

8 his father and his mother, and was gone to Padan-aram ; And Esau seeing that the

9 daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father ; Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and
took unto the wives which he had Mahalath [from root nbn , Cecinit. 'Delitisch derives it from
•'bn , to be sweet] the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth [heights,
nahathffia], to be his wife.

[^ Ch. XXVn. Ver. 1. — Lange renders " when Isaac was old, then hie eyes were dim, so that he oonli not see,"
M an independent sentence, laying the basis for the following narrative. — A. G.]

[^ Ver. 42. — Comforteth, or avengeth. The thought of vengeance was his consolation. — A. G.]
(> Ch. XXVIII. Tor. 3.— bfip , congregation.— A. G.l

GENERAL PEELIMINAEY REMARKS.

1. Knobel, without regard to verse 46, and not-
withstanding the word Elohim, verse 28, regards
our section as a Jehovistic narrative. We have only
to refer to the prevailing Jehovistic reference. Re-
Bpecting the origin of our narrative Knobel has given
his opinion in a remarliable manner, e. g., he cannot
conceive how an old man may hear well, smell well,
»nd yet be unable to see ! I

2. The time. " Isaac at that time was a hundred
and thirty-seven years nil, the age at which Ishmael,
his half-brother, died, about fourteen years before;

though he did not die imtil forty-three years after-
wards. The correct determination of his age, given
already by Luther, is based upon the following cal-
culation: Joseph, when he stood before Pharaoh,
was thirty years old (ch. xli. 46), and at the migra-
tion of Jacob to Egypt he had reached already the
age of thirty-nine ; for seven years of plenty and
two years of famine had passed already at that time;
nine years had elapsed since the elevation of Joseph
(ch. xlv. 6). But Jacob, at that time, was a hundred
and thirty years old (ch. xlvii. 9) ; Joseph, therefoie,
was bom when Jacob was ninety-one years ; and
since Joseph's birth occurred in the fourteenth year

a fact which, in consequence of the weakness of old [ of Jacob's sojourn in Mesopotamia (comp. ch. xxx.
ife, may have seriously reminded him of death, ] 25 with ch. xxix. 18, 21, and 27), Jacob's flight to

CHAPS, xxvir.— xxvni. 1-9.

513

Laban happened in his seventy-aeTenth year, and
in the hundred and thirty-seventh year of Isaac.
Oomp. Hengstenbeko : Beitr. iii. p. 348, etc." Keil.
3. The present section contains the history of the
distinction and separation of Esau and Jacob ; first
introduced by enmity after the manner of man, then
confirmed by the divine judgment upon human sins,
and established by the conduct of the sons. This
narrative conducts us from the history of Isaac to
that of Jacob. The separate members of this sec-
tion are the following : 1. Isaac's project ; 3. Rebe-
Icah's counter-project ; 3. Jacob's deed and blessing ;
i. Esau's complaint and Esau's blessing ; 6. Esau's
scheme of revenge, and Rebekah's counter-scheme ;
6. Jacob and Esau in the antithesis of their mar-
riage, or the divine decree.

EXEGETICAIi AND CEITICAI,.

1. Ters. 1-4. — And his eyes were dim.

— ^We construe with the Sept., since we are of the
opinion that this circumstance is noticed as an ex-
planation of the succeeding narrative. — Thy quiver.
— ^The Siraf \€7., ibn (lit. hanging), has by some
been explained incorrectly as meaning sword (Onke-
los and others). — Savory meat. — DiBSBis, deli-
cious food. But it is rather to be taken in the sense
of a feast than of a dainty dish. It is praiseworthy
in Isaac to be mindful of his death so long before-
hand. That he anticipates his last hours in this
manner indicates not only a strong self-will, but also
a doubt and a certain apprehension, whence he makes
the special pretence, in order to conceal the blessing
from Jacob and Rebekah. [Notwithstanding the
divine utterance before the children were born, un-
doubtedly known to him, and the careless and almost
contemptuous disposal of his birthright by Esau, and
Esau'i) ungodly connection with the Canaanitish wo-
men, Isaac still gives way to his preference to Esau,
and determines to bestow upon him the blessing. —
A. G.]

2. Vers. 5-17. Rebekah's counter-project. — Unto
Jacob her son. — Her favorite. — T^o good kids
of the goats. — The meat was to be amply provided,
so as to represent venison. — ^As a deceiver (lit., as
a scoffer). — " He is afraid to be treated as a scoffer
merely, but not as an impostor, since he would have
confessed only a mere sportive intention." Knobel.
It may be assumed, however, that his conscience
really troubled him. But from respect for his moth-
er he does not point to the wrong itself, but to its
hazardous consequences. — Upon me be thy curse.
— Rebekah's boldness assumes here the appearance
of the greatest rashness. This, however, vanishes
for the most part, if we consider that she is positive-
ly sure of the divine promise, with which, it is true,
she wrongfully identifies her project. — Goodly
raiment. — Even in regard to dress, Esau seems to
have taken already a higher place in the household.
His goodly raiment reminds us of the coat of Joseph.
—Upon his hands. — According to Tuch, the skins
of the Eastern camel-goat (angora-goat) are here
referred to. The black, silk-like hair of these ani-
mals, was also used by the Romans as a substitute
for human hair (Martial., xii. 46)." Keil.

3. Vera. 18-29. Jacob's act and Jacob's blessing.
— Who art thou, my son. — The secrecy with
which Isaac arranged the preparation for the bless-
ing must have made him suspicious at the very be-

33

ginning. The presence of Jacob, under twiy circum-
stances, would have been to him, at present, an
unpleasant interruption. But now he thinks that ha
hears Jacob's voice. That he does not give e.Tect to
this impression is shown by the perfect success of the
deception. But perhaps an infirmity of hearing
corresponds with his blindness. — Arise, I pray
thee, sit and eat. — They ate not only in a sittiog
posture, but also while lying down ; but the Ijiiig
posture at a meal differet? from that taken* upon a
bed or couch. It is (lie solemn act of blessing,
moreover, which is here in question. — How is it
that thou hast found it so quickly. — It is not
only Jacob's voice, but also the quick execution of
his demand, which awakens his suspicion. — And ho
blessed him. — Ver. 23. This is merely the greet-
ing. Even 'Cter having felt his son, he is not fully
satisfied, but once more demands the explanation
that he is indeed Esau. — Come near now, and
kiss me. — Jfter his partaking of the meat, Isaac
wants still another assurance and encouragement by
the kiss of his son. — And he smelled the smeU
of his raiment. — The garments of Esau were' im-
pregnated with the fragrance of the fields, over
which he roamed as a hunter. " The scent of Leba-
non was distinguished (Hos. xiv. 7 ; Song of Sol. iv.
11)." Knobel. The directness of the form of his
blessing is seen from the fact that the fundamental
thought is connected with the smell of Esau's rai
ment. The fragrance of the fields of Canaan, rich
in herbs and flowers, which were promised to the
theocratic heir, perfumed tlie garments of Esau, and
this circumstance confirmed the patriarch's prejudice
— And blessed him, and said. — The words of his
blessing are prophecies (ch. ix. 27 ; ch. xlix.) — utter-
ances of an inspired state looking into the future,
and therefore poetic in form and expression. The
same may be said respecting the later blessing upon
Esau. — Of a field which the Lord hath blessed.
— Palestine, the land of Jehovah's blessing, a copy
of the old, and a prototype of the new, paradise.—
Because the country is blessed of Jehovah, he as-
sumes that the son whose garments smell of the
fragrance of the land is also blessed. — Therefore
God give thee. — Ha-elohim. The choice of the
expression intimates a remaining doubt whether Esau
was the chosen one of Jehovah ; but it is explained
also by the universality of the succeeding blessing.
[He views Ha-elohim, the personal God, bat not Je-
hovah, the God of the Covenant, as the source and
giver of the blessing. — A. G.] — Of the dew of
heaven. — The dew in Palestine is of the greatest
importance in respect to the fruitfulness of the year
during the dry season (ch. xlix. 25 ; Deut. xxxiii. 13,
£8; Hosea xiv. 6 ; Sach. viii. 12) — And the fat-
ness of the earth. — Knobel : " Of the fat parts
of the earth, singly and severally.'' Since the land
promised to the sons was to be divided between Esan
and Jacob, the sense uo doubt is : may he give to
thee the f^t part of the promised land, i. e., Canaan.
Canaan was the chosen part of the lands of the earth
belonging to the iirst-bom, which were blessed with
the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth. As
to the fruitfulness of Canaan, see Exod. iii. 8. Com-
pare also the Bible Dictionaries ; Winer ; article
" Palestine." The antithesis of this grant to tliat
of the Edomitie country appears distinctly, ver. 39
A two-fold contrast is therefore to be noticed : 1 .
To Edom ; 2. to the earth in general ; and so we
have "O . But to a blessed land belong also blessed
seasons, therefore plenty of corn and wine — I*t

514

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

people serve thee.— To the grant of the theocratic
country is added the grant of a theocratic, i. e., spir-
itual and political position of the world. — And
nations. — Tribes of nations. Not only nations but
tribes of nations, groups of nations, are to bow down
to him, i. e., to do homage to him submissively.
This promise was fulfilled typically in the time of
David and Solomon, ultimately and completely in the
world-sovereignty of the promise of faith. — Be Lord
over thy brethren. — This blessing was fulfilled in
the subjection of Edom (2 Sara. viii. 14; 1 Kings xi.
15 ; Pa. Ix. 8, 9). — Thy mother's sons. — His preju-
dice still shows itself in the choice of this expression,
according to which he thought to subject Jacob, the
"mother's" son, to Esau. — Oiursed be every one

that curseth thee Thus Isaac bound hunself.

He is not able to take back the blessing he pro-
nounced on Jacob. In this sealing of the blessing
he afterwards recognizes also a divine sentence (ver.
33). His prophetic spirit has by far surpassed his
human prejudice. [This blessing includes the two
elements of the blessing of Abraham, the possession
of the land of Canaan, and a numerous offspring,
but not distinctly the third, that all nations should
be blessed in him and his seed. This may be in-
cluded in the general phrase, let him that curseth
thee be cursed, and him that blesseth thee be blessed.
But it is only when the conviction that he had against
his will served the purpose of God in blossing Jacob,
that the consciousness of his patriarchal calling is
awakened within him. and he has strength to give
the blessing of Abraham to the son whom he had
rejected but God had chosen (ch. xxviii. 3, 4). See
Keil.— A. G.]

4. Vers. 30-40. Esau's lamentation and Esau's
blessing. — And Isaac trembled, — If Isaac himself
had not intended to deceive in the matter in which
he was deceived, or had he been filled with divine
confidence in respect to the election of Esau, he
would have been startled only at the deception of
Jacob. But it is evident that he was surprised most
at the divine decision, which thereby revealed itself,
and convinces him of the error and sin of his at-
tempt to forestall that decision, otherwise we should
hear of deep indignation rather than of an extraor-
dinary terror. What follows, too, confirms this in-
terpretation. He bows not so much to the deception
practised upon him as to the fact and to the pro-
phetic spirit which has found utterance through him.
Augustink: De Oivitate Dei, 16, 37: " Quis non hie
maledictionem potius expectaret irati^ si hcEC non
mtperna inspirations sed terreno more ffeTiereniur"
— Who ? where is he ? — Yet before he has named
Jacob, he pronounces the divine sentence : the bless-
ing of the Lord remains with that man who received
it. — He cried with a great and exceeding bit-
tor cry. — Heb. xii. 17. — Bless me, even me also.
—Esau, it is true, had a vague feeling that the ques-
tion here was about important grants, but he did not
understand their significance. He, therefore, thought
the theocratic blessing admitted of division, and was
as dependent upon his lamentations and prayers as
upon the caprice of his father. — Thy brother came
with subtilty. — With deception. Isaac now indi-
cates also the human error and sin, after having
decUred the divine judgment. But at the same time
he declares that tlie question is only about o»e bless-
bg, and that no stranger has been the recipient of
this blessing, but Esau s brother. — Is not he rightly
named (-on)?— Shall he get the advantage of me !

because he was thus inadvertently named (Jacobs
heel-catcher, supplanter), and because he then acted
thus treacherously (with cunning or fraud) shall i
acquiesce in a blessing that was surreptitiously ob-
tained ? — He took away my birthright.— Instead
of reproaching himself with his own act, his eye ia
filled with the wrong J.icob has done him. — Hast
thou not a blessing reserved for me 7 — Esau ia
perplexed in the mysterious aspect of this matter
He speaks as if Isaac had pronounced an arbitrary
blessing. Isaac's answer is according to the truth.
He intbi-ms him very distinctly of his future theo
cratic relation to Jacob. As compared with the
blessing of Jacob he had no more a blessing for
Esau, for it is fundamentally the greatest blessing
for him to serve Jacob. — Hast thou but one bless-
ing?— Esau proceeds upon the assumption that the
fatlier could pronounce blessings at will. His tears^
however, move the father's heart, and he feels that
his favorite son can be appeased by a sentence hav-
ing the semblance of a blessing, and which in fact
contains every desire of his heart. That is, he now
understands him — The fatness of the earth. —
The question arises whether "|13 is used here in a
partitive sense (according to Luther's translation and
the Vulgate), as in the blessing upon Jacob, ver. 28,
or in a privative sense (according to Tuch, Knob:!,
Kurtz, etc.). Delitzsch favors the last view : 1. The
mountains in the northeastern part of Idumsea (now
Gebalene), were undoubtedly fertile, and therefore
called Palcestina Salutaris in the middle ages (Von
Raitmer, in his Palcestina, p. 240, considers the
prophecy, therefore, according to Luther's transla-
tion, as fnlfilled). But the mountains in the western
part of Idumsea are beyond comparison the most
dreary and sterile deserts in the world, as Seetzen
expresses himself. 2. It is not proliable that Esau's
and Jacob's blessing would begin alike. 3. It is in
contradiction with ver. 37, etc. (p. 455); Mai. i. 3.
This last citation is quoted by Keil as proof of the
preceding statement. [The "B is the same in both
cases, but in the blessing of Jacob, " after a verb of
giving, it had a partitive sense ; here, after a noun
of place, it denote.^ distance, or separation, e. g.,
Prov. XX. S." Murphy. The context seems to de-
mand this interpretation, and it is confirmed by the
prediction, by thy sword, etc. Esau's dwelling-place
was the very opposite of the richly-blessed land of
Canaan. — A. G.] But notwithstanding all this, the
question arises, whether the ambiguity of the ex-
pression is accidental, or whether it is chosen in
relation to the excitement and weakness of Esau.
As to the country of Edom, see Delitzsch, p. 455 ;
Knobel, p. 299 ; Keil, p. 198; also the Dictionaries,
and joui-nals of travellers. — And by thy sword.
— This confirms the former explanation, but at the
same time this expression corresponds with Esau'e
character and the future of his descendants. War.
pillage, and robbery, are to support hun in a barren
country. " Similar to Ishmael, ch. xvi. 1 2, and the
different tribes still living to-day in the old Edomitio
country (see Bcrkhaedt : ' Syria,' p. 826 ; Ritteb :
Erdkund; xiv. p. 966, etc.)." KnobeL SeeObadiah,
ver. 3 ; Jer. xlix. 16. " The land of Edom, there-
fore, according to Isaac's prophecy, will constitute a
striking antithesis to the land of Jacob." Keil.^
And Shalt serve thy brother. — See above.—
And it shall come to pass — As a consequence of
the roaming about of Edom in the temper and p^:^
pose of a freebooter, he will ultimately shake off tht

CHAPS. XXVn— XXVIII. 1-9.

5ia

Toke of Jacob from his neck. This seems to be a
promiiie of greater import, but the self-liberation of
Edom from Israel was not of long continuance, nor
did it prove to him a true blessing. Edom was at
first strong and independent as compared to Israel,
Blower in its development (N^umb. xx. 14, etc.). Saul
first fought against it victoriously (1 Sam. xiv. 47);
David conquered it (2 Sam. viii. 14). Tiieu followed
It conspiracy under Solomon (1 Kings xi. 14), whilst
there was an actual defection under Joram. On the
other hand, the Edomites were again subjected by
Amaziah (2 Kings xiv. T; 2 Chron. xxv. 11) and
remained dependent under Uzziah and Jotham (2
Kings xiv. 22 ; 2 Chron. xxvi. 2). But under Ahaz
they liberated themselves entirely from Judah ('2
Kings xvi. 6 ; 2 Chron. xxviii. 11). Finally, however,
John Hyrcanus subdued them completely, forced
them to adopt circumcision, and incorporated thom
into tiie Jewish state and people (Josephds : "Antiq."
xiii. 9, 1; xv. 7, 9), whilst the Jews themselves, how-
ever, after Antipater, became subject to the dominion of
an Idumsean dynasty, until the downfall of their ptate.
6. JEsau's scheme of revenge^ and RebekaK's
counter-scheme (vers. 41-46). — And Esau said in
bis heart. — Esau's good-nature still expresses itself
in his exasperation toward Jacob and in the scheme
of revenge to kill him. For he does not maliciously
execute the thought immediately, but betrays it in
uttered threats, and postpones it until the death of
his father. — The days of mourning . . . are at
hand, — Not for my father, but on account of my
father ; L c, my father, weak and trembling with
ige, is soon to die. — Then, and not before, he will
3xecute his revenge. He does not intend to grieve
.he father, but if his mother, his brother's protec-
tress, is grieved by the murder, that is all right, in
his view. — These words were told. — On account
of his frank and open disposition, Esau's thoughts
were soon revealed ; what he thought in his heart he
soon uttered in words.— And called Jacob. — From
the herds. — Flee thou to IialiEin. — Rebekah en-
courages him to this flight by saying that it wiU last
but few days, i. e., a short time. But she looked
further. She took occasion from the present danger
to carry on the thoughts of Abraham, and to unite
Jacob honorably in a theocratic marriage. For,
notwithstanding all his grief of mind arising from
Esau's marriages, Isaac had not thought of this. But
Btill she lets Isaac first express this thought. Nor is
Isaac to be burdened with Esau's scheme of revenge
and Jacob's danger, and therefore she leads him to
her mode of reasoning by a lamentation concerning
the daughters of Heth (ver. 46). — Deprived also
of you both. — Bdnsen : " OF thy father and thy-
self." Others: "Of thyself and Esau, who is to
die by the hand of an avenger." But as soon as
Esau should become the murderer of his brother,
he would be already lost to Rebekah. Knobel, again,
thinks that in verse 46 the connection with the pre-
ceding is here broken and lost, but on the contrary
connects the passage with eh. xxvi. 34 and ch. xxviii.
1, as found in the original text. The connection is,
however, obvious. If Knobel thinks that the char-
acter of Esau appears different in ch. xxviii. 6 etc.,
than in ch. xxvii. 41, that proves only that he does
not understand properly the prevailing characteristics
of Esau as given in Genesis.

6 Jacob an I Esau in the antithesis of their mar-
riage, or the divine decree (oh. xxviii. 1-9). — And
tsaac called Jacob and blessed him. — The whole
dismissal of Jacob showS that now he regards him

voluntarily as the real heir of the Abrahamio bless
ing. Knobel treats eh. xxviii.-ch. xxxiii. as one
section (the earlier history of Jacob), whose fund*
mental utterances form the original text, enlarged
and completed by Jehovistic supplements. There ara
several places in which he says contradictions to tlm
original text are apparent, One such coiitradiclior
he artfully frames by supposing that, .(ccording to
che original text, Jacob was already sent to Mesfjpo-
tamia immediately after Esau's marriage, foi tht-
purpose of marrying among his kindred — a supposk
tion based on mere fiction. As to other contiadic-
tions, see p. 233, etc. — Of the daughters of Ca-
naan.— Now it is clear to him that this was a theo
cratic condition for the theocratic heir. — Of the
daughters of Laban. — These are first mentioned
here. — And God Almighty. — By this appellation
Jehovah called himself when he announced himself
to Abraham as the God of miracles, who would grant
to him a sou (ch. xvii. 1). By this apellation of
Jehovah, therefore, Isaac also wishes for Jacob a
fruitful posterity. Theocratic children are to be
children of blessing and of miracles. AmuUitude of
people (^np), a very significant development of the
Abrahamic blessing. [The word used to denote the
congregation or assembly of God's people, nnd to
which the Greek ecc'esia answers. It denotes the
people of God as called out and called together. —
A. G.] — The blessing of Abraham.— He thus
seals the fact that he now recognizes Jacob as the
chosen heir — And Isaac sent away Jacob (see
Hos. xii. 13). — When Esau saw that Isaac. — Esau
now first discovers that his parents regard their son's
connection with Oanaanitish women as an injudicious
and improper marriage. He had not observed their
earlier sorrow. Powerful impressions alone caE
bring him to understand this matter. But even this
understanding becomes directly a misunderstanding.
He seeks once more to gain the advantage of Jacob,
by taking a third wife, indeed a daughter of Ishmael.
One can almost think that he perceives an air of
irony pervading this dry record. The irony, how-
ever, lies in the very efibrts of a low and earthly
mind, after the glimpses of high ideals, which he
himself does not comprehend. — To lahmael. — Ish-
mael had been already dead more than twelve years ;
it is therefore the house of Ishmael which is meant
here. — Mahalath. — Ch. xxxvi. 2 called Bashemath.
— The sister of Nebajoth. — As the first-bom of the
brothers he is named instead of all the others ; just
as Miriam is always called the sister of Aaron. The
decree of God respecting the future of the two sons,
which again runs through the whole chapter, receives
its complete development in this, that Jacob emi
grates in obedience of faith accompanied with the
theocratic blessing, to seek after the chosen bride,
whilst Esau, with the intention of making amends
for his neglect, betrays again his unfitness. The de-
crees of God, however, develop themselves in and
through human plans.

DOCTEINAI, AND ETHICAL.

1. The present section connects a profound tragw
family history from the midst of the patriarchal life,
with a grand and sublime history of salvation. In
respect to the former, it is the principal chapter in
the Old Testament, showing the vanity of mere hu-
man plans and efforts ; in respect to the latter, il
holds the corresponding place in reference to the cer

616

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

teinty of the divine election and calling, holding its
calm and certain progress through all disturbances
of human infatuation, folly, and sin.

2. It is quite common, in reviewing the present
narrative, to place Rebekah and Jacob too much
ander the shadows of sin, in comparison with Isaac.
Isaac's sin does not consist alone in his arbitrary de-
termination to present Esau with the blessing of the
theocratic birthright, although Rebekah received
that divine sentence respecting her children, before
their birth, and which, no doubt, she had mentioned
to him ; and although Esau had manifested already,
by his marriage with the daughters of Heth, his
want of the theocratic faith, and by his bartering
with Jacob, his carnal disposition, and his contempt
of the birthright — thus viewed, indeed, his sin ad-
mits of palliation through several excuses. The
clear right of the first-born seemed to oppose itself
to the dark oracle of God, Jacob's prudence to Esau's
fVank and generous disposition, the quiet shepherd-
life of Jacob to Esau's stateliness and power, and
on the other hand, Esau's misalliances to Jacob's
continued celibacy. And although Isaac may have
been too weak to enjoy the venison obtained for him
by Esau, yet the true-hearted care of the son for his
father's infirmity and age, is also of some import-
ance. But the manner in which Isaac intends to
bless Esau, places his offence in a clearer light. He
intends to bless him solemnly in unbecoming secrecy,
without the knowledge of Rebekah and Jacob, or
of his house. The preparation of the venison is
scarcely to be regarded as if he was to be inspired
for the blessing by the eating of this " dainty dish,"
or of this token of filial affection. This preparation,
at least, in its main point of view, ia an excuse to
gain time and place for the secret act. In this point
of view, the act of Rebekah appears in a different
light. It is a woman's shrewdness that crosses the
shrewdly calculated project of Isaac. He is caught
in the net of his own sinful prudence. A want of
divine confidence may be recognized through all his
actions. It is no real presentiment of death that
urges him now to bless Esau. But he now antici-
pates his closing hours and Jehovah's decision, be-
cause he wishes to put an end to his inward uncer-
tainty which annoyed him. Just as Abraham antici-
patetJ the divine decision in his connection with
Hagar, so Isaac, in his eager and hearty performance
of an act belonging to his last days, while he lived
yet many years. With this, therefore, is also con-
nected the improper combination of the act of bless-
ing with the meal, as well as the uneasy apprehension
lest he should be interrupted in his plan (soever. 18),
and a suspicious and strained expectation which was
not at first caused by the voice of Jacob. Rebekah,
however, has so far the advantage of him that she,
in her deception, has the divine assurance that Jacob
was the heir, while Isaac, in his preceding secrecy,
h5s, on his side, only human descent and his human
reason without any inward, spiritual certainty. But
Rebekah's sin consists in thinking that she must save
the divine election of Jacob by means of human de-
ception and a so-called white-lie. Isaac, at that crit-
ical moment, would have been far less able to pro-
nounce the blessing of Abraham upon Esau, than
afterward Balaam, standing far below him, could
have cursed the people of Israel at the critical mo-
ment of its history. For the words of the spirit and
of the promise are never left to human caprice.
Rebekah, therefore, sinned against Isaac through a
want of candor, just as Isaac before had sinned

against Rebekah through a like defe<!t. The divint
decree wotild also have been fulfilled without her as
sistance, if she had had the necessary measure of
faith. Of course, when compared with Isaac's fatal
error, Rebekah was right. Though she deceived
him greatly, misled her favorite son, and alienated
Esau from her, there was yet something saving inhm
action according to her intentions, even for Isaac
himself and for both her sons. For to Esau the
mo-t comprehensive bl ssing might have become
only a curse. He was not fitted for it. Just as Re-
bekah thinks to oppose cunning to cunrring in order
to save the divine blessing through Isaac, iind thus
secure a heavenly right, so also Jacob secures a hu-
man right in buying of Esau the right of the first-
born. But now the tragic consequences of the first
officious anticipation, which Isaac incurred, as well as
that of the second, of which Rebekah becomes guil-
ty, were soon to appear.

3. The tragiti consequences of the hasty conduci
and the mutual deceptions in the family of Isaac
Esau threatens to become a fratntcide, and this threat
repeats itself in the conduct of Joseph's brothers,
who also believed that they saw in Joseph a brother
unjustly preferred, and came very near killing him.
Jacob must become a fugitive for many a long year,
and perhaps yield up to Esau the external inheritance
for the most part or entirely. The patriarchal dig-
nity of Isaac is obscured, Rebekah is obliged to send
her favorite .«on abroad, and perhaps never see him
again. The bold expression : " Upon me be thy
curse," may be regarded as having a bright side ;
for she, as a protectress of Jacob's blessing, always
enjoys a share in his blessing. But the sinful ele-
ment in it was the wrong application of her assur-
ance of faith to the act of deception, which she her-
self undertook, and to which she persuaded Jacob ;
and for which she must atone, perhaps, by many a
long year of melancholy solitude and through the
joylessness which immediately spread itself over the
family affairs of the household.

4. With all this, however, Isaac was kept from a
grave offence, and the true relation of things secured
by the pretended necessity for her prevarication.
Through this catastrophe Isaac came to a full under-
standing of the divine decree, Esau attained the full-
est development of his peculiar characteristics, and
Jacob was directed to his journey of faith, and to
his marriage, without which the promise could not
even be fulfilled in him.

6. Isaac's blindness. That the eyes of this re-
cluse and contemplative man were obscured and
closed at an early age, is a fact which occurs in many
a similar character since the time of "blind Homer"
and blind Tiresias. Isaac had not exercised his eye
in hunting as Esau. The weakness of his age first
settles in that organ which he so constantly neglected.
With this was connected his weakness in judg-
ing individual and personal relations. He was con-
scious of an honest wish and will in his conduct with
Esau, and his secrecy in the case, as the prevarl
cation at Gerar, was connected with his retiring
peace-loving disposition. Leaving this out of view,
he was an honest, well-meaning person (see ver. .SY,
and ch. xxvi. 27). His developed faith in the prom-
ise, however, reveals itself in his power or fitness
for the vision, and his words of blessing.

6. Rebekah obviously disappears from the stage
as a grand or conspicuous character ; grand in het
prudence, magnanimity, and her theocratic zeal of
faith. Her zeal of faith had a mixture of fanatil

CHAPS. XSVII.— XXVin. 1-9.

517

Biaggeration, and in this view she is the grand-
mother of Simeon and Levi (ch. xxxviii.).

I. It must be especially noticed that Jacob re-
mained single far beyond the age of Isaac. He
seems to have expected a hint from Isaac, just as
Isaac was married through the care of Abraham.
The fact bears witness to a deep, quiet disposition,
which was only developed to a full power by extraor-
dinary circumstances. He proves, again, by his ac-
tions, that he is a Jacob, i. e., heel-catcher, sup-
planter. He does not refuse to comply with the plan
»f the mother from any conscientious scruples, but

■•om motives of fear and prudence. And how ably
md firmly he carries through his task, though his
false confidence seems at last to die upon his lips
with the brief ■'3S, ver. 24 ! But however greatly
he erred, he held a proper estimate of the blessing,
for the security of which he thought he had a right
to make use of prevarication ; and this blessing did
not consist in earthly glory, a fact which is decisive
as to his theocratic character. Esau, on the other
hand, scarcely seems to have any conception of the
real contents of the Abrahamic blessing. The pro-
found agitation of those who surrounded him, gives
him the impression that this must be a thing of in-
estimable worth. Every one of his utterances proves a
misunderstanding. Esau's misunderstandings, how-
ever, are of a constant significance, showing in what
light mere men of the world regard the thingsof the
kingdom of God. Even his exertion to mend his im-
proper marriage relations eventuates in another error.

8. Isaac's blessing. In the solemn form of the bless-
ing, the dew of heaven is connected with the fatness
of the earth in a symbolic sense, and the idea of the
theocratic kuigdom, the dominion of the seed of
blessing first appears here. In the parting blessing
upon Jacob, the term bnp indicates a great develop-
ment of the Abrahamic blessing. — Ranke : Abraham,
no doubt, saw. In the Ught of Jehovah's promises, on
to the goal of his own election and that of his seed,
but with regard to the chosen people, however, his
prophetic vision extended only to the exodus from
Egypt,and to the possession of Canaan. Isaac's prophe-
cy already extends farther into Israel's history, reach-
ing down to the subjugation and restoration of Edom.

9. The blessing pronounced upon Esau seems to
be a prophecy of his future, clothed in the form of a
blessing, in which his character is clearly announced.
It contains a recognition of bravery, of a passion for
liberty, and the courage of a hunter — The Idumseans
were a warlike people.

10. When, therefore, Isaac speaks in the spirit,
about his sons, he well knew their characters (Heb.
xi. 20). The prophetic blessing will surely be ac-
complished ; but not by the force of a magical effi-
3aoy ; as Knobel says : " A divine word uttered, is a
power, which infalUbly and unchangeably secures
what the word indicates. The word of God can
never be ineffectual (comp. ch. ix. 18 ; Numb. xxii.
6 ; 2 Kmgs iL 24 ; Is. ix. 7)." — The word of a pro-
phetic spirit rests upon the insight of the spirit into
the profound fundamental principles of the present,
in which the future, according to its main features,
reflects, itself, or exhibits itself, beforehand.

II. The high-souled Esau acted dishonestly in
'tiii thvc he was not mindful of the oath by which
ne had sold to Jacob the birthright ; and just iis Re-
■lekah might excuse her cunning by that of Isaac,
10 Jacob might excuse his dishonest conduct by
f>ltiading Esau's dishonesty.

1 2. The application of the proverb, "The end
justifies the mean-;," to Jacob's conduct, is obvious
ly uot allowable. The possible mental reserva
tion in Jacob's lie, may assume the following form
1. I am Esau, i. e., the (real) hairy one, and th,
(lawful) first-born. But even in this case the menti
reservation of Jacob is as different from that of th«
Jesuits, as heaven from earth. 2. Thy God brought
the venison to me ; i. e., the God who has led the«
wills that I should be blessed.

13. However plausible may be the deceit, through
the divine truth some circumstance will ramain
unnoticed, and become a traitor. Jacob had not
considered that his voice was not that of Esau. It
nearly betrayed him. The expression : "The vcise
is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau,"
has become a proverb in cases where words and
deeds do not correspond.

14. The first appearance of the kiss in this nar-
rative presents this symbol of ancient love to our view
in both its aspects. The kiss of Christian brother-
hood and the kiss of Judas are here enclosed in one.

15. Just as the starry heavens constituted the
symbol of the divine promise for Abraham, so the
blooming, fragrant, and fruitlul fields are the symbol
to Isaac. In this also may be seen and employed
the antithesis between the first, who dwelt under the
rustling oaks, and of the other, who sat by the side
of springirjg fountains. The symbol of promise de-
scends from heaven to earth.

HOMILETICAi AND PRACTICAL.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. Ppon
the whole the present narrative is both a patriarchal
family picture and a religious picture of history
— Domestic life and domestic sorrow in Isaac's house.
— In the homes of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. — The blind Isaac: 1. Blind in two re-
spects ; and 2. yet a clear-sighted prophet. — How
Isaac blesses his sons : 1. How he intends to bless
them ; 2. how he is constrained to bless them. — Hu-
man guilt and divine grace in Isaac's house : 1. The
guilt ; Isaac and Rebekah anticipate divine provi-
dence. They deceive each other. Esau is led to
forget his bargain with Jacob ; Jacob is induced to
deceive his father. Yet the guilt of all is diminished
because they thought that they must help the right
with falsehood. Esau obeys the father, Jacob obeys
the mother. Isaac rests upon the birthright, Re-
bekah upon the divine oracle. 2. God's grace turns
everything to the best, in conformity to divine truth,
but with the condition that all must cipeiate their
aing. — The image of the hereditary curse in the light
of the hereditary blessing, which Isaac ministers : 1.
How the curse obscures the blessing; 2. how the
blessing overcomes the curse. — The characters men-
tioned in our narrative viewed as to their contrasts :
1. Isaac and Rebekah; 2. Jacob and Esau ; 3. Isaac
and Jacob; 4. Isaac and Esau; 5. Rebekah and
Esau; 6. Rebekah and Jacob.— The cunning of a
theocratic disposition purified and raised to the pru-
dence of the ecclesiastical spirit. — God's election is
sure : 1. In the heights of heaven ; 2. in tno depths
of human hearts ; 3. in the providence of grace ;
4. in the course of history. — The clear stream of th«
divine government runs through all human errors,
and that: 1. Tor salvation to behevers ; 2. for judg-
ment to unbelievers.

Tu Section First, vers. 1-4. Isaac's infircjitv oi"

518

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

age, and his faith ; 1. In what manner the infirmity
of age obscured his faith ; 2 how faith breaks
through the infirmities of age. — Isaac's bUndiiess.
—The sufferings of old age. — Thethouglit of death:
1. Though beneficial in itself ; 2. may yet be prema-
ture.— -The hasty making of wills. — We must not
•uticipate God. — Not act in uncertainty of heart. —
The preference of the parents for the children dif-
ferent in characterfrom themselves. — The connection
of hunting and the enjoyment of its fmits, with the
divine blessing of promise ; 1. Incomprehensible as
a union of the most diverse things ; 2. comprehen-
sible as a device of human prudence ; 3. made fruit-
less by the interference of another spirit. — Isaac's
secrecy thwarted by Rebekah's cunning device. —
Human right and divine law in conflict with each
other. — Isaac's right and wrong view, and conduct.

Starke : It is a great blessing of God, if he pre-
s^ves our sight not only in youth, but also in old
age (Dent, xxxiv. 7). — Cramer : A blind man, a poor
man (Tob. v. 12). — Old age itself is a sickness (2
Sam. xix. 35). — If you are deprived of the eyes of
your body, see that you do not lose the eye of faith
(Ps. xxxix. 5, 6). — A Christian ought to do nothing
from passion, but to judge only by the word of
God. — Bibl. Tub.: Parents are to bless their children
before they die ; but the blessing must be conformed
to the divine will (ch. xlviii. 5). Doubtless Jacob,
taught by Isaac's error, learned to bless his children
better ; i. e., in a less restricted manner. — (The Rab-
bins assert that Isaac desired venison before his pro-
nouncing the blessing, because it was customary that
the son about to receive the blessing should perform
some special act of love to his father.) — Osiandek :
It is probable that Isaac demanded something better
than ordinary, because this was to be also a peculiar
day. To all appearance it was a divine providence
through which Jacob gains time to obtain and bear
away the blessing before hun. — Schkoder ; Contem-
plative men like Isaac easily undermine their
health (?). — Experience teaches us that nature-; like
that of Isaac are more exposed to blindness than
others. Shut in entirely from the external world,
their eyes are soon entirely closed to it. — The son, by
some embodiment of his filial love, shows himself as
son, in order that the father on his part also, may,
through the act of blessing, show himself to be a
father. — Love looks for love. — Thus the blessing may
be considered not so much as belonging to the priv-
ilege of the first-born, but rather as constituting a
rightful claim to these privileges.

Section Second, •vets. 16-17. Rebekah's counter-
scheme opposed to Isaac's scheme. — Rebekah's
right and wrong thought and conduct. — Rebekah
protectress of the right of Jacob's election opposed
to Isaac the elect. — Jacob's persuasion; 1. The
mother's faith and her wrong view of it : 2. .The faith
of the son and hie erroneous view. — Jacob's doubt
and Rebekah's confidence. — The defect in his hesita-
tion (it was not a fear of sin, but a fear of the evil
consequences). — The defect in the confidence (not in
the certainty itself, but its application). — The cun-
ning mother and the cunning son. — Both too can-
ting in this case. — Their sufferings for it — God's
commai dment is of more weight than the parental
authority, than all human commands generally.

Starke : Some commentators are very severe upon
Rebekah (Sauri.v, ZfiscoMC! XXVIII; others on the
contrary (C^ilvin and others), praise her faith, her
cmining, her righteousness (because Esau as a bold
scoffer, had sold his birthright), her fear of God

(abhorrence of the Canaanitish natuie). (We mnsi
add, however, that Calvin also marks the mean!
which Rebekah uses as evil.) — Rebekah, truly, had
acted in a human way, striving by unlawful meanj
to attain a good end. — Bibl. Wirt : If the Word ol
God is on our side we must not indeed depart from
it, but neither must we undertake to bring about
what it holds before us by unlawful means, but look
to God, who knows what means to use, and how
and when to fulfil his word. — Bibl. Tiib: Godmakea
even the errors of the pious to work good, if theii
heart is sincere and upright ; yet we are not to imi-
tate their errors.

Geelach : Though staining greatly, as she did
the divine promise by her deception, yet at the tam
time her excellent faith shines out through the hig.
tory. She did not fear to arouse the brother's
deadly hatred against Jacob, to bring her favorite son
into danger of his life and to excite her husband
against her, because the inheritance promised by
God stood before her, and she knew God had
promised it to Jacob. (Calvin). — Scbeodee : (Mi-
CHAELis : The kids of the goats can be prepared in
such a way as to taste like venison.) Isaac now abides
by the rule, but Rebekah insists upon an exception
(Luther). — The premature grasping bargain of Jacob
(ch. XXV. 29, etc.,) is the reason that God is here
anticipated again by Rebekuh, and Jacob's sinful
cunning, so that the bargain again turns out badly. —
Luther, holding that the law is annulled by God
himself, concludes : Where there is no law, there is
no transgression, therefore, she has not sinned (! ?) —
Both (sons) were already 77 years old. The fact,
that Jacob, at such an age, was still under maternal
control, was grounded deeply in his individuality
(ch. XXV. 27), as well as in the congeniality which
existed between Jacob and his mother. Esau, sure-
ly, was passed from under Rebekah's control already
at the age of ten years.

Section Tliird, vers. 18-29. Isaac's blessing
upon Jacob : 1 . In its human aspect ; 2. in its di-
vine aspect. — The divine providence controlling
Isaac's plan : Abraham, Isaac and Esau. — Jacob, in
Esau's garments, betrayed by his voice : 1. Almost
betrayed immediately ; 2. afterwards clearly betray-
ed.— Isaac's solicitude, or all care in the service of
sin and error gains nothing. — Jacob's examination.
— The voice is Jacob's voice, the hands are Esau's
hands. — Isaac's blessing : 1. According to its exter-
nal and its typical significance ; 2. in its relation to
Abraham's promise and the blessing of Jacob. — Its
new thoughts: the holy sovereignty, the gathering
of a holy people, the germ of the announcenjent of a
holy kingdom. Isaac's inheritance : a kingdom of na-
tiouB, a church of nations. — The fulfilment of the bles-
sing : 1, In an external or typical sense : David's king-
dom ; 2. in a spiritual sense : the kingdom of Christ.

Starkb : Jacob, perhaps, thought with a coutrita
heart of the abase of strange raiment, when the
bloody coat of Joseph was shown to him. To say
nothing of the cross caused l*y children, which, no
doubt, is tlie most severe cross to pious parents in
this world, and with which the pious Jacob often
met (Dinah's rape, Benjamin's diSBcult birth, Sim
eon's and Levi's bloody weapons, Reuben's incest,
Joseph's history, Judah'e history, ch. xxxviii., etc.).
For Jacob sinned: 1. In speaking contrary to the
truth, and twice passing himself for Esau ; 2. in
really practising fraud by means of strange raiment
and false pretences ; 3. in his abuse of the name ol
God (ver. 20) ; 4. in taking advantage of his father'l

CHAPS. XXVII.— XXVIII. 1-9.

51S

treakueas. — Tet God bore with his errors, like
Isaac, etc.

Ver. 26 : a colle(!tion of different places in which
we read of a kiss or kisses (see Concordance). — That
this uttered blessing is to be received not only ac-
cording to the letter, but also in a deeper, secret
Mnse, is apparent from Hebr. xi. 20, where Paul
gays : that bj faith Isaac blessed his son, of which
faith the Messiah was the theme.

Geelaoh: The goal and central point of this
blessing is the word: be lord over thy brethren.
For this implies that he was to be the bearer of the
blessing, while the others should only have a
share in his enjoyment. — Lrsco : Earthly blessing
(Deut. xxxiii. 28). — Cursed be, etc. He who
loves the friends of God, loves God himself; he who
hates them, hates him ; they are the apple of his
eye. — Calwer Handbuch : The more pleasant the
fragrance of the flowers and herbs of the field, the
richer is the blessing. Earthly blessings are a sym-
bol and pledge to the father of divine grace. — Power
and sway: The people blessed of the Lord must
stand at the head of nations, in order to impart a
bler'sing to all. — Isaac, much against his will, blesses
him whom Jehovah designs to bless. — Scheodke :
Ah, the voice, the voice (of Jacob) ! I should have
dropped the dish and run away (Luther). — Thus also
the servants of God sow the seed of redemption
among men, not knowing where and how it is to
bring fruits. God does not limit the authority
granted to them by their knowledge and wisdom.
The virtue and efficacy of the sacraments by no
means depend, as the Papists think, upon the inten-
tion of the person who administers them (Calvin). —
(Esau's goodly raiment ; Jewish tradition holds these
to be the same made by God himself for the first
parents (eh. iii. 21), and it attributes to the person
wearing them the power even of taming wild beasts.
— The inhabitants of South Asia are accustomed
to scent their garments in different ways. By
means of fragrant oils extracted from spices, etc.
(Michaehs). — Smell of a field. Herodotus says, All
Arabia exhales fragrant odors.) — Thus he wished
that the land of Canaan shouid be to them a pattern
and pledge of the heavenly inheritance (Calvin). —
Dew, corn, wine, are symbols of the blessings of
the kingdom of grace and glory (Ramb.). — That
curseth, thee. Here it is made known, that the true
church is to exist among the descendants of Jacob.
The three different members of the blessing contain
the three prerogatives of the first-born : 1. The
double inheritance. Canaan was twice as large and
fruitful as the country of the Edomites ; 2. the do-
minion over his brethren ; 3. the priesthood which
walks with blessings, and finally passes over to
Christ, the source of all blessing (Rambach). —
Luther calls the first part of the blessing : the food
of the body, the daily bread ; the second part : the
secular government ; the third part : the spiritual
priesthood, and places in this last part the dear and
sacred cross, and at the same time also, the victory
in and with the cross. In Christ, the true Israel of
all times, rules the people and nations.

To Section Fourth, vers. 30-40. Esau comes too
tale: 1. Because he wished to obtain the divine
k>;S3ing of promise by hunting (by running and
Itriving, etc.) (Rom. ix. 16); 2. he wished to gain it,
after he had sold it; 3. he wished to acquire it,
without comprehending its significance ; and, 4.
without its being intended for him by the divine
lef ree, \nd any fltuess of mind for it. — Isaac's trem-

bling and terror are an indication that his eyes ar«
opened, because he sees the finger of God and no(
the hand of man. — Esau's lamentation opposed to hif
father's firmness : 1. A passion instead of godlj
sorrow; 2. connected with the illusion that holj
things may be treated arbitrarily ; 3. referring to the
external detriment but not to the internal loss. — ■
Esau's misunderstanding a type of the misnndei^
stiinding of the worldly-minded in regard to divine
things : 1. That the plan of divine salvation was the
work of man ; 2. the blessing of salvation was a
matter of human caprice ; 3. that the kingdom of
God was an external affair. — Esau's blessing tha
type: 1. Of his character; 2. of his choice: 3. of
his apparent satisfaction. — Here Isaac and Esau are
now for the first time opposed to each other in their
complete antithesis : Isaac in his prophetic greatness
and clearness opposed to Esau in his sad and carnal
indiscretion and passionate conduct.

Staeke: Ver. 30. Divine providence is here at
work. — Ver. 33. This exceedingly great amazement
came from God. — Cea.mee: God rules and determines
the time ; the clockwork is in his hands, he can pro-
long it, and he can shorten it, according to his plea-
sure, and if he governs anything, he knows how to
arrange time and circumstances, and the men who
live in that time, in such a way that they do not ap-
pear before or after he wishes them to come. Chris-
tian, commend to him, therefore, thy affairs (Ps.
xxxi. 17 ; Gal. iv. 4). — Hall : God knows both time
and means to call back his people, to obviate their
sins, and to correct their errors (Heb. xii. 17). —
Lange : Isaac did not approve of the manner and
means, but the event itself he considers as irrev-
ocable, as soon as he recognizes that God, on
account of the unfitness of Esau, has so arranged it.
While, therefore, we do not ascribe to God any active
working of evil, we concede that, by his wisdom, he
knows how to control the errors of men, especially
of believers, to a good purpose. — -Ver. 3B. Thus ui-
solent sinners roll the blame upon others. — Ver. 37.
The word ' ' Lord " is rendered remarkably prominent,
since it appears only here and ver. 29. Just as if,
out of Jacob's loins alone would come the mightiest
and most powerful lords, princes, and kings, espe-
cially the strong and mighty Messiah. — Hall : Tears
flowing from revenge, jealousy, carnal appetites, and
worldly cares, cause death (2 Cor. vii. 10). God's
word remains forever, and never falls to the ground.
— Calwer jEfa«d6-«cA.- Ver. 36. And still Esau had
sold it. — He lamented the misfortune only, not his
carelessness ; he regretted only the earthly in the
blessing, but not the grace.

SOHEODEE : Then cried he a great cry, great ana
bitter exceedirig 'y. This is the perfectly (?) natural,
unrestrained outbreaking of a natural man, to whom,
because he lives only for the present, every ground
gives way beneath his feet when the present is lost.

To Isaac's exp'anat.on that the blessing was gone.
Here also a heroic cast is given to the quiet, retiring,
and often unobserved love. — The aged, feeble, and
infirm Isaac celebrates upon his couch a similar
triumph of love, just as the faith of his father tri-
umphed upon Mt. Moriah, etc. (i. e., he sacrifices to
the Lord his preference for Esau). — The world to-
day still preserves the same mode of thinking; it
sells the blessing of the new birth, etc., and still
claims to inherit this blessing (Roos). — Esau, and
perhaps Isaac also, thought probably by the blessing
to invalidate the fatal bargain as to the birthright, —
He only bewails the consequences of his sin but h«

620

GENESIS, OR THE FIKST BOOK OF MOSES.

has no tears for the sin itself. — The question here
was properly not about salvation and condemnation.
Salvation was not refused to Esau, but he serves as a
warning to us all, by his cries full of anguish, not to
neglect the grace of God (Eoos). — Emu's blessing.
Esau appealed to the paternal heart, and with the
true objective character of the God of the patriarch,
Isaac neither could nor should deny his own paternal
character. — Now he has no birthright to give away,
aad therefore no solemn : and he blessed him, occurs
heiB. — (Descriptions of the Idumaean country and
people follow).

Section Fifth. Vers. 41—46. Esau's hatred of Ja-
cob : 1. In its moral aspect ; 2. in its typical signifi-
cance.— Want of self-knowledge a cause of Esau's
enmity. — Esau inclined to fratricide : 1. Incited by
envy, animosity, and revenge ; 2. checked by piety
toward the father ; 3. prevented by his frankness
and out-spoken character, as well as by Rebekah's
sagacity. — Kebekah's repentance changed into an
atonement by the heroic valor of her faith. — Rebe-
kah's sacrifice. — How this sagacious and heroic-
minded woman makes a, virtue (Jacob's theocratic
wooing for a bride) of neces.sity (the peril of Jacob's
life).

Starke : Ver. 44. These few days became twenty
years. — Ver. 45. That Rebekab did this, is not men-
tioned in any place. Probably she died soon after,
and therefore did not live to see Jacob's return (ch.
xlix. 31 ; Matt. v. 22; I John iii. 16 ; Prov. xxvii. 4).
— Cramer ; Whatever serves to increase contention
and strife, we are to conceal, to trample upon, and
to turn everything to the best (Matt. v. 9). — Ger-
LACH : Ver. 41. This trait represents to us Esau most
truthfully ; the worst thing in his conduct, however,
is not the savage desire of revenge, but the entire
unbelief in God and the reluctance to subject him-
self to him. Whilst Isaac submitted uncouditionally
as soon as God decided, Esau did not care at all for
the divine decision. — Calwer Handbuch : He did
not think of the divine hand in the matter, nor of
his own guilt, sell-knowledge, or repentance. —
Schroder : God never punishes his people without
correcting grace is made also purifying grace at the
same time(Roos). — As Esau had only cries and tears
at first, he now has only anger and indignation. —
Ver. 41. " Repentance and its fruits correspond "
(L'ltLer). — AH revenge is self-consolation. True

consolation under injustice comes from God (Rom
xii. 19). — And he forgets what thou hast done to him
With this she both acknowledges Jacob's guilt and
betrays a precise knowledge of Esau's character.—
Let us not despair too soon of men. Are there riot
twelve hours during the day ? The gieat fury and
fiery indignation pass away with time (Luther).—
How sagacious this pious woman : she conceals to hei
husband the great misfortune and aflBiciion existing
in the house so as not to bring sorrow upon Isaac in
his old age (Luther).

Section Sixth, ch. xxviii. 1-8. Jacob's mission to
Mesopotamia compared with that of Eliezer : ? Its
agreement ; 2. its diiference.— Isaac now volunuirily
blesses Jacob. — The necessity of this pious house
becomes the source of new blessings : 1. The feeble
Isaac becomes a hero ; 2. the plain and quiet Jacob
becomes a courageous pilgrim and soldier ; 3. the
strong-minded Rebekah becomes a person that sac-
rifices her most dearly loved. — How late the full
self-development of both Jacob's and Es<iu's charac-
ter appears. — Jacob's prompt obedience and Esau's
foolish correction of his errors. — The church is a
comnmnity of nations, typified already by the theo-
cracy.

Staeke : Concenung the duties of parents and
children as to the marriage of their children. — The
dangers of injudicious marriages. — Parents can give
to their children no better provision on their way
than a Chris ian blessing (Tob. v. 21 ). — Bibl. Tu . :
The blessing of ancestors, rci^ting upon the descend-
ants is a great treasure, and to be preserved as the
true and the best dowry. — Calwer Handbuch : He
goes out of spite (or at least in his folly and self-
will) to the daughters of Ishinael, and takes a third
wife as near of kin to his father as the one Jacob
takes was to his mother. (But the distinction was
that Ishmael was separated from the theocratic line,
while the liouse in Mesopotamia belonged to the old
stock.) — Schroder : Rebekah, who in her want of
faith could not wait for divine guidance, has now to
exercise her faith for long years, and learn to wait.
— Isaac appears fully reconciled to Jacob. — In the
eyes of Isaac his fat/ier. He does not care about
the mother. — Thus natural men never find the right
way to please God and their fellow-men whom they
have offended, nor the true way of reconciliation
with them {Bed. £ibel.).

JACOB.-ISRAEL, THE WRESTLER WITH GOD, AND HIS WANDERINGS.
FIRST SECTION.

Jacob's journey to Mesopotamia, and the heavenly Ladder at Bethel.

Chapter XXVIII. 10-22.

1«), 11 And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted
upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the .sun was set ; and he took
of the stones [oneofttieBtones] of that place, and put them [it] for his pillows, and lav

12 down in that place to sleep. And [then] he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the

CHAP. XXVm. 10-22.

521

oarth, and the top of it reached [was reaching] to heaven: and oehold, the angels of Gee

' 3 [were] ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood [was standing] above

it : and said, I am the Lord God [jehovah, the Ood] of Abraham thy father, and the God

14 of Isaac : the land whereon thou hest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed ; And thy
seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west [evening],
and to the east [morning], and to the north [midnight], and to the south [midday] : and in

15 thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And behold, I am
with thee, and will keep thee in all places [everywhere] whither thou goest, and will bung
thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have

spoken to thee of [promised thee].

16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said. Surely the Lord is in this place,

17 and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful [awful] is this place!

18 this.j5 none other but the house of God, and this [here] is the gate of heaven. And
Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows,

19 and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name
of that place Bethel [house of God] ; but the name of that city was called [earlier] Luz at

20 the first. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying. If God [EioWm] will be with me, and wil
keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,

2 1 So that I come again to my father's house in peace [in prosperity] ; then shall the Lord

22 [Jehovah] be my God : And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God'a
house : and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

PKELIMINAKX REMAKE.

Jacob's divine election, as well as the spirit of
His inward life and the working of his faith, first ap-
pear in a bright light in his emigration, his dream,
and his vow.

EXEGETICAl AND CRITICAL.

1. JacoVs eTniffration^ his night-quarters^ and
dream (vers. 10-15). — Went out from Beer-sheba.
— Tlie journey from Beer-sheba to Harau leads the
pilgrim through a great part of Canaan, in a direc-
tion from south to north, then crossing the Jordan,
and passing through Gilead, Bashan, and Damascus,
he comes to Mesopotamia. It was the same journey
that Abraham, and afterwards Eliezer, had already
made, well known to the patriarchal family. — And
he lighted upon a certain place. — Not after the
first day's journey, but after several days' journey
(see ch. xxii. 4). Bethel (see ver. 19), or originally
Luz, Aouira, was situated in the mountain of Ephraim,
on the way from Jerusalem to Shechem, probably
the present Beitin ; more than three hours north of
Jerusalem (see Dictionaries, especially Winer, and
books of travels, particularly Eobinson, li. pp. 125-
130). — He lighted upon. — By this expression the
place in which he took up his night-quarters, in the
open air, is distinguished from the city already exist-
ing.— And tarried there all night. — After the sun
went down, indicating an active journey. Even at
tlie present date it frequently occurs that pilgrims in
those countries, wrapped in their cloaks, spend the
night in the open air, during the more favorable
seasons of the year — He took of the atones. —
" One of the stones." A atone becomes his pillow.
Thus he rests upon the solitary mountain, with no

lovering but the sity. — And he dreamed In his

tream a strange niglit-vision cornea to him, and it
Mloiigs (•) his pecuhar character that in this condi-

tion he is susceptible of this dream. " Here he
sleeps upon a hard pillow, exiled from his father's
house, with deep anxiety approaching an uncertain
future, and intentionally avoiding intercouise with
his fellow-men ; a stranger, in solitude and without
shelter." Delitzsch. The dream-vision is so glori-
ous, that the narrator represents it by a threefold
nsri . The participles, too, serve to give a more
vivid representation. The connection between
heaven and earth, and now especially between
heaven and the place where the poor fugitive sleeps,
is represented in three different forms, increasing in
fulness and strength ; the ladder, not too short, but
resting firmly on the earth below and extending up to
heaven ; the angels of God, appearing in great num-
bers, passing up and down the ladder as the messen-
gers of God ; ascending as the invisible companions
of the wanderer, to report about hkn, and as medi-
ators of his prayers ; descending as heavenly guar-
dians and mediators of the blessing; finally, Jehovah
himself standing above the laddei; henceforth the
covenant God of Jacob, just as he had hitherto been
the covenant God of Abraham and Isaac. [It is a
beautiful and striking image of the reconciliation and
mediation eifected by the Angel of the Covenant.
See John i. 61.— A. G.] — Jehovah, the God of
Abraham. — According to Knobel, this is an addi-
tion of the Jehovistic enlargement, which does not
fit the connection here, where the question is simply
about Jacob's protection and guidance. Just as if
this could be detached from his theocratic position
and importance ! First of all, Jacob must row
know that Jehovah is with him as his God ; that Ihe
God of Abraham — his ancestor in faith — and the
God of Isaac, will henceforth also prove himself to
be the God of Jacob. — The land whereon thou
liest. — The ground on which he sleeps as a fugitive
is to be his possession, to its widest limits. Canaan,
from the heights of Bethel, extends in all livections
far and wide. His couch upon the bare ground ii
changed into an ideal possession of the country.—
As the dust of the earth (see ch. xxii. 17 ; xxvf

522

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

4). — To one sleeping upon the bare ground, this new
symbol of the old promise was peculiarly strildng.—
Thou Shalt spread abroad. — The wide, indefinite
extension to all quarters of the heavens, introduces
the thought, that all the nations of the earth are to
be blessed in him. [That which is here promised
transcends the destiny of the natural seed of Abra-
ham. Mdbpht, p. 386.— A. G.] In the light of
this promise, the personal protection and guidance
here promised to him has its full significance and
certainty. Jehovah guarantees the security of his
journey, of the end sought, of his return, and finally,
of the divine promises given to him. But the secu-
rity against Esau is not yet clearly given to him ;
St 11 the expression: / will not leave thee, until —
does not mean, that he would at one time forsake
him, but indicates the infallible fulfilment of all the
promises. [The dream-vision is a comprehensive
summary of the history of the Old Covenant. As
Jacob is now at the starting-point of his independent
development, Jehovah now standing above the lad-
der, appears in the beginning of his descent, and
since the end of the ladder is by Jacob, it is clear
that Jehovah descends to him, the ancestor and rep-
resentative of the chosen people. But the whole
history of the Old Covenant is nothing else than, on
one side, the history of the successive descending
of God, to the incarnation in the seed of Jacob, and,
on the other, the successive steps of progress in
Jacob and his seed towards the preparation to receive
the personal fulness of the divine nature into itself
The vision reaches its fulfilment and goal iji the
sinking of the personal fulness of God into the help-
less and weak human nature in the incarnation of
Christ. Knrtz.— A. G.]

2. Jacobus awaking, his tnorydng solemnitp, and
vow (vers. 16-22). — Surely the Lord. — The belief
in the omnipresence of God was a part of the faith
of Abraham's house. And that God was even pres-
ent here, he did not first learn on this occasion (as
Knobel seems to think), but it is new to him that
Jehovah, as the covenant God, revealed himself not
only at the consecrated altars of his fathers, but even
.acre. Jacob (who was not to take, and did not
desire to take, any of the Canaanitish women), prob-
ably from religious zeal, avoided taking up his abode
for the night in the heathen city, Luz. Generally,
indeed, he would feel ill at ease in a profane and
heathenish country. The greater, therefore, is his
surprise, that Elohim here reveals himself to him,
and that as Jehovah. — How dreadful (see Exod.
iii. 5) — House of God. — The dreadfulness of the
place results from the awe-inspiring presence of the
God of revelation. The place, therefore, is to him a
house of God, a Bethel, and the Bethel is to him at
the same time the door of heaven. He feels as a
sinner rebuked and punished at this aacred place ;
he trembles and is filled with holy awe, but not dis-
heartened. He did not tremble before men nor wild
beasts, but now he trembles before Jehovah in his
sanctuary, but it is the trembling of a pious confi-
dence.— And he set it up for a pillar. — Calvin :
" A striking monument of the vision." We must
here distinguish between the stone for a pillar, as a
memorial of divine help, as Joshua and Samuel
erected pillars (ch. xxxi. 45 ; xxxv. 14 ; Josh. iv. 9,
20; xxiv 26; 1 Sam. vii. 12); and the anointing
of the stone with oil, which consecrated it to Jeho-
vah's sanctuary (Exod. xx. 30). In the same manner,
we must distinguish, on the one hand, between the
cousecrated stone of Jacob, which marked the place

as an ideal house of God and a future place for sao
rifice (see ch. xxxv. 15 ; ch. xxxv. 7), and in an un.
conscious typical prophecy the place of the futur*
tabernacle, and, on the other hand, the anointed
stones worshipped with religious veneration (whence
the expression : " Oelgotze," idoLs of oil), and espe-
cially the stones supposed in the heathen world to
have fallen from heaven, by whose names we ara
reminded of Bethel, but whose worship, however,
is not to be derived from Jacob's conduct at Bethel
(see Keil, p. 302 ; Knobel, p. 239 ; Delitzsch, p.
460 ; Winer, " Stones ").— Called the name.—
Knobel : " According to the Elohist, he assigns the
name at his return (xxxv. 15)." The naming at the
last-quoted place, however, clearly expresses the
execution of his purpose to sacrifice upon the stone,
and thus to change it from an ideal to an actual
Bethel, a place for the worship of God. It is evident
that this naming of Luz, or the place near by, was
of importance only to Jacob and his house, and that
the Canaanites called the city Luz now as before,
until it became a Hebrew city. According to Keil,
Jacob himself called the city Luz by the name of
Bethel, but not the place where the pillar was erect-
ed. This would be very strange, and it is not proved
by ch. xlviii. 3, where Jacob in Egypt characterizes
in general the region of this divine revelation. From
Josh. xvi. 2 ; xviii. 13, too, we receive the impression
that Luz and Bethel, strictly taken, were two sepa.
rate places ; for Jacob had not passed the night in
the city of Luz, but in the fields or upon the moun-
tain, in the open air. Generally, the whole region
was called Luz, in the time of the Canaanites, but
Bethel at the time of the Israelites. — ^Vowed a
VOTV. — The vow seems to unite the faith in Jehovah
with external and personal interests. But the fol-
lowing points should be considered : First, the vow
is only an explanation and a|ipropriati(o of the
promise immediately preceding; second, t is a very
modest appropriation of it (meat and drink and rai-
ment) ; thirdly, Jacob emphasizes espe ;ially that
point which the promise had left dark for his further
trial (ch. xxxii. 7), viz., the desire to ret im to bis
paternal home in peace, i. e., especially, free from
Esau's avenging threats. — -The vow too: Then shall
the Lord he my God, is emphatical, and explains
itself by the following promises. Jacob fulfilled the
first after his return (ch. xxxv. 7 ; ver. IB), and Israel
fulfilled it more completely. The tithes, that first
appear in Abraham's history (ch. xiv. 20 J, were no
doubt employed by Jacob, at his return, for burnt-
offerings and thank-offerings and charitable gifts (see
below) (ch. xxxi. 64 ; xlvi. 1). [Murphy says, the
TOW of Jacob is a step in advance of his predeces-
sors. It is the spirit of adoptioii working in him.
It is the grand and solemn expression of the soul's
free, full, and perpetual acceptance of the Lord to
be its own God. The words, If God will be with
nie, do not express the condition on which Jacob
will accept God, but are the echo and thankful ac-
knowledgment of the divine assurance, I am with
thee. The stone shall be God's bouse, a monument
of the presence and dwelling of God with his people.
Here it signalizes the grateful and loving welcome
which God receives from his saints. The tenth ia
the share of all given to God, as representing the full
share, the whole which belongs to lum. Thus Jacob
opens his heart, his home, and his treasure, to God.
As the Father is prominently manifested in Abrtt
ham, and the Son in Isaac, so also the Spirit ia
Jacob. — A. G.]

CHAP. XXVIII. 10-22.

52S

DOCTEINAIi AND ETHICAL.

1. Jacob's pilgrimage. The patriarchs pilgrims
of God (Heb. xi.).

2. From Isaac onward the night dream-vision is
the fundamental form of revelation in the history of
the patriarchs. — Consecrated night-life: 1. As to the
occasion : In the most helpiess situation, the most
solemn and glorious dream. 2. As to the form : A
divine revelation in the dream-vision : a. miracles of
sight, symbols of salvation; b. miracles of the ear,
promise of salvation. 3. As to its contents : The
images of the vision : a. the ladder ; b. angels, as-
cending and descending; c. Jehovah standing above
the ladder and speaking. — The words of the vision,
or the centre of the whole vision (Calov. : Verbwm
dei quasi anima viaionis). General promise ; indi-
vidual promise.

3. The rainbow in the brightness of its colors,
though soon vanishing away, proclaims the mercy of
God, descending from heaven, and ruling over the
earth ; but Jacob's ladder expresses more definitely
the connecting and living intercourse between heaven
and eartli. The ladder reaching down from heaven
to earth, designates the revelations, the words, and
promises of God ; the ladder reaching upwards from
earth to heaven, indicates faith, sighs, confession,
and prayer. The angels ascending and descending,
are messengers and the symbols of the reality of
a personal intercourse between Jehovah and hia
people.

4. The angelic world develops itself gradually.
Here they appear in great numbers, after having been
preceded by the symbolic cherubim and the two an-
gels, in company wiih the Angel of the Lord : 1.
These hosts, however, appear in the vision of a dream ;
2. they ascend and descend on the ladder ; it does
not appear, therefore, that they flew. They do not
speak, but Jehovah speaks above them. Neverthe-
less, they indicate the living communion between
heaven and earth, the longing for another world,
weU known to the Lord in the heavens ; the help
and salvation which comes from above, and with
which believing hearts are well acquainted, and the
ascending and descending signifies that personal life
is only mediated and introduced through personal
life. They carry on this mediation, beariilg upwards
from earth reports and prayers, and from heaven to
earth protection and blessings.

5. In this vision and guidance of Jacob the
Angel of the Lord unfolds and reveals his peculiar
nature in a marked antithesis. Jehovah is the one
peculiar personality who, exalted above the multi-
tude of angels, begins to speak, receives and gives
the word.

6. Christ brings out the complete fulfilment of
'Jacob's vision, John i. 62. From this exegesis of the
Lord it follows that Jacob, now already as Israel
(see John i. 4Y ; ver. 49), not only beheld a constant
intercourse between heaven and earth, but foresaw
also, in an unconscious, typical representation, the
gradual incarnation of God. Baumgaeten : " The
olJ i'lthers, and even Luther and Calvin, are too rash
in regarding the ladder, directly and by itself, as the
87nbol cf the mystery of the incarnation. The lad-
d \* tseU cannot be compared with Christ, but Jacob,
w'lo beholds the ladder," etc. No doubt, Jacob, ir
his vision, is a type of Christ, and Baumgarten cor-
rectly says : " As far as a dream (it is, the night-
risiou of a believer) stands below the reality, and

things that happen but once below those that coiv
tinually occur, so far Jacob stands below Christ.'
Tet the mutual relation and intercourse betweeE
God and the elect, which is the result of t.^e ad
vent of Christ, was doubtless typified by this lad
der.

7. From Jacob's ladder we receive the first defi-
nite intimation that beyond Sheol, heaven istheboma
of man.

8. Just as Jacob established his Bethel at hij
lonely lodging-place, so Christians have founded theij
churches upon Golgothas, over the tombs of martyrs,
and over crypts ; and this all in a symbolic sense.
The church, as well as Christians, has come out of
great tribulations. — But every true house of God is
also, as such, a gate of heaven.

9. The application of oil also, which afterwards,
in a religious sense, as a a symbol of the spirit, runs
through the entire Scriptures, we find here first men-
tioned.

10. Jacob's vow is to be understood from the
preceding promise of the Lord. It was to be uttered,
according to the human nature, in his waking state,
and is the answer to the divine promise.

1 1. As to the tithes and vows, see Dictionaries.
Geelach : " The number ' ten ' being the one that
concludes the prime numbers, expresses the idea of
completion, of some whole thing. Almost all na-
tions, in paying tithes of all their income, and fre-
quently, indeed, as a sacred revenue, thus wished to
testify that their whole property belonged to God,
and thus to have a sanctified use and enjoyment of
what was left.

12. The idea of Jacob's ladder, of the protecting
hosts of angels, of the house of God amd its sublime
terrors, of the gate of heaven, of the symbolical
significance of the oil, of the vow, and of the tithes
— all these constitute a blessing of this consecrated
night of Jacob's life.

13. Jacob does not think that Jehovah's revela-
tion to him was confined to this place of Bethel. He
does not interpret the sacredness of the place in a
heathen way, as an external thing, but theocratically
and symbolically. Through Jehovah's revelation,
this place, which is viewed as a heathen waste, be-
comes to him a house of God, and therefore he con-
secrates it to a permanent sanctuary.

14. Vers. 20, 21. Briefiy : If God is to me Je-
hovah, then Jehovah shall be to me God. If the
Lord of the angels and the world proves himself to
me a covenant God, then I will glorify in my cove-
nant God, the Lord of the whole world. [There is
clear evidence that Jacob was now a child of God.
He takes God to be his God in covenant, with whom
he will live. He goes out in reliance upon the divine
promise, and yields himself to the divine control,
rendering to God the homage of a loving and grate-
ful heart. But what a progress there is between
Bethel and Peniel. Grace reigns within him, but not
without a conflict. The powers and tendencies of
evil are still at work. He yields too readily to their
urgent solicitations. Still grace and the principles
of the renewed man, gain a stronger hold, and be-
come more and more controlling. Under the loving
but faithful discipline of God, he is gaining in hia
faith, until, in the great crisis of his life, Malianaim
and Peniel, and the new revelations theu given to
him, it receives a large and sudden increase. He
is thenceforward trusting, serene, and established,
strengthened and settled, and passes into the quia!
life of the triumphant believer. — A. G.]

!)24

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OP MOSES.

HOMILETICAL AND PEACTICAL.

See Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. — Jacob,
tbe third patriarch. How he inherited from his
grandfather: 1. The active deeds of faith, and from
his father ; 2. the endurance of faith, and therefore
even he appears ; 3. as the wrestler of faith. — Or the
patriarch of hope in a special sense. — Jacob's pilgrim-
Bjje. — His couch upon the stony pillow becomes his
Bethel. — The night-vision of Jacob at Bethel becomes
more and more glorious : 1. The ladder ; 2. the angels
ascending and descending; 3. Jehovah and his prom-
ise.— The ladder : a. From heaven to earth : the word
of God ; b. from earth to heaven : prayer (cries and
tears, prayer, intercession, thanks, praise). — The An-
gel of God over our life. — Jehovah speaking above
the silent angels, or the peculiar glory of the word
of God, especially of the gospel. — Jacob's noble
fearlessness, and his holy fear. — Bethel, or the sacred
places and names upon this earth. — Jacob's vow, the
answer to Jehovah's promise. — How the God of
Abraham and Isaac becomes also the God of Jacob,
or, Jehovah always the same in the kingdom of
God ; 1. Tbe living results ; 2. the living nature of
the results.

Section First, -vers. 10-16. Starke: Jacob left
his home secretly and alone, with all possible speed,
before his brother Esau was aware of it. He took
nothing with him but his staff (ch. xxxii. 10). — (Jo-
SEPBOs : Unfavorable opinion of the people at Luz.)
— Jacob, in this wretched condition upon his journey,
1 symbol of the Messiali. (Exphiined allegoricaliy
by Rambach : 1. Wooing a wife in a strange coun-
try; 2. the true heir appearing in poverty; 3. the
sojourn at Bethel. Christ had not where to lay his
head.) — Tliis ladder, a symbol of God's paternal care,
by which, as by a heavenly ladder, heaven and earth
are connected. — But that this ladder was to typify
something far higher, we learn from Christ himself.
The mystery of Christ's incarnation, and of his me-
diatorial office, was typified by this. — Freiberger
Bibel: In this ladder we see the steps and degrees ;
1. Of the state of Christ's humiliation ; 2. of the
state of his exaltation. — Chkysostom : " Faith is the
ladder of Jacob reaching from earth to heaven.—
Bernh. ; The ladder of Jacob is the church, as yet
partly militant upon the earth, and partly triumphant
in heaven. — The Lord (Jehovah). Chaldee: The
glory of the Lord. Arab. : The light of the Lord.
— {Freiberger Bibel : Grotius and Clericns are wrong
in not being willing to give the name, the Angel of
the Lord, to Christ, but to one of the highest angels,
to whom they attribute the name of Jehovah, con-
trary to the sense and usage of the Holy Spirit. ) —
Ver. 15. God, in comforting him, proceeds gradually:
1. He himself is with him, not a mere atigel; 2. he
will bring him back again ; 3. he will never leave
him (Rom. viii. 28). — Parents ought not to bring up
their children too delicately, for they never know in
what circumstances they may be placed.— Hall :
God is generally nearest to us when we are the most
humble. — Bibl. Tub. : Even in his sleep Jacob had
intercourse with the Lord ; in a like manner our
Bleep should be consecrated to the Lord. — Christ,
the true Jacob's ladder (Ps. xci. 2; Isa. xxxiii. 2).

Gerlach : That the angels here neither hover nor
fly, is owing to the representation and typical signifi-
cance of the vision. By this very fact Jacob was as-
sured that the place where his head lies, is the point
to which God sends his angels, in order to execute
his commands concerning him, and to receive com-

munications from him ; a symbol of the loving and
uninterrupted care for his servants, extending to in-
dividuals and minute events, — Ilreadful. "The olo
church called the Lord's supper a dreadful mystery
(fiocramenlum ireinendum). — Lisco : Now Jacob,
like Abraham and Isaac, stands as the elect of Jeho-
vah. This is of greater importance, since Jacob ig
the ancestor of the Israelites only. The promises
of Jehovah, therefore, that were given to him^ must
have appeared as the dearest treasure to his descend-
ants.— Schroder : Ver. 10. Because the sun was set
A symbol corresponding with his inward feeling
The paternal home with the revelations and the wor
ship of the only true God, is far behind him, ?
strange solitude around him, and a position full of
temptation before him. — The living stone, the rock
of salvation, is the antitype of that typical stone in
the wilderness ; do with it what the patriarch did
with his (F. W. Krummacher), Heb. i. 14. — In the
symbol of the ladder lies the piediction of the special
providence of God.— Earth is a court of paradise ;
life, here below, is a short pilgrimage ; our home is
above, and the light of a blessed eternity illuminates
our path (F. W. Krummacher).

Section Second, vers. 16-22. Starke : Surelt,
the Lord. Chald. : The glory of the Lord. — Ver.
17. His feeble nature trembled before this heavenly
manifestation, because he was well aware of his un-
worthiness, and the sublimity of God's majesty con-
sidered in tbe light of the Spirit. — Where God's word
is found, there is a house of God. There heaven
stands open. — (The ancients believed that the divin-
ity, after having forsaken the greater part of the earth
(as to his gracious presence), could be found at that
place, whither they would be called after their departs
ure from Chaldsea (Cyrill Alex.) — Ver. 18. As Jacob
was not induced to set up this stone and worship at
it by any superstition or idolatry, so the papists gain
nothing in deriving their image-worship irom this
act ; although we read in Lev. xxvi. 1 ; Deut. vii. 5 ;
xii. 3. that God has expressly prohibited these things.
— (The Orietitals, in their journeys, use oil for food,
for anointing, and for healing.) — Cramer; Although
the Lord God is everywhere present (Jer. xxiii. 24),
he is yet especially near to his church with his grace,
his spirit, and his bles.<ing (John xiv. 18 ; Matt, xviii.
20). — Bibl. Wirt.: Wherever the Lord God shows
liimself in' his word, or by deeds of his grace, there
is his house, and the gate of heaven, there heaven
with its treasures is open. — A Christian walks with
great reverence and fear before God, and bows in
humble submission before his most sacred majesty.
— (Christ, the corner-stone, anointed with the oil of
gladness.) — Freiberger Bibel : A church, though
built of wood and stones, nevertheless bears this
beautiful title, and is called God's house, or house
of the tord. So frequently were named : a. the
tabernacle (Exod. xxiii. 19 ; xxxiv. 26); b the first
and second temple at Jerusalem, etc. — Vers. 20, 21.
Vows must be regarded as holy. — The duty of grat-
itude.—Whatever a Christian gives to the establkh-
ment of divine service, and to the support of pious
teachers, he gives to God. — Lisco : How God reveals
himself through facts and the experiences of life, by
means of which he enlarges the store of our knowl-
edge (still, not here the knowledge of liis omnipres-
ence).— Gerlach : The vow, which Jacob here took,
was based entirely ui on the promise given to him,
and served as an encouragement to gratitude, tfl
faith, and to obedience, just as afterwards, in th«
law, in a similar way, saciltices were vowed and of

CHAP. XXIX. 1— XXX. 24.

52£

fered. It belonged to the time of childhood under
tutors and governors (Gal. Iv. 1). — The stone is to
become a place of sacrifice. — Calwee Handbuch :
Perhaps Jacob accomplished the vow concerning the
tithes in a similar sense, as at the feast of tithes and
lacrificeS (Dent. xiv. 28, 29), which afterwards oc-
eurred every three years, and at which the Levites,
the stranger, widows, and orphans should be invited,
md at which they should eat and be satisfied. This
feast may, perhaps, have existed voluntarily, before it
became legal and was introduced as a fixed usage. —
Schroder : Generally, the outward connection with
the chosen generation, the residence at a place point-
ed out to them by God, constituted the condition of
a participation in Jehovah. Ishmael, leaving the
paternal home and Canaan, immediately passed over
to Elohim's dominion. By this manifestation the
fear (?) that he, like Ishmael, might be cut off as a
branch from its vine, which soon withereth, is taken
away from Jacob, and the blessing spoken over him
by Isaac at his departure, receives its sanction

(Hengstenberg). (The circumstances weie mor«
personal and intense ; holy persons constituted sa
cred places, not vice versa ; nor did the promise
lie in Isaac's individuality, but in the house of Isaat
and Rebekah, and Jacob was conscious that he was
the heir of blessing. The place of God's special
care, the ideal church of Jehovah now, is also trans-
ferred in a certain sense, from Beer-sheba to Haran.)
— Here God himself erected a pulpit, and preached,
that his church shall stand forever and ever. Bni
Jacob and the angels of heaven are his hearers
But you must not run to St. Jacob, etc., but in faith
look at the place where the word and the sacrament!
are, for there is the house of God, and the gate oi
heaven (Luther). — The oil, which, from without, pen
etrates objects gently but deeply, symbolizes holinesa
which is to be imparted to common things and per-
sons as a permanent character (Baumgarten). — Aa
God has become ours by faith, so we must cheerfully
yield ourselves to our neighbor by love (Berlch
Bibel).

SECOND SECTION.

JacoVs wives and children. Jacob and Rachel, Laban's youngest dauffftter. First and second treaty with
Laban. His involuntary consummation of marriage with Leah, live double marriage. LeaKs sons.
RacheVs dissatisfaction. The strife of the two women. The concubines. Jacob's blessing of
children.

Chapter XXIX. 1— XXX. 24.

1 Then Jacob went on his journey [lifted up his feet] and came [fled] into the land of

2 the people [children] of the east ■ [moming]. And he looked, and behold a well in the
field, and, lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it [before him] ; for out of that

3 well they watered the flocks : and a great stone was upon the well's month. And
thither were all the flocks gathered : and [tiien] they rolled the stone from the well's
mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone again upon the well's mouth in his

4 place. And Jacob said unto them, My brethren, whence he ye ? And they said, Of

5 Haran are we. And he said unto them, Know ye Laban the son of Nahor ? And

6 they said, We know him. And he said unto them, Is he well ? And they said, He is

7 well : and behold, Rachel [iamb, ewe-lamb] his daughter cometh with the sheep. And
[But] he said, Lo, it is yet high day, neither wii time that the cattle should be gathered

8 together : water ye the sheep, and go and feed them. And they said, We cannot, un-
til all the flocks be gathered together, and till [then] they roll the stone from the well's
mouth ; then [and] we water the sheep.

9 And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep: for she
10 kept them. And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban hia

mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, that Jacob went near,
and rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother's
12 brother. And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept. And Jacol:
told Rachel that he was her father's brother [nephew]. And that he was Rebekah's
son ; and she ran and told her father. And it came to pass, when Laban heard the
tidings of Jacob his sister's son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed
him, and brought him to his house. And [Then] he told Laban all these tilings. And
Laban said to him. Surely thou art my bone and my flesh. And he abode with him
the space of a month.

II

14

526 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

15 And Laban said unto Jacob, liecause thou art my brother [relative], shouldest thou

16 therefore serve me for nought? tell me, what shall thy wages he. And Laban had
two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah [scarcely, the wparied ; still less, the dull, stupid,

17 as Fiirst, rather : the pining, yearning, desiring], and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah
was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful [as to form] and well favored [as to countenance].

18 And Jacob loved Rachel : and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy

19 younger daughter. And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee than that 1

20 should give her to another man : abide with me. And [thus] Jacob served seven years
for Rachel; and they seemed unto him [were in his eyesj hut a few days, for the love he
had to her.

21 And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may

22 go in unto her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a

23 feast [wedding feast]. And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daugh-

24 ter, and brought her to him ; and he went in unto her. And Laban gave unto hia

daughter Leah, Zilpah [Maurer : the dewy— from the trickling, dropping ; Flirst : myrrh-juice] his maid,

25 for an handmaid. And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was Leah : and
he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? did [have] not I serve with

26 thee for Rachel ? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said. It must
not be so done [it is not the custom] in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn.

27 Fulfil her [wedding] week [the week of this one— fulfil, etc.— is too stiong], and We will give thee

28 this also, for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. And Jacob
did so, and fulfilled her week : and [then] he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.

29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah [Maurer, Porst : tender. Geaenius : bashful,

30 modest] his handmaid to be her maid. And he went in also unro Rachel, and he loved
hIso Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.

31 And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated [displeasing] he opened her womb:

32 but Rachel loas barren. And Leah conceived, and bare a son ; and she called hia
name Reuben [see there, a son] : for she said. Surely the liord hath looked upon my afflic-

33 tion ; now therefore my husband will love me. And she conceived again, and bare a
son ; and said, Because the Lord hath heard that I was hated, he hath therefore given

34 me this son also : and she called his name Simeon [scUmeon, hearing]. And she conceived
again, and bare a son ; and said, Now this time [at last] will my husband be joined unto
me, because I have borne him three sons : therefore was his name called Levi

35 [joining, cleaving]. And she conceived again, and bare a son; and she said, Now will I
praise the Lord: therefore she called his name Judah [praise of God, literally, praised, viz., be
Jehovah] ; and left bearing.

Ch. XXX. 1. And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied

2 her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob's anger
was kindled against Rachel ; and he said, Am I [then] in God's stead, who haih with-

3 held from thee the fruit of the womb ? And she said. Behold my maid Bilhah, go in
unto her, and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may [and i shall] also have children

4 [behnilt] by her. And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife. And Jacob went
5, 6 in unto her. And Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a son. And Rachel said,

God hath judged me [decreed me my right], and hath also heard my voice, and
hath given me a son: therefore called she his name Dan [Judge ; vindicator].

7 And Bilhah, Rachel's maid, conceived again, and bare Jacob a second son. And

8 Rachel said. With great wrestlings [wrestlings of God, Eiohim] have I wrestled with my
sister, and I have prevailed: and she called his name Naphtali [my conflict or wrestler].

9 [And] When Leah saw that she had left bearing, she took Zilpah, her maid, and gave
10, 1 1 her Jacob to wife. And Zilpah, Leah's maid, bare Jacob a son. And Leah said, A

12 troop Cometh ['with felicity, good fortune] : and she called his name Gad [fortune]. And Zil-

13 pah, Leah's maid, bare Jacob a second son. And Leah said, Happy am I [for my happiness],
for the daughters will call me blessed: and she called his name Asher [blessedness].

14 And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes [.ove-apples]
in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give

15 me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes. And she said unto her. Is it a small mattei
that thou hast taken ray husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes
aso? Ani Rachel said. Therefore he shall lie with thee to-night for thy son's map

CHAP. XXIX. 1— XXX. 24.

527

16 drakes. And [as] Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out t(
meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me ; for surely I have hired thee w;',h mj

17 son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night. And Grod [EloHm] hearkened un

18 to Leah, and she conceived, and bare Jacob the fifth son. And Leah said, God hath
given me my hire [wages, reward], because 1 have given my maiden to my husband: and

19 she called his name Issachar [YiaaBhcar," it is the reward]. And Leah conceived again, and

20 bare Jacob the sixth son. And Leah said, God hath endued me with a good dowry
[presented me with a beautiful present] ; now will my husband dwell with me, because I havo

21 borne him six sons : and she called his name Zebulun [dwelling, dwelling together]. And
afterwards she bare a daughter, and called her name Dinah [judged, justified, judgment].

22 And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.

23 And she conceived, and bare a son ; and said, God hath taken away my reproach ■

24 And she called his name Joseph [may he add]; and said. The Lord shall add to me
another [a second] son.

]} Ch. XXX. Ter. 11. Lit. with a troop or band. — I/ange follows the Sept., Vnlg., and the most of the early verslonsi
But whether we follow the Keii, or the Chethib, as in our version, it ie better to adhere to the signification, a troop of
band. For while Leah uses hereafter the name D'^n'bx instead of ilirp indicating the lower religious state into whioD
she has fallen, through the use of these mere human expedients, we can hardly suppose that she would thus name her
child In i-ecognicioii of the power of a fictitious deity, or avow her faith that her children were the result of mere fortune.
Aside from this. Gen. xlLs. 19, is decisive. — A. 6.]

[5 Ver. 18. Heb. IDia IT^, there is a reward — orTDiU XIS^, he brings reward. A. G.]

GENERAL PRELIMISAET EEMABKS.

1. The first half of the history of Jacob's sojourn
in Mesopotamia is a history of his love, his marriages,
aad his children. Bridal love, in its peculiar splendor
of heart and emotion, never appeared so definitely in
Genesis, after Adam's salutation to Eve, as in the
present case. With respect to the moral motives,
by means of which Jacob became involved in poly-
gamy, notwithstanding his exclusive bridal love, com-
pare the preface p. Ixxvi. We may divide the his-
tory into the following stages : 1. Jacob's arrival at
the shepherds' well in Haran (vers. 1-8) ; 2. Jacob's
salutation to Rachel and his reception into Laban's
house (vers. 9-14) ; X. Jacob's covenant and service
for Rachel and the deception befalling him (vers.
15-25). How Jacob, under the divine providence,
through the deception practised upon him, became
very rich, both in sons and with respect to the future.
(GoTHE : It has always been proved true. That he
whom God deceives, is deceived to his advantage.)
4. His renewed service for Rachel (vers. 26-30) ;
6. The first-born sons of Leah (vers. 31-36) ; 6. Ra-
chel's dijection and the concubinage of Bilhah, her
handmaid (xxx. vers. 1-8) ; 7. Leah's emulation,
and her handmaid Zilpah (vers. 9-13 ; 8. Leah's last
ahildren (vers. 14-21) ; 9. Rachel, Joseph's mother
(vers. 22-24).

2. Knobel finds here a mixture of Jehovistic re-
presentation with the original text. He knows so
little what to malte of the ancient mode of writing
narratives that he remarks upon vers. 16 and 17:
" Moreover the same writer who has spoken of Ra-
3hel already (vers. 9-12), could not properly intro-
duce the two daughters of Labau, as is done in the
present instance."

EXEGBTTOAX AND CRITICAL.

1. Vers. 1-8. Jacob's arrival at the shepherd's
dell in Haran. — Then Jacob went on his jour-
ney.— This consoling and refreshing manifestation
reanimated him, so that he goes cheerfully on his jour-

ney. Of course, he must use his feet, his bridal tou .
differs from tliat of Eliezer, although lie himself is the
wooer. — Into the land of the people of the East.
— The choice of this expression, no doubt, indicates
that from Bethel he gradually turned eastward, and
crossing the Jordan and passing through the north-
ern part of Arabia Deserta, he came to Mesopotaimia,
which is also included here. — -He looked, and be-
hold.— He looks around to find out where he is.
Wells, however, are not only waymarks in nomadic
districts, but also places of gathering for the shep-
herds.— It was not a well of living water, — at least
not Eliezer's well near Haran, — but a cistern, as is
proved from the stone covering it. It seems to have
been in the midst of the plain of Haran, and the city it-
self was not yet in sight. — There vrere three flocks
of sheep lying by it. — Scenes of this description
were frequently seen in the ancient Orient, (oh. xxiv.
11, etc.; Ex. ii. 16, etc.,) and may still be seen to-
day (Robinson : " Researches," ii. pp. 180, 357, 371 ;
iii. 27, 250j. Watering troughs of stone are placed
around the well, and the rule is, that he who comes
first, waters his flocks first (V. Schijbeet : " Travels,"
ii. p.453 ; B(jrkhakdt : " Syria,"p. 128,eto.). Among
the Arabian Bedouins the wells belong to separate
tribes and families, and strangers are not permitted
to use them without presents, i. e. pay (BcEKHARni :
" Bedouins," p. 185 ; Robinson, iii. p. 7 ; comp.
Numb. XX. 17, 19 ; xxi. 22). They are, therefore,
often the cause of strifes (ch. xxvi. 19, etc.). The
Arabians cover them very skilfully, so that they re-
main concealed from strangers (Diod. Sic, ii. 48,
19, 94). Even now they are covered with a large
8tone(8eeRoBiNsoN, ii. p. 180). Knobel. Robinson:
" Most of the cisterns are covered with a large, thick
flat stone, in the centre of which a round hole is cut,
which forms the mouth of the cistern. This hole,
in many instances, we found covered with a heavy
stone, to the removal of which two or three men
were requisite." As to the cisterns (see also Keil,
p. 203). — And a great stone. — This does not mean
that all the shepherds were to come together, that
by their united strength they might roll i t away. The
shepherds of these three herds must wait for t^f

528

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOE OF MOSES.

rest of the sbepherds with their herds, because the
watermg of the herds was common and must take
place in due order. The remarlf, no doubt, indicates,
however, that the stone wag too heary to be removed
by one of the shepherds. The shepherds also appear
to have made the removal of the stone as easy as
possible to them. — My Brethren. — A friendly
salutation between the shepherds. — Of Haran. —
[Haran lay about four hundred and fifty mUes north-
east from Beer-sheba. It would, therefore, be a
journey of fifteen days, if Jacob walked at the rate
of thirty miles a day. Murphy. — A. G.] From this
it does not follow certainly that the city was far off,
still Laban might have had tents on the plains for
his shepherds — Laban, the son of Nahor. — Nalior
was his grandfather. Bethuel, liis father, here retires
into the background, just as in Rebekah's history. —
It is yet high day. — Accordiiig to Starke, Jacob,
as a shepherd, wished to remind these shepherds of
their duty. It is obviously the prudent Jacob who
acts here. He wishes to remove the shepherds, in
order to meet his cousin Rachel, who is approaching,
alone (see Keil). He thus assumes that they could
water their flocks separately, and afterwards drive
again to the pasture.

2. Vers. 8-14. — JacoVs salutation to Rachel,
and his reception into Lahan^s house. — For she
kept them. — It is customary among the Arabians
of Sinai, that the virgin daughters drive the herds to
the pasture (see Bubkhardt : " Bedouins," p. 283).
Knobel, Ex. ii. 16. — And rolled the stone. — The
strong impression that the beautiful Rachel made
upon her cousin Jacob is manifested in two ways.
He thinks himself powerful enough to roll the stone
from the mouth of the cistern out of love to her, and
disregards the possibility that the trial might fail. At
the same time, too, he boldly disregards the common
rule of the shepherds present. Rachel's appearance
made him eager, as formerly Rebekah's appearance
even the old Eliezer, when he took out the bracelets
before he knew her. The power of beauty is also
recognized Iiere upon sacred ground. Tuch thinks
that the united exertion of the shepherds would have
jeen necessary, and the naiTaiive, therefore, boasts
of a SamsonJike strength in Jacob. But there is
a difierence between Samson-like strength and the
heroic power inspired by love. [Perhaps, however,
there was mingling with this feeling the joy which
naturally springs from finding himself among his
kindred, after the long, lonely and dangerous jour-
ney through the desert. — -A. G.] — Jacob kissed
Rachel, — " The three-fold ■; 5:. «< ins< shows that he
acted thus as cousin (rolhng the stone from the well's
mouth, etc.). As such he was allowed to kiss Rachel
openly, as a brother his sister (Song of Sol. viii. 1)."
Knobel. — Yet his excitement betrays him even here,
since he did not mak^ known his relationship with
her until afterwards. — And wept. — Tears of joy, of
reanimation after a long oppression and sorrow (ch.
xlv. 15; xlvi. 29). He wept aloud, with uplifted
voice. Brother here equivalent to nephew (ch. xiv.
16 ; xxiv.48). — When Iiahan heard the tidings. —
That Jacob made the whole journey on foot might
have caused suspicion in the mind of Laban. But
he is susceptible of nobler feelings, as is seen from
the subsequent narration (ch. xxxi. 24), although he
is generally governed by selfish motives. — And he
told Laban. — Surely, the whole cause of his jour-
ney, by which he also explained his poor appearance
»8 the son of the rich Isaac. In the view of Keil,

he relates only the circumstances mentioned from
ver. 2-12. — Surely thou art my flesh and my
bone. — He recognizes him fully from his appearance
and his communication, as his near relative. — The
space of a month. — Literally, during some, an in.
definite number of days. It was yet uncertain, from
day to day, how they would arrange matters.

3. Vers. 15-25. Jaxoh's suit and service fot
Rachel, and the deception practiced upon him,
— Tell me what shall thy ivages be. — This ex-
pression is regarded by KeU already as a mark o/
Laban 's selfishness, but there is no ground for this
view. It is rather to be supposed that Lab.'in wish-
ed to open the way for his love suit, which, on ac-
count of his poor condition he had not yet ventured
to press. We see afterwards, indeed, that Laban
willingly gives both his daughters to him. We
do not, however, wish to exclude the thought, that
in the meantime he may have recognized a skilful
and useful shepherd in Jacob, and besides acted
from regard to his own interest, especially since he
knew that Jacob possessed a great inheritance at

home. — The name of the elder -waa Leah It is

remarkable, that in the explanation of this name we
are mostly inclined to follow detived significations
of the word nxb (see Fiiist upon this verb). — The
word T\'! used to describe the eyes of Leah, means
simply : weak or dull, whence the Arabians have
made, moist or blear-eyed. Leah's eyes were not in
keeping with the Oriental idea of beauty, though
otherwise she might be a woman greatly blessed.
" Eyes which are not clear and lustrous. To the
Oriental, but especially to the Arabian, black eyes,
full of life and fire, clear and expressive, dark eyes,
are considered the principal part of female beauty.
Such eyes he loves to compare with those of the
Gazelle, (Hamasa, i. p. 56Y, etc." Knobel. — Rachel,
the third renowned beauty in the patriarchal family.
If authentic history was not in the way, Leah, as the
mother of Judah, and of the Davidic Messianic line,
ought to have carried off the prize of beauty after
Sarah and Rebekah. — And well favored. — " Beau-
tiful as to her form and beautiful as to her counte-
nance." Beside the more general designation:
beautiful as to her form, the second: beautiful
nsiia must surely have a more definite significa-
tion : beautiful as to her countenance, and, indeed,
with a reference to her beautiful eyes, which were
wanting to Leah. Thus the passage indirectly says
that Leah's form was beautiful.— Serve thee seven
years for Rachel. — Instead of wages he desires
the daughter, and instead of a service of an indefinite
number of days he promises a service of seven years.
" Jacob's service represents the price which, among
the Orientals, w.is usually paid for the wife which
was to be won (see Winer, Realm., under marriage).
The custom still exists. In Kerek, a man without
means, renders service for five or six yearii (Ritter,
Erdkunde, xv. p. 674), and in Hauran, Burkhardt
(" Syria," p. 464), met a young man who had served
eight years for hia bare support, and then received
for a wife the daughter of his master, but musi ren-
der service still." Knobel. On the contrary, Keil di*
putes the certainty of the assumption that the cus-
tom of selling their daughters to men was general
at that time. And we should certainly be nearer the
truth in explaining many usages of the present bor-
der Asia from patriarchal relations, than to invert
everything according to Knobel's view. Keil holds
that Jacob's seven years of service takes the place

CHAP. XXIX.— XXX. 1-24.

529

of the customary dowry and the presents given to
the relatives ; but he overloolcs the fact that the
'.deas of buying and presenting (and barter) are not
as far apart in the East as with us. Nor can we di-
rectly infer the covetousneas of Labanfrom Jacob's ac-
ceptance of the offer, although his ignoble, selfish, nar-
row-minded conduct, as it is seen afterwards, throws
some light also on these earlier transactions. — It is

better that I give her to thee " Among all

Bedouin Arabians the cousin has the preference to
strangers (Bdrkhardt, "Bedouin," p. 219), and the
Druses in Syria always prefer a relative to a rich
stranger (Volnet, " Travels," ii. p. 62). It is gene-
rally customary throughout the East, that a man
marries his next cousin ; he is not compelled to do
it, but the right belongs to him exclusively, and
she i3 not allowed to marry any other without his
consent. Both relatives, even after their marriage,
call each other cousin (Bcrkhardt, " Bedouins," p.
91, and " Arabian Proverbs," p. 274, etc. ; La yard,
"Nineveh and Babylon," p. 222 ; Lane, " Manners
and Customs," i. p. Wl). Knobel. — They seemed
unto him but a few days. — So far, namely, as
that his great love for Rachel made his long service
a deUght to him ; but, on the other hand, it is not
said that he did not long for the end of these seven
years. Tet he was cheerful and joyful in hope,
which is in perfect keeping with Jacob's charac-
ter.— A Feast. — Probably Laban intended, by the
great nuptial feast which he prepared, to facilitate
Jacob's deception by the great bustle and noise,
but then also to arrange things so, that after seven
dajp the wedding might be considered a double wed-
ding. For it is evident that he wishes to bind Jacob
as firmly and as long as possible to himself (see ch.
XXX. 27). — Iieah, his daughter. — The deception
was possible, through the custom, that the bride was
led veiled to the bridegroom and the bridal chamber.
Laban probably believed, as to the base deception,
that he would be excused, because he had already in
view the concession of the second daughter to Jacob.
— And Laban gave unto her Zilpah. — We can-
not certainly infer that he was parsimonious, because
he gave but one handmaid to Leah, since he un-
doubtedly thought already of the dowry of Rachel
with a second handmaid. The number of Rebekah's
handmaids is not mentioned (ch. xxiv. 61). — Beholdj
it was Lezih. — [" This is the first retribution Jacob
experiences for the deceitful practises of his former
days." He had, through fraud and cunning, secured
the place and blessing of Esau, — he, the younger,
in the place of the elder ; now, by the same deceit,
the elder is put upon him in the place of the younger.
What a man sows that shall he also reap. Sin is
often punished with sin. — A. G.] See Doctrinal and
Ethical paragraphs.

4. Vers. 26-30. His renewed service for Rachel.
—It must not be so done. — " The same custom
exists among the Bast Indians (see Manu. : " Stat-
utes," iii. 160; Rosenm., A. u. "Mod. Orient," and
VoN BoHLEN, upon this place). Even in the Egypt
of to-day, the father sometimes refuses also to give
in marriage a younger daughter before an older one
fLANE : " Customs and Manners," i. p. 169)." Kno-
bel. Delitzseh adds the custom in old imperial
Germany. This excuse does not justify in the least
Laban's deception, but there was, however, a sting
for Jacob in this reply, viz., in the emphasis of the
right of the first-born. But Laban's oifer that fol-
lowed, and in which now truly his ignoble selfishness
« manifest, calmed Jacob's mind. — Fulfil her

34

week. — Lit., make full the wedc with this one, i. e.,
the first week after the marriage, which is due to her,
since the wedding generally lasted one week (Judj^.
xiv. 12; Tob. xi. 19). [Her week— the week of
Leah, to confirm the marriage with her by keeping
the usual wedding-feast of seven days. But if Leab
was put upon him at the close of the feast of seven
days, then it is Rachel's week, the second feast of
seven days which is meant. The marriage with
Rachel was only a week after that with Leah. The
seven years' service for her was rendered afterwards.
— A. G.] — And we will.— Ch. xxxi. 1 ; ver. 28 ;
probably Laban and his sons. Laban also, as Rebe-
kah's brother, took part in her marriage arrange-
ments.— Rachel his daughter. — Within eight days
Jacob therefore held a second wedding, but he ful-
filled the service for her afterwards. Laban, there-
fore, not only deceived Jacob by Leah's interposition,
as Jacob tells him to his face, but he overreached
him also in charging him with seven years of service
for Leah. Thus Jacob becomes entangled in polyg-
amy, iti the theocratic house which he had sought
in order to close a theocratic marriage, first by the
father and afterwards by the daughters.

5. Vera. 31-35. The first four sons of Leah. —
When the Lord saw. — The birth of Leah's first
four sons is specifically referred to Jehovah's grace ;
first, because Jehovah works above all human
thoughts, and regards that which is despised and
of little account (Leah was the despised one, the one
loved less, comparatively the hated one, Dent. xxi.
15) ; secondly, because among her first four sons
were found the natural first-born (Reuben), the legal
first-born (Levi), and the Messianic first-born (Judah) ;
even Simeon, like the others, is given by Jehovah
in answer to prayer. Jacob's other sons are referred
to Elohim not only by Jacob and Rachel (ch. xxx.
2, 6, 8), but also by Leah (vers. 18, 20), and by the
narrator himself (ver. 17), for Jacob's sons in their
totality sustain not only a theocratic but also a
universal destination. — ^He opened her womb. —
He made her fruitful in children, which should attach
her husband to her. But theocratic husbands die
not esteem their wives only according to their fruit-
fulness (see 1 Sam. i.) It is a one-sided view Keil
takes when he says : " Jacob's sinful weakness ap-
pears also in his marriage state, because he loved
Rachel more than Leah, and the divine reproof
appears, because the hated one was blessed with
children but Rachel remained barren for a long
time." All we can say is, it was God's pleasure to
show in this way the movements of his providence
over the thoughts of men, and to equalize the incon-
gruity between these women. — Keuben. — Lit., Ren
Ben : Behold, a son. Joyful surprise at Jehovah'a
compassion. From the inference she makes : no^i^
therefore, my husband will love me, her deepi,
strong love for Jacob, becomes apparent, which hadi
no doubt, also, induced her to consent to Labain'^
deception.- —Simeon, her second son, receives bi»
name from her faith in God as a prayer-answering
God. — Levi. — -The names of the sons are an expres-
sion of her enduring powerful experience, as well aa
of her gradual resignation. After the birth of th*
first one, she hopes to win, through he: sob, Jacob's
love in the strictest sense A iter the Mrth of the
second she hoped to be pi'.t on a footing of equality
with Rachel, and to be delivrred from her disregard
After the birth of the thii-d one she hoped at leasi
for a constant affection. At the birth of the fourth
she looks entirely away from herself to Jeho.vak-'

530

GENESIS, on THK i'lKST BOOK OF MOSES.

Tudah. — Praised. A verbal noun of the future
Hophal from mi . The literal meaning of the name,
therefore, ie : " shall be praised," and may thus be
referred to Judah as the one " that is to be praised,"
but it may also mean that Jehovah ia to be praised
on accouut of him (see Delitzsch, p. 465). [See
Rom. ii. 29. He is a Jew inwardly, whose praise is
of Ood. M'ordsworth refers here to the analogies
between the patriarchs and apostles. — A. G.] — She
left bearing. — Not altogether (see ch. xxx. 16, etc.),
but for a time.

0. Rachel's dejection, and the connection with
Bilhah, her maid (ch. xxx. 1-8). — And when Ra-
chel saw. — We have no right to conclude, with
Keil, from Rachel's assertion, that she and Jacob
were wanting in prayer for children, and thus had
not followed Isaac's example. Even in prayer, pa-
tience may be finally shaken in the human sinful
heart, if God intends to humble it. — Give me
children or else I die, i. e., from dejection ; not :
my remembrance will be extinguished (Tremell) ;
much less does it mean : I shall commit suicide
Chrysost.). Her vivid language sounds not only
irrational but even impious, and therefore she rouses
also the anger of Jacob. — Am I in God's stead. —
Lit., instead of God. God alone is the lord over
life and death (Deut. xxxii. 39 ; 1 Sam. ii. 6). Ra-
chel's sad utterance, accompanied by the threat : or
else I die, serves for an introduction as well as an
excuse of her desperate proposition. — My maid,
Bilhah. — The bad example of Hagar continues to
operate here, leading into error. The question here
was not about an heir of Jacob, but the proud Ra-
chel desired children as her own, at any cost, lest she
should stand beside her sister childless. Her jealous
love for Jacob is to some extent overbalanced by her
jealous pride or envy of her sister, so that she gives
to Jacob her maid. — Upon my knees. — Ancient
interpreters have explained this in an absurdly literal
way. From the fact that children were taken upon
the knees, they were recognized either as adopted
children (I. 23), or as the fruit of their own bodies
(Job iii. 12). — That 1 may also have children
by her. — See ch. xvi. 2. — Dan (judge, one decree-
ing justice, vindex). — She considered the disgrace
of her barrenness by the side of Leah an injustice.
— Naphtali. — According to Knobel ; wrestler ; ac-
cording to others : my wrestling, or even, the one for
whom I wrestled. Delitzsch : the one obtained by
wrestling. The LXX place it in the plural : Naph-
ialim, wrestlings. Fiirst regards it as the abbrevi-
ated form of Naphtalijah, the wrestling of Jehovah.
Against the two last explanations may be urged the
deviation from the form Naphtalim, wrestlings ; and
according to the analogy of Dan, vindicator, the most
prs'oable explanation is, my wrestler. As laying the
foundation for the name, Rachel says : With great

Wrestlings have I wrestled with ray sister

The wrestlings of God could only be in the wrest-
lings of prayer, as we afterwards see from Jacob's
wrestlings, through which he becomes Israel. De-
litzsch, too, explains: These are the wrestlings of
prayer, in the assaults and temptations of faith.
Hengstknderg ; Struggles whose issue bears the
character of a divine judgment, but through which
the struggle itself is not clearly understood. Kno-
bel ; "She was not willing to leave the founding of
a people of God to her sister only, but wished also to
becoi e an ancestress, as well as Leah." But how
can Rachel speak of a victory over her sister rich in
children 1 Leah has left bearing, while Bilhah, her

maid, begins to bear ; at the same time, Rachel iiv
eludes as much as possible in her words in ordei
to overpersuade herself. [She beUeves that she ha»
overcome. — A. G.] Hence, still, at Joseph's birth
she could say : Now (not before) God baa taken
away my reproach.

7. Vers. 9-13. Leah's emulation, and Zilpah,het

maid. — Took Zilpah, her maid Leah is still leai

excusable than Rachel, since she could oppose her
own four sons to the two adopted sons of Rachel
But the proud and challenging assertions of Rachel,
however, seem to have determined her to a renewed
emulation ; and Jacob thought that it was due to the
equal rights of both to consent to the fourth mar.
riage. That Leah now acts no longer as before, in a
pious and humble disposition, the names by which
she calls her adopted sons clearly prove. — A troop
Cometh. — Good fortune. An unnecessary conjec-
ture of the Masorites renders it 15 St3 "fortune
victory cometh." — Asher. — The happy one, or the
blessed one.

8. Vers. 14-21. Leah's last births. — Call me
blessed. — An ancient mode of expression used by
happy women from Leah to Mary (Luke i. 48). The
preterite expresses the certain future. — And Reuben
went. — Reuben, when a little boy (according to De-
litzsch five years old ; according to Keil only four),
brought unto his mother a plant found in the fields,
and called D"'S<"1W , a name which has been rendered
in various ways. " The LXX correctly translates,
niS1n=;i^Aa /lai/Spayopiij'; ^TIT (and the kindred
^blb) ia the Mandragora vernalis (high-Gengan :
alruna, alrun, mandrake; Grimm., ' Mythol.' ii. p.
1153, edit, iii.), out of whose small, white and-green
flowers, which, according to the Song vii. 14, are
harbingers of Spring, there grows in May, or what
is equivalent, at the time of the wheat-harvest, yel-
low, strong, but sweet-smelling apples, of the size of
a nutmeg (Arab, tuffah ex Saitdn, i. e., pomum So-
tance), which in antiquity as well as during the middle
ages (see Graesse : ' Contributions to the hteratura
and traditions of the Middle Ages,' IS.'iO) were thought
to promote fruitfulness and were generally viewed as
Aphrodisiacum." Delitzsch. Hence the fruit was
called Dvdaim amatoria. Love-apple. Theophrastus
tells us that love-potions were prepared from its
roots. It was held in such high esteem by them
that the goddess of love was called Mandragoritis.
All the different travellers to Palestine speak about
it (see Knobel, p. 224 ; Delitzsch, p. 467 ; Keil, p.
207 ; Winer : Alraun, Mandrake). — Give me of
those mandrakes. — Love-apples. In the transac-
tion between Rachel and Leah concerning the man-
drakes, her excited emulation culminated, not, how-
ever, as Keil says, as a mutual jealousy as to the
affection of their husband, but a jealousy as to the
births, otherwise Rachel would not have been obliged
to yield, and actually have yielded to Leah the right
in question. — And God hearkened unto Leah.
— Knobel thinks that the Jehovistic and Elohistio
views are here mingled in confusion. The Elohist
records of Leah after the ninth verse, that she prayed,
and considers her pregnancy an answer to her prayer ;
the Jehovist, on the contrary, ascribes it to the effect
produced by the mandrakes, of which Leah retained
a part. Here, therefore, the critical assumption ot
a biblical book-making culminates. It is obviously
the design to bring out into prominence the fact that
Leah became pregnant again without mandrakes, anj
that they were of no avail .o Rachel, a fact whiub

CHAK XXIX.— SXX. 1-24.

53

Ifoil renders prominent. Moreover, it could not be
Ihe intention of Raciiel to prepare from these man-
drakes a so-called love-potion for Jacob, bnt only to
attain fruitfulness by their eifects upon herself. Just
as now, for the same purpose perhaps, unfruitful
women visit or are sent to certain watering-places.
From this standpoint, truly, the assumed remedy of
nature may appear as a premature, eager self-help.
— laaachax. — According to the Chethib, 13U3 ID"' ,
there is reward; according to Keri, 'IsiB StiC , it
brings reward, which is less fitting here. Leah,
according to ver. 18, looked upon Issachar as a re-
ward for her self-denial in allowing her maid to take
her place. By this act, also, her strong affection for
Jacob seems to betray itself again. But no such
struggle is mentioned of Kachel in the interposition
of her maid. — Zebulun. — That the children here
are altogether named by the mothers, is Jehovistic,
as Knobel thinks : " The Elohist assigns the names
to the children through the father, and is not fond
of etymologies ! " It is just as great violence to the
words: God hath endued me, etc., to say the
name signifies a prexent, while, according to the
words following, it signifies dweller. The name of
Zebulun is first formed after the inference which
Leah drew from the divine gift or present, bat , to
dwell, alludes to the preceding t:1 , to make a pres-
ent ; both verbs are OTral \ey. — Hinah, is mentioned
on account of the hi-tory, ch. xxxiv. Ch. xxxvii. 35
and cb. xxxvi. Y seem to intimate that he had other
daughters, but they are not mentioned further.
Dinah is the female Dan. Leah retains her supe-
riority. Hence there is no fuller explanation of
the name after the deed of Dinah's brothers, ch.
xxxiv.

9. Vers. 22-24. Rachel the mother of Joseph. —
And God remembered Rachel. — The expression;
he remembered, here also denotes a turning-point
after a long trial, as usually, e. g., ch. viii. 1. In
relation to the removing of unfruitfulness, see 1 Sam.
i. 19. — And God hearkened to her. — She there-
fore obtained fruitfulness by prayer also. — Joseph.
— This name, in the earlier document, as Knobel
expresses himself, is called vlDSt"', one that takes
away, i. e., takes away the reproach, from ODX ; and
then, in the second document, he shall add, from tp"^.
DeUtzsch also explains : oiw that takes away. Keil
adopts both derivations. The text only allows the
latter derivation : he may add. To take away and
to add are too strongly opposed to be traced back
to one etymological source. Kachel, it is true, might
have revealed the sentiments of her heart by the
expression : God hath taken away my reproach ; but
she was not able to give to her own sons names that
would have neutralized the significance and force
of the names of her adopted sons Dan and Naphtali.
That she is indebted to God's kindness for Joseph,
while at the same time she asks Jehovah for another
60n, and thereupon numes Joseph, does not furnish
any suJBcient occasion for the admission of an addi-
tion to the sources of scripture, as Delitzsch assumes.
The number of Jacob's sons, who began with Jeho-
Ttl', was also closed by Jehovah, For, according to
the number of twelve tribes, Israel is Jehovah's
covenant people.

In regard to the fact, however, that Jacob's
ehildren were not bom chronologically in the pre-
ceding order, compare Delitzsch with reference to
EusEBius: Prwparatio Miang., ix. 21, andAsTRtro. :

"Conjectures," p. 396, and Keil. The first-bom
Reuben, was born probably during the first year of
the second seven years, and Joseph at the close of
the same. All the sons, therefore, were born durinj
the second heptade. Dinah's birth, no doubt, occurs
also during this period, though Keil supposes, fiom
the expression ^ns , that she may have been borri
later. But if we now adopt the chronological su<
cession, Leah would have given birth to seven chil-
dren in seven years, and even then there was a pauses
for some time between two of them. The imperfect,
with the ^ consecutive, however, does not express
always a succession of time, but sometimes also it
expresses a train of thought. We may suppose,
therefore, that Leah gave birth to the first four sonj
during the first four years. In the meanwhile, how
ever (not after the expiration of the four years)
Rachel effected the birth of Dan and Naphtali bj
Jacob's connection with Bilhah. This probably iu
duced Leah, perhaps in the fifth year, to emulate hel
example by means of her handmaid, who in a quick
succession gave birth to two sons in the course of
the fifth and sixth years. During the sixth and sev-
enth years Leah again became a mother, and a short
time after Zebulun, Joseph was bom also. Accord-
ing to Delitzsch, Joseph's birth would occur between
that of Issachar and Zebulun. But then the expres-
sion ver. 25 would not be exact, and the naming of
Zebulun by his mother would be without foundation.
The last remark also bears against Keil's view, that
Joseph probably was born at the same time with
Zebulun, though he also considers it probable that
he mav have been born later.

DOCTEINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. The divine revelation, its consolations and
its promises, revive the believer, so that he can pro-
ceed on his pilgrimage with renewed vigor. An ex-
perience similar to that at Bethel Jacob afterwards
met with at Peniel (ch. xxxii. 30).

2. Eliezer, acting for Isaac, Jacob, and Mosea,
found their future brides by the side of wells. These
charming descriptions of the East resemble each
other, and yet greatly diSer in their details. On ac-
count of their significance and beauty, they were
applied to spiritual relations by the fathers. [See
also Wordsworth, who goes fully into all the details
of these analogies. — A. G.]

3. Jacob experienced the gracious providence of
Jehovah here at the well, through one act after
another : Shepherds from Haran ; acquaintances of
Laban ; Rachel's appearance; the occasion and call
to assist her at the moment.

4. Is he well ? ib nibirn. Happiness and wel-
fare, according to the oriental, but particularly accord-
ing to the bibUcal, view, consists especially in peace,
inviolability, both as to outward and inward life.

6. The characters. LaharCs character. That
Laban was really a sharer in the theocratic faith, and
susceptible of noble and generous sentiment, is evi-
dent not only from the manner in which he receives
Jacob, but also from the way in which he dismisses
him (ch. xxxi. 24 ; 54 ff.). But we also see, how, un-
der the influence surrounding him at home (ch. xxxi.
1), the selfishness in him gradually increased, until il
culminated in the base use which he made of hia
nephew's necessity and love, and thus, at last, pro-
ceeds to practise the grosse.st deception, Eren ii

!)32

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSER.

this deception, howerer, we must not overlook the
fact that, with a friendly interest in Jacob, he con-
aidered it as a pioua fraud. He was willing to give
both his daughters to Jacob ; perhaps, too, he had in
his eye Leah's quiet but vehement affection for Jacob.
He so far restrained his selfishness, also, that he per-
mits Jacob to return home with the large possessions
that he had acquired while with him. Moreover, he
had to overcome the excited spirit of his sons and
brethren. The lower standpoint which he occupies
is evident from the fact that he himself leads his
nephew into a theocratic double-marriage, but per-
haps also with the intention of securing to his houae,
with greater certainty, a full share in the mysterious
blessing expected by Abraham, and because he qui-
etly consented that the strife of his daughters should
involve Jacob still farther in polygamy. — As to Leah,
the narrator has no fault to find, except that her
eyes were not as beautiful as those of her sister, hut
were tender. The vehement, though quiet love for
Jacob, as seen on every occasion, no doubt made her
also willing to enter into the deception of Jacob by
Laban. Besides, she regarded herself certainly as
excusable upon higher grounds and motives, just as
Tharaar, who fanatically married into the house of
promise, and that by a guUty course (ch. xxxviii).
Her increasing humility (see Exegesis) causes her to
be an object of Jehovah's peculiar regard, or rather,
by this humihty, her especial election as ancestress
of David and the Messiah becomes evident, and even
in her over-zealous strife with her sister, in which
the question is about the increase of the patriarchal
family, her self-denial is proven by the struggle with
which she gives her maid to Jacob, and the kindness
with which she gave the mandrakes to her sister.
Rachel, on the other hand, possessed not only bright
eyes, but also ardent affections. In the fiery and
glowing nature of her affection (ch. xxx. 1), as well
as in her cunning (ch. xxxi. 34, 35) Rachel is the
image of Rebekah, but with these features of char-
acter more strongly marked. So also at the end, in
the tragical issue of her life. For as Rebekah did
not reach the goal and see Jacob again, so Rachel
did not attain her aim in sharing with him peacefully
and honorably his paternal heritage. In Rachel's
sinful impatience too, there was not wanting also a
moral element, for " the pure desire of parents for
offspring is the highest degree of virtuous matri-
mony." Delitzsch (see p. 405, and the words of
Luther there quoted). Keil, without any sufBcient
reason, places Rachel (p. 206), in religious respects,
below Leah. Distinctions of election are not always
contrasts of light and darkness. Finally, Jacob here
appears clearly as the man of the wrestlings of
faith, and as the patriarch of hope. However pru-
dent, it happens to him as to the (Edipus in the Greek
tragedy. (Edipus solved the riddle of the sphinx,
yet is blind, and remains blind in relation to the
riddle of his own life. Lab in cheated him, as his
sons did afterwards, and he is punished through the
same transgression of which he himself was guilty.
Jacob is to struggle for everything — for his birth-
right, his Rachel, his herds, the security of his life,
the rest of his old age, and for his grave. But in
these strutrgles he does not come off without many
transgressions, from which, however, as God's elect,
he is liberated by severe discipline. He, therefore,
s stamped as a man of hope by the divine provi-
dence. As a fugitive he goes to Haran, as a fugitive
lie returns home. Seven years he hopes for Rachel,
twenty years he hppes for a return home ; to the

very evening of his life he is hoping for the recoT
ery of Joseph, his lost son in Sheol ; even whilst h<
is dying upon Egyptian soil, he hopes for a grave in
his native country. His Messianic hope, however,
in its full development, rises above all these instan-
ces, as is evident in the three chirf stages in his Ufa
.of faith : Bethel, Peniel, and the blessing of his son(
upon his death-bed. His life differs from that of his
father Isaac in this : that with Isaac the quickening
experiences fall more in the earher part of his life,
but with Jacob they occur in the latter half; and
that Isaac's life passes on quietly, whilst storms and
trials overshadow, in a great measure, the pilgrimage
of Jacob. The Messianic suffering, in its typica*
features, is already seen more plainly in him than in
Isaac and Abraham ; but the glorious exaltation
corresponds also to the deeper humiUation.

6. Jacob's service for Rachel presents us a pic-
ture of bridal love equalled only m the same devel-
opment and its poetic beauty in the Song of Solo-
mon. It is particularly to be noticed that Jacobs
however, was not indifferent to Rachel's infirmities
(ch. xxx. 2), and even treated Leah with patience and
indulgence, though having suffered from her the
most mortifying deception.

1. The deception practised by Laban upon Jacob
was perfectly fitted, viewed as a divine punishment
through human sin, to bring his own sin before his
eyes. As he introduced himself as the first-bom, by
the instigation of his mother, so Leah, the first-bom,
is introduced to him by his mother's brother, under
the pretence of the appearance of his own Rachel.
And this deception Laban even excuses in a sarcastic
way, with the custom as to the birthright of the
daughters at Haran. Thus Jacob atones for his cun-
ning, and Laban truly must atone for his deception.

8. Leah's election is founded upon Jehovab'a
grace. Without any doubt, however, she was fitted
to become the ancestress of the Messianic line, not
only by her apparent humility, but also by her in
nate powers of blessing, as well as by her quiet and
true love for Jacob. The fulness of her life be-
comes apparent in the number and the power of her
children ; and with these, therefore, a greater strength
of the mere natural life predominates. Joseph, on
the contrary, the favorite son of the wife loved with
a brifial love, is distinguished from his brethren, as
the separated (ch. xlix.) among them, as a child of a
nobler spirit, whilst the import of his life is not aa
rich for the future as that of Judah.

9 If we would regard the deception and impo-
sition practised upon Jacob as at all endurable, we
must assume, on the one hand, Leah's fanatic and
vehement love ; on the other, his own perfect illu-
sion. This unconscious error and confusion of na-
ture, seems almost to have been transmitted to Reu-
ben, the firstborn (ch. rxxv. 22 ; xlix. 21) ; and
therefore, in consequence of his offence, he also lost
the birthright. We cannot, however, entirely con-
cur in Luther's view, wlilch DeUtzsch approves, that
while there was nothing adulterous In the conneiitioD
of Jacob and Leah, it was still extra-natural, and in
that sense, monstrous. There was undoubtedly an
impure and unnatural element in it. But we must
bear in mind, as was remarked above, not only
Leah's love, but also Jacob's self-oblivion, in which
the free choice is generally limited and restrained by
the blind forces of the night-life, through and in
which God works with creative energy. It is tha
moment in which the man falls back into the baM
of God as the creator.

CHAP. XXIX. 1— XXX. 24.

53d

10. The difference between the house at Haran
rmd Isaac's house at Beer-sheba, appears from this,
that Laban entangled Jacob in polygamy. And
Bven in this case the evil consequences of polygamy
ippcar : envy, jealousy, contention, and an increased
!,enBuality. Nevertheless Jacob's case is not to be
jndged according to the later Mosaic law, which
prohibited the marrying of two sisters at the same
time (Lev. xviii. 18). Calvin, in his decision, makes
no distinction between the times and the economies,
a fact which Keil justly appeals to, and insists upon
as bearing against his harsh judgment (that it was a
case of incest) (p. 205).

11. In our narrative we first read of a great and
splendid wedding-feast, lasting for seven days. It is
therefore not by chance that this splendid wedding-
feast was followed by a painful illusion. And, leav-
ing out of view grosser deceptions, how often may
Rachel's image have been changed afterwards into
Leah's form.

12. While the sisterly emulation to surpass each
other in obtaining children is tainted with sin, there
is yet at the bottom a holy motive for it, faith in the
Abrahamio promise consisting in the blessing of
theocratic births. Thus also we can explain how the
fubess of the twelve tribes proceeded from this
emulation.

1 3. Isaac's prejudice, that Esau was the chosen
ene, seems to renew itself somewhat in Jacob's
prejudice that he must gain by Rachel the lawful
heir. The more reverent he appears therefore, in
being led by the spirit of God, who taught him, not-
withstanding all his preference for Joseph, to recog-
nize in Judah the real line of the promise.

14. That the respective mothers themselves here
assign the names, is determined by the circumstances.
The entire history of the birth of these sons, too, is
reflected in their names. Of similar signification are
the names : Gad and Asher ; Levi and Zebulun ;
Simeon and Naphtali ; Judah and Joseph ; Reuben
and Benjamin born afterwards ; Issachar, Dan and
i )inah.

IB. The progress of life equalizes and adjusts,

10 a great extent, the opposition between Jacob's
love for Rachel and his disregard toward Leah, espe-
cially by means of the children. At the same time
in which he recognizes Leah's resignation, Rachel's
passionate ill-humor incites him to anger.

16. He shall add ; he shall give to me another
son. This wish was fulfilled, and was the cause of
her death. She died at Benjamin's birth. How
dangerous, destructive, and fatal, the fulfilment of
a man's wishes may be to him, is illustrated by fre-
quent examples in the Scriptures. Sarah wished for
a son from Hagar, a source of great grief to her.
The desire of Judas to be received among the dis-
ciples of Jesus was granted, but just in this position
he fell into the deepest corruption. Peter wished
to be as near as possible to the Lord in the house of
the high priest, but hence bis fall. The sons of
ilebedee wished for places at the right and left hand
of Jesus, — had their wish been fulfilled they would
hove filled the places of the malefactors on the cross,

11 the right and left of the Crucified. Riichel's wish,
it is true, was not tlie only cause of her death, but
sith a certain triumph the once barren one died in
ohlldbirth, just as she was completing the number
twelve of Israel's sons.

I'l. How important Joseph's birth was to Jacob
is seen from this : that henceforth he thinks of his
journey home, although the report looked for from

Rebekah tarried 1 ing. He was urged to venture
journey home.

18. This history of Jacob's and Leali's unioi.
sheds a softening light upon even the less happy
marriages, which may reconcile us to them, for thii
unpleasant marriage was the cause of his becoming
the father of a numerous posterity ; from it, indeed,
proceeded the Messianic line ; leaving out of view the
fact that Leah's love and humility could not remain
without a blessing upon Jacob. The fundamental
condition of a normal marriage is doubtless bridal
love. We notice in our narrative, however, how
wonderfully divine grace may change misfortune,
even in such instances, into reaJ good. God is espe-
cially interested in marriage connections, because hi
is thus interested in the coming generations.

HOMTLETICAL AKD PKACTIOAI,.

See Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. Jacob'i
wrestlings of faith. — The patriarch of hope. — Jacob's
double flight, from Esau and from Laban. — Rich in
fortune and rich in misfortune, in both respects rich
in blessing. — Jacob and Rachel, or the consecration
of bridal love. — The shepherd and the shepherdess:
the same condition. — Jacob's service for his bride a
type of tlie same service of Christ for the church,
his bride. — Rachel and Leuh, or God makes a great
difference between his children, and yet esteems them
aUke according to his justice. — The three marriage
connections at wells : that of Isaac, of Jacob, and
of Moses. — The names of Jacob's sons, a type of
human weakness and divine salvation in his house.
(Texts for marriage occasions.)

To Section First,y&TS. 1-8. SriRKE : Cramek : If
God's command and promise are before us, we can
proceed in our undertakings with joy and confidence.
— Places where wells are mentioned (see Concord-
ances;.— (Jesus, the well of life. The stone, the
impotence of human nature, to be removed by faith.
Since, according to ch. xxxi. 4Y, the Chaldaeans spoke
a different language from that of the inhabitants of
Canaan, Jacob probably made himself understood to
the people of Haran, because he had learned the
Chaldee from his mother (Clericiis). — The changing
of the language of the patriarchs into the later He-
brew of the Jews.) [There is every reason to believe
that these dialects were then so nearly alike that
there was no difiiculty in passing from one to the
other. — A. G.] — Because the word peace embraces
both spiritual and natural well-being, the Hebrews
used it as a common salutation.

Section Second, vers. 9-14. Divine providence
was here at work.— (Allegory of the well. How
Christ has removed the heavy stone of sin and death.
The three herds referred to the three days in which
Christ was in the grave! etc. Burmann.) — Ver. 13.
This was necessary in order to remove all suspicion
from the mind of Laban, since he still remembered
what a numerous retinue had accompanied Eliezer.
— As three distinguished patriarchs found theii
brides at wells (Moses and his Zipporah), juat so the
Lord Christ presents to himself the church, his spir-
itual bride, through holy baptism, as the laver in tha
word. — Schroder : Their first meeting a prophecy
of their whole future united fife. — Ver. 11 (Calvin).
In a chaste and modest life greater liberties were
allowed. — (If any one turn to the true source of wis-
dom, to the word of God, and to the Saviour revealed

534

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

therein, he will receive celestial wisdom for his bride.
Berl. Bibel.)

Section Third, vers. 15-25. Ver. 20. As a regular
servant. A typical intimation of the Messiah, who
in the form of a servant, with great and severe toil,
obtained his bride. — (Reward of Jacob's patient
waiting, of his faith and his chastity. — Ver. 18. Vir-
tuous maidens do not attend large, exciting assem-
blies, to get a husband, but remain at their vocation,
and trust in God, who is able to give to them a pious,
honorable, and upright husband. — Lange ; If the
whole difficult service became easy to Jacob from
the love he had to Rachel, why should it not be said
of God's children, that it is from love to God that
wo keep his commandments, etc. (1 John v. 3). —
Bibl. Wirt. : A chaste love is a beautiful thing, by
which conjugal love is afterwards more and more
strengthened and coiitirmed. — Ver. 25. Here Jacob
might have understood how it grieved Esau when, for
the sake of his birthright, he had practised upon him
such cimnmg and deceit. As he had done unto oth-
ers, God permitted that he should receive from others.
— The crafty Laban wears the image of the world;
whoever serves it never receives what he expects ;
he looks for Rachel, and behold it is Leah (Olear).

Geelach : From this instance onward (especially)
God speaks to Jacob by every occurrence. Laban
deceives him, because he thinks that Laban's (Ja-
cob's ?) service will be profitable to him, and thus
he (Laban) loses not only a great part (?) of his herds,
but is also obliged lo part from his children. — The
misery of bigamy : it was therefore expressly forbid-
den in the law (Lev. xviii. 18) that any one should
marry two sisters at the same time, or to favor one
wife before the other (Dent. xxi. lY). The seven
years of service reminds us perhaps of the later
statute among the Israehtes, according to which ser-
vants were to obtain their freedom during the sev-
enth year (Exod. xxi. 2) ; Jacob, therefore, as a
compensation for the daughters, took upon himself
a seven years' service (slavery), — (The danger of
exciting Esau prevented him from bringing the price
from his home, even had he entrusted his affair to
God.) — Schroder : Space is no obstacle to faith, nor
time to hope. — An engagement of long standing, if
decreed by God, may become a salutary and bene-
ficial school for a Christian marriage. — Comparisons
between the deception practised by Laban upon
Jacob, and that which Jacob practised upon Esau :
1. One brother upon another. 2. There the younger
instead of the older ; here the older, etc. 8. (Roos)
He did not know Leah when he was married to her,
just as his father knew him not when he blessed
him. 4. Leah at the instigation of her father, Jacob
Bt the instigation of his mother. — But he received,
notwithstanding his ignorance as to Leah, the wife
designed for him by God, who was to become the
mother of the Messiah, just as Isaac blessed him
unwittingly as the rightful heir of the promi.se. Ah,
in how many errors and follies of men, here and
everywhere, do we find God's inevitable grace and
faithfulness intertwined (Roos).

Section Fourth, vers. 26-30. Starke : Ver. 27.
It is remarkable that the ancient Jews, at births,
maiTiages, and deaths, observed the seventh day as
an holy day (Gen. xxi. 4 ; Luke ii. 21 ; Gen. 1. 10 ;
Bir. xxii. 13). From this fact we may conclude that
the ancient Hebrews already considered the day of
birth and circumcision, the day of marriage, and the
day of death, as the thr^ e most important ones in
Efa — (Ver. 28. Jacob might have asked for a i:

vorce.) — Jacob's polygamy not caused by sensuality;
but did not remain unpunished. — (Bokmann : Com.
parison between the two wives and the Old and New
Testament, the two churches to whom the Lord is
betrothed. The Old Testament Leah, the wearied,
the tender eyed.) — Hall: God often afflicts us
through our own friendship (relatives). He often
punishes our own sins by the sins of others, before
we are aware of it (2 Sam. xvi. 22). — Osiander : Oh,
what is avarice not capable of? — Hall : God's chil-
dren do not easily obtain what they wish for, but
must toil hard for it; (German) work for it, tooth
and nail. — -Schroder : Jacob's history, in its turning-
points, meets with personages who serve to bring
out his character more clearly in contrast with
theirs; their thoughts bound In the present, — his
looking on into the future. Thus Esau and Laban.
Section F'ifth,Tevs. i\-Z5. Starke: Osiander:
It is still customary with God to take care of the
distressed.. — Cramer: God distributes his gifts by
parts. Do not despise any one. — Hall : God knows
how to weigh to us in similar ways both our gifts of
grace and our crosses. — Bibl. Wirt. : There is nothing
so bad or so comphcated but that God can bring good
out of it. — (Signification of the word from which
" Judah " is derived : 1. To thank; 2. to commend;
3. to praise; 4. to confess.) From this Judah al
Jews received their beautiful name. — Geelach.
Reuben : see a son ; in allusion to Raah-Be-Onyi,
i. e., he (Jehovah) hath looked upon my affliction. —
Schroder : The mother gives the names, as she does
also in Homer.

Section Sixth, ch. xxx. 1-8. Starke : Bibl. Wirt. :
Impatience is the mother of many sins. — Even to the
pious in their married life the sun of peace and har-
mony does not always shine ; at times dark clouds of
dissension and strife arise. But we must guard in
time against such clouds and storms. — We must not
try to obtain the divine blessing by unrighteous
means. — Schroder : Children are God's gift. All
parents should consider this, and take such care of
these divine gifts that when God calls those whom
he has entrusted to them, they may render a good
account (Valer. Herb.). — In Rachel we meet with
envy and jealousy, while in Jehovah there is com-
passion and grace.

Section Seventh, vers. 9-13. Schroder: For all
times Israel is warned by the patriarch's culpable
weakness and pliancy in relation to his wives, as well
as by the frightful picture of his polygamy. (Israel,
it is true, should even in this way learn to distinguish
the times, to recognize the workings of divine grace
in and over the errors of men, and to rejoice at the
progress in his law.)

Section Eighth, vers. 14—21. Starke : (Do you
ask as to the nature of the Dudaim ? some think they
are lilies, others that they are berries, but no one
knows what they are. Some call them " winter
cherries." Luther.) — The rivalry of the sisters.
Thus God punished him because he had taken two
wives, even two sisters. Even the holy women were
not purely and entirely spiritual. — Schroder: In
reference to the maid's children, God's name is nei-
ther mentioned by Leah nor by the narrator. They
were in the strictest sense begotten in a natural way
(Hengstenberg). (This is wrong, for in the first
place Jacob had nothing to do with the maids in the
natural way of mere lust ; 2. in that case thej
would not have been numbered among the blessed
seed of Israel. The principal tribes, ind aed, did aol
spring from them.)

CHAP. XXX. 25— XXSl. 1-8. 63f,

Section Ninth, vera. 22-24. Starke : Why bar-
renness was considered by Abraham's descendants
ts a sign of the diyine curse : 1. It appeared as if
they were excluded from the promise of the enlarge-
ment of Abraham's seed ; 2. They were without the
hope of giving birth to the Messiah ; 3. They had
1.0 share in God's universal command: be fruitful

and multiply. — Osiander : Our prayers are not to b«
considered as in vain, if we receive no answer im
mediately. If we are humbled sufficiently below tht
cross, then we will be exalted. — Schroder: Luthei
says respecting Jacob's wives that they were not
moved by mere carnal desire, but looked at the bles»
ing of children with reference to the promised seed

THIRD SECTION.

JaeoVs thought of returning home. New treaty with Lahan. Sis closely calculated propositum
(Prelude to the method of acquiring possession of the Egyptian vessels). LaharCs dis-
pleasure. QoSs commMnd to return.

Chapter XXX. 25— XXXI. 1-3.

25 And it came to pass, when Eachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laoan,
Send me away [let me go], that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country.

26 Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served thee, and let me go : foi

27 thou knowest my service which I have done thee. And Laban said unto him, I pray
thee, if I have found favour in thine eyes, tarry; for I have learned by experience'

28 that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake. And he said, [ferther], Appoint me thy

29 wages, and I will give it. And [But] he said unto him. Thou knowest how I have
SO served thee, and how thy cattle was with me [what thy herds have become under me]. For it was

little which thou hadst before I came, and it is now increased unto a multitude ; and the
Lord hath blessed thee, since my coming' [afterme] : and now when sliall I provide

31 for mine own hoiise also? And he said. What shall I give thee? ^ And Jacob said,
Thou shalt not give me anything [anything peculiar], If thou wilt do this thing for me, I

32 will again feed and keep thy flock [small cattle] : I will pass through all thy flock to-day,
removing from thence all the speckled and spotted [dappled] cattle [iambs], and all the
brown [dark-colored] cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the

33 goats : and of such shall be my hire. So shall my righteousness [rectitude] answer for
me in time to come," when it shall come for my hire ; before thy face : every one that
is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be

34 counted stolen with me. And Laban said, Behold, I would it might be according to

35 thy word. And he removed that day the he-goats that were ringstreaked [striped] and
spotted, and all the she-goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had
some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave them into the hands

36 of his sons. And he set three days' journey betwixt himself [the shepherds and flocks of Laban]

and Jacob [the flocks of Jacob under his sons] : and JaCob fed the rest [the sifted] of Laban 3

flocks.

ST And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, [gum] and of the hazel [almond] and chest-
nut-tree [maple]*; and pilled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which

38 was in the rods. And he laid the rods which he had [striped] pilled before the flocks
in the gutters in the watering-troughs " when the flocks came [to which the flocks must come]

89 to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the floctrs con-
ceived before the rods, and brought forth [threw, oast] ringstreaked, speckled and spotted.,

10 And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ring-
Btraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban ; and he put his own flocks by them»

41 selves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle. And it came to pass, whensoever tha
stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle m the

42 gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the cattle were feeble,

43 he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's. And tha

536

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

man increased exceedingly, and had much [small] cattle, and maid-servants, and men
servants, and camels and asses.
Cii. SXXI. 1 And he heard the words of Laban's sons, saying, Jacob hath taken

away all that was our father's ; and of that which was our father's hath he gotten all

2 this glory [riches].'' And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and, behold, it wan

3 not toward him as before ' [fonneriy]. And [Then] the Lord said unto Jacob, Return
unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred [thy home] ; and I will be with thee.

[^ Ver. 27.--Lit., I have augured, ■'ritlins ; Sept., oltiivL^ofitu ; not that Laban was a serpent-worshipper, but that b*
Osed divination as the heathen ; and thus drew his inferences and auguries. — A. G.]

]■' Ver. SO.-Lit., at my foot.— A. GJ

[3 Ver. 33. — Lit,, in day to-morrow— VaA future— at all times, when, etc. Lange renders " when thou Shalt come npo
jr to my wages ; i. e., to examine. — A. G.]

\* Ver, 37.— Heb., IIOIS , plane-tree; so Sept.. Vulg. and Syriao.— A.G.]

l» •"i;'?'!l?3 , an unusual archaic form for i^JOnFII . Keil.— A. G.)

[• Ch. XKXI. Ver. 2.— Lit., weight.— A. G.J

[T Ver. 2. — Lit., as yesterday, the day before.— A. G.I "

GENERAL PEELIMINAEr SEMAKKS.

1. The term bbjS, ver. 27 (comp. ch. xii. 13),
Bhowa that this section, according to Knobel, is Je-
bovistic.

2. In consequence of Laban's deception, Jacob
must serve fourteen years for his Rachel. According
to ch. xxxi. 41 he served him six years longer,
agreeably to the terms of the contract that he bad
just now concluded with him.

3. The doubtful way in which he now secured his
reward leads us to conjecture that he was conscious
that he had been defrauded by Laban, and that he
was dealing with a selfish man, whose selfishness and
power, he thought, could only be countervailed by
cunning. Nor is it to be denied that wisdom's
weapon is given to the feeble to protect himself
against the harsh and cruel power of the strong.
Our narrative comes under the same category with
tlie surreptitious obtaining of the blessing of the
first-born by Jacob, and the acquisition of the gold
and silver vessels of the Egyptians by the Israelites.
The prudence manifested in these cases is the same ;
but still there was a real deception in the first case
(one deception, however, against another); in the
present case it was simply an overreaching, while in
the third they were only availing themselves of the
situation of the Egyptians, i. e., their disposition.
In all three cases, however, the artful, or at least
wisely-calculated, project, was provoked by a great
and gross wrong. Esau proposes to take back the
birthright which he had sold to Jacob. Laban
caused him to perform a service of fourteen years,
and intends to make him still further a prey to hia
avarice. The Egyptians have indeed consumed tlie
very strength of Israel by their bondage. And if
the scale here turns against Jacob because he thus
cunningly overreached his father-in-law, it is bal-
anced by Laban's pressing him again into his ser-
vice, that he might misuse him anew ; nor is the
marvellous charm to be left out of view, which lay
in his ancient nomadic science and art. Superior
Diinds were never inclined to let their arts and sciences
'ie dormant.

EXJSGETICAL AJSTD CEITICAl.

1. Vers. 25-34. 7'he new contract. — When Ra-
ohel. — At Joseph's birth [which therefore could not
hive occurred until the fifteenth year of his residence

with Laban. — A. G.] a strong feeling comes ovei
Jacob, which leads him to believe that he is to re-
turn home without having received a call from
thence or a divine command here. It is apparent
from what follows that he first of all wished to be-
come independent of Laban, in order to provide for
his own. He is, therefore, soon hampered again,
since a fair prospect opened to him now and here.
Laban's character now comes into view in every
utterance. — May I still grace, etc., lit.. If I have
found favor^ etc. If this expression may be called
an aposiopesis, we must still bear in mind that this
was a standing form of expression even in the oath.
Keil supplies " stay yet." The optative form already
expresses all that is possible. If ^rmn: is, accord-
ing to Delitzsch, a heathen expression, then the
phraseology in Laban's mouth appears more striking
still, through the connection of this expression with
Jehovah's name. — Appoint me. — He not only
recognizes, almost fawningly, Jacob's worth to his
house, but is even willing to yield unconditionally to
his determination — a proof that he did not expeC
of Jacob too great a demand. But Jacob is not ii
clined to trust himself to his generosity, and hence
his cunningly calculated though seemingly trifling
demand. Laban's consent to his demand, however,
breathes in the very expression the joy of selfishness ;
and it is scarcely sufficient to translate : Behold, I
would it might be according to thy word. But
Jacob's proposition seems to point to a very trifling
reward, since the sheep in the East are nearly all
white, while the goats are generally of a dark color
or speckled. For he only demands of Laban's herds
those sheep that have dark spots or specks, or that
are entirely black, and those only of the goats that
were white-spotted or striped. But he does not only
demand the speckled lambs brought forth hereafter,
after the present number of such are set aside for
Laban (Tuch, Baumg., Kurtz), but the present in-
spection is to form the first stock of bis herds (Kno-
bel. Delitzsch). [The words, "thou shalt not give
me anything," seem to indicate that Jacob had no
stock from Laban to begin with, and did not intend
to be dependent upon him for any part of his posses-
sions. Those of this description which should ap-
pear among the flocks should be his hire. He would
depend upon the divine providence and his own skill.
He would be no more indebted to Laban than Abra-
ham to the king of Sodom. — A. G.] Afterwards,
also, the speckled ones brought forth among Laban't

CHAP. XXX 26— XXXI. 1-S.

53":

hen'g are to be added to bis, as is evident from his
following arts. Mlchaelis and Bohlen miss the pur-
port, but it lies in verse 33. For when he invites
Laban to muster his herds iu time to come, "ina a^^<z,
it surely does not mean literally the next day, as
Delitzsoh supposes, but in time to come (see Geseuius,
nna). As often as Laban came to Jacob's herds iu
the future he must regard all the increase in speckled
aad ringstreaked lambs as Jacob's property, but if
he found a purely white sheep or an entirely black
goat, then, and only then, he might regard it as
etolea (As to the sheep and goats of the East, see
Bible Dictionaries, the Natural History of the Bible,
and Knobel, p. 246.) Moreover, this transaction
is not conducted wholly " in the conventional forms
of oriental politeness, asin ch. xxiii., between Abra-
ham and the Hittites " (Del.). Labau's language is
submissive, while that of Jacob is very frank and
bold, as became his invigorated courage and the
sense of the injustice which he had suffered.

2. Vers. 36, 36. 2%e se/jaration of the herds. —

And he removed It surely is not correct, as

Rosenmiiller, Maurer, Del. and Keil suppose, that
Laban is here referred to ; that Laban, " to be more
certain," had removed the speckled ones himself and
put them under the care of his own sons. In this
view everything becomes confused, and Bohlen justly
remarks: "The reference here is to Jacob, because
he intended to separate the animals (ver, 32), as cer-
tainly it was proper for the head servant to do, and be-
cause there is no mention of Labau's sons until ch.
xxxi. 1, while Jacob's older children were certainly
able to take care of the sheep." Reuben, at the close
of tills new term of six years, had probably reached his
thirteenth year, Simeon his eleventh. But even if they
had not reached these years, the expression he gave
them, I^Sa'Tia, could mean: he formed a new family
state, or herds, as a possession of his sons, although
they were assisted in the management by the mothers,
maid.«, and servants, since he himself had anew become
Labau's servant. Hence it is also possible (ver. 36)
for him to make a distinction between himself as La-
ban'sservant, and Jacob as an independent owner, now
represented by his sons. It is altogether improbable
that Jacob would entrust his herds to Laban's sons.
But it is entirely incomprehensible that Jacob, with
his herds, could have taken flight without Laban's
knowledge, and gained three days the start, unless
his herds were under the care of his own sons. [This
is of course well put and unanswerable on the suppo-
sition that the sheep and goats which were removed
from the flocks were Jacob's stock to begin with,
but it has no force if we regard these as Laban's,
and put therefore under the care of his own sons,
while Jacob was left to manage the flocks from
which the separated were taken. — A. G.] — Three
days' journey betwixt. — Lit., "a space of three
days between." Certainly days' journeys here are
those of the herds and are not to be estimated ac-
cording to the journeys of men. Again, Jacob is
ahead of Laban three days, and yet Laban can over-
take him We may conceive, therefore, of a dis-
tance of about twelve hours, or perhaps eighteen
miles. By means of this separation Jacob not only
gained Laban's confidence but also his property.

3. Vers. 37—43. Jacobus management of LahatHs

Serdn. — Took him rods De Wette : Storax, al-

moud-tree, maple. Bunsen : " Gum-tree. The Alex-
mdrians here translate, styrax-tree, but Hos. iv. 13
poplars. If we look at the Arabic, in which our

Hebrew word has been preserved, the explanation
of styrax-tree is to be preferred. It is similar to th»
quince, grows in Syria, Arabia, and Asia Minor,
reaches the height of about twelve feet, and fur-
nishes, if incisions are made in the bark, a sweet,
fragrant-smelling, »nd transparent gum, of a light-
red color, called styrax. Alm<md-tree. This signifi-
cation is uncertain, since the hazelnut-tree may also
be referred to. Plane-tree. A splendid tree, fre-
quent even in South Europe, having large boughs,
extending to a great distance (hence the Greek name,
Platane), and bearing some resemblance to the maple
tree." Jacob of course must select rods from such
trees, whose dark external bark produced the great-
est contrast with the white one below it. In this
respect gum-tree might be better adapted than white
poplars, almond-tree or walnut better than hazel-
nut, and maple better than plane-tree. Keil : Storax,
walnut, and maple trees, which aU have below their
bark a white, dazzhng wood. Thus he procured rods
of different kinds and pilled white streaks in them. —

And he set the rods Enobel thinks, he placed tm

staffs on the watering-troughs, but did not put them ii
the gutters. But this does not agree with the choice
of the verb, nor the fact itself: the animals, by looking
into the water for some time, were to receive, as it
were, into themselves, the appearance of the rods lying
near. They, in a technical sense, " were frightened "
at them. The wells were surrounded with water-
ing-troughs, used for the watering of the cattle. —
And they conceived. — For the change of the
forms here, see Keil, p. 210. — And brought forth
cattle. — " This crafty trick was based upon the
common experience of the so-caUed fright of ani-
mals, especially of sheep, namely, that the represen-
tations of the senses during coition are stamped
upon the form of the foetus (see BocH., Hieroz., i.
618, and FEiEnREicH upon the Bible, i. 37, etc.)."
Keil. For details see Knobel, p. 247, and Delitzsch,
p. 472. — And set the faces of the flock. — Jacob's
second artifice. The speckled animals, it is true,
were removed, from time to tinpe, from Laban's herds,
and added to Jacob's flock, but in the meantime
Jacob put the speckled animals in front of the others,
so that Laban's herds had always these spotted or
variegated animals before them, and in this manner
another impression was produced upon the she-goats
and sheep. Bohlen opposes this second artifice,
against Rosenmiiller, Maurer, and others. The clause
in question should be : he sent them to the speckled
ones that already belonged to hhn (■'53 in the sense
of veraua). But the general term "liiSil is against
this. The separation of the new-born lambs and
goats from the old herds could only be gradual. —
The stronger cattle. — The third artifice. He so
arranged the thing that the stronger cattle fell to
him, the feebler to Laban. His first artifice, there-
fore, produced fully the desired effect. It was owing
partly, perhaps, to his sense of equity toward Laban,
and partly to his prudence, that he set these limits
to his gain ; but he still, however, takes the advan-
tage, since he seeks to gain the stronger cattle for
himself. Bohlen : " Literally, Ute bound ones, firmly
set, i. e., the strong, just as the covered ones, i. e., the
feeble, languid, faint ; for the transi'ion is easy from
the idea of binding, firmness, to that of strength,
and from that of covering, to languishing, or faint-
ness. Some of the old translators refer them to ve^
nal and autumnal lambs (comp. Plin. 8, 47, Colxf
mella, De re rust., 8, 3), because the sheep in Palea

hsa

GENESIS, OK THE FffiST BOOK OF MOSES.

tine and similar climates bear twice in a year(A.Ris-
roT., Hut. Anim., 6, 18, 19; 'Problems,' 10, 46;
BoCHART, Hieroz., i. p. 512), and because those con-
leived in the Spring or Summer and bom in the
Autumn are stron^rer than those conceived in Au-
tumn and bom in Spring. But the text does not
draw this precise distinction." The Septuagint only
distinguishes between diriariua and StrrjMa. Luther
renders " late" and " early bom," — And the man
increased. — With the rich increase in cattle, care
was taken at the same time to secure an increase in
men-servants and maid-servants, as well as camels
and asses. Knobel finds a contradiction in the fact
that this rich increase is here ascribed to Jacob's
artifice, whilst it is attributed to the divine blessing
in ch. xxxi. 9. But so much only is evident, that
Jacob did not act against his conscience, but thought
that he might anticipate and assist by human means
the fulfilment of those visions in which the rewards
of this kind were promised to him. — And he heard.
The complete success that Jacob met with excited
the envy and jealousy of Laban's sons, whose exist-
ence 13 indicated first in the plural (ch. xxix. 27),
but whose definite appearance here sliows that the
selfisli disposition peculiar to this family was more
fully developed in them than in Laban himself —
The words of Laban's sons. — Accbrding to De-
litzsch, they were quite small, not yet fourteen years
of age — an assertion, however, which has no suffi-
cient ground.

4. Ch. xxxi. 1-3. Jacobus resolution to return
home. — All that was our father's. — They evident
ly exaggerate in their hatred, and even accuse him
of dishonesty by the use of the expression ; of that
which was our father's. But Laban shares in the
threatening disposition ; his countenance had changed
remarkably toward Jacob, a fact all the more
striking, since he had formerly been extraordinarily
friendly. Trouble and dangers similar to those at
home now develop themselves here ; then comes, at
the critical juncture, Jehovah's command : Return.

DOCTBINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. Jacob's resolution to return home at his own
risk, is to be explained from his excessive joy at
Joseph's birth, and from his longing for home and
for deliverance from the oppression of Laban. More-
over, he seems to have considered Rachel's son as
the principal Messianic heir, and therefore must
hasten to conduct him to the promised land, even at
the peril of his life. Besides, he now feels that he
must provide for his own house, and with Laban's
selfishness there is very Utile prospect of his attain-
ing this in Laban's house. These two circumstances
show clearly why he allows himself to be retained
by Labnn (for he has no assurance of faith that he is
now to return), and in the second place, the manner
and means by which he turns the contract to his own
advantage.

2. We here learn that Laban's prosperity was
not very great before Jacob's arrival. The blessing
first returns to the house with Jacob's entrance. But
this blessing seemed to become to Laban no blessing
of faith. His conduct toward the son of his sister
and his son-in-law, becomes more and more base.
He seizes eagerly, therefore, the terms otfercd to him
by Jacob, because they appear to h»m most favor-
ible, since the sheep in the East are generally white,
while the goats are black. His intention, therefore.

is to defraud Jacob, while he is actually overreached
by him. Besides, this avails only of the mere form ;
as to the thing itself, Jacob really had claims to a
fair compensation.

3. Just as Jacob's conduct at the surreptitious
obtaining the birthright was preceded by Isaac's
intended cunning, and the injustice of Esau, so also,
in many respects, here Laban's injustice and artifice
precedes Jacob's project (ch. xxxi.). In this light
Jacob's conduct is to be judged. Hence he after,
wards views his real gain as a divine blessing, al-
though he had to atone again for his selfishness and
cunning, in the form of the gain, at least, by fears
and danger. Moreover, we must still bring into
view, as to Jacob's and Laban's bargain, the follow-
ing points : 1. Jacob asks for his wages very mod
estly and frankly ; he asks for his wives and children,
as the fruit of his wives, and for his discharge.
While Laban wishes to keep bim for his own advan
tage. 2. Jacob speaks frankly, Laban flatters and
fawns. 3. Jacob might now expect a paternal treat-
ment and dowry on the part of Laban. Laban, on
the contrary, prolongs his servile relation, and asks
him to determine his reward, because he expected
from Jacob's modesty the announcement of very
smSW wages. 4. In the proposition made by Jacob,
he thought he had caught him.

4. The establishment of his own household, after
being married fourteen years, shows that Jacob, in
this lespect, as well as in the conclusion of his mar-
riage, awaited his time.

5. The so-called impressions of she goats and
sheep, a very old observation, which the cooperation
of 8ui)tle impressions, images, and even imaginations
at the formation of the foetus, and, indeed, the foetus
itself among animals confirms. — The attainment
of varieties and new species among animals and
plants is very ancient, and stands closely connected
with civihzation and the kingdom of God.

6. Jacob's sagacity, his weapon against the strong.
But as he stands over against God, he employed dif-
ferent means, especially prayer.

7. The want of candor in Laban's household,
corresponds with the selfishness of the household.

8. In the following chapter we find still further
details respecting Jacob's bargain. In the first place,
the selfish Laban broke, in diflferent ways, the firm
bargain made with Jacob, in order to change it to
his advantage (ch. xxxi. 7). Secondly, Jacob's mor-
bid sense of justice had been so excited that he re-
ceived explanation of the state of things in his herds
even in his night-visions.

HOMILETIOAi AND PRACTIOAI,.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical paragraphs. The
present section is, for the most part, fitted for re-
ligious, biographical, and psychological contempla-
tions. It is to be treated carefully both with respect
to Jacob's censure as well as his praise. — Jacob's
resolutions to return home: 1. The first: why so
vividly formed, but not accomplished ; 2. the second;
the cause of his assurance (the divine command).
Moreover, perils equal to those threatening at home,
were now surrounding him. — His longing for home
during his service abroad. — The hardships of a se
vere servitude in Jacob's life, as well as in the historj
of his descendants: when blessed? — Laban's selfish-
ness and Jacob's sense of right at war with eacl
other. — Pmdence as a weapon in life's batttle : I

CHAP. XXXI. 4— XXXn. 2.

53P

The authority to use this weapon when opposed to
1 harsh superiority or subtlety ; 2. the mighty effi-
cacy of this weapon ; 3. the danger of this weapon.
— Jacob's prudence in its right and wrong aspects
in our history : 1. The right Ues in his just claims ;
2. the wrong, in his want of candor, his dissimula-
tion and his self-help. — His natural science, or knowl-
edge of nature, combined with prudence, a great
power in life. — The difficulties in the establishment
of an household : 1. Their general causes ; 2. how
they are to be overcome. — Jacob's prosperity abroad.
—Jacob struggling with difficulties all his life long.
Section Mrst, vers. 25-34. Starke : (As to the
different meanings of ffinj, ver. 27. Some com-
mentators hold that Laban had superstitiously con-
sulted his teraphim, or idols.) — £ibl. Wirt. : It is
customary with covetous people to deal selfishly with
their neighbors. — Ver. 30. By means of my foot.
Luther : i. e., I had to hunt and run through thick and
thin in order that you might be rich. — Ver. 34. If
Laban had been honest, he could have represented to
Jacob, that he would be a great loser by this bargain.
God even blesses impious masters on account of their
pious servants (1 Tim. v. 8). — Calwer Handbuch :
Jacob 91 years old. — Thus Laban's covetousness and
avarice is punished by the very bargain which he
purposed to make for his own advantage. — We are
not to apply the criterion of Christianity to Jacob's
conduct.-— Schroder : Acts and course of life
among strangers. As to Laban. Courtesy to-
gether with religion are made serviceable to the at-
tainment of his ends. — Thus, also, in the future,
there is only a more definite agreement of master

and servant between Jacob and his father-in-law.

(The period of pregnancy with sheep lasts five
months ; they may therefore lamb twice during the
year. Herds were the liveliest and strongest in au-
tumn, after having enjoyed the good pasture during
the summer, etc. On the contrary, herds are feebls
after having just passed the winter.)

iSecizon&cond, vers. 36, 36. Starke: A Christian
is to look for pious men-servants and maid-servants

Section Third, vers. 37-43. Starke : Christian,
be warned not to misuse this example to encourage
the practice of cunning and deceit with your neigh-
bor.— Cramer : Wages that are earned, but kept
back, cry to heaven ; hence nature here serves Ja-
cob (James v. 4). — Hall : God's children, even in
external things, have evident proofs that his grace
over them is greater than over the godless. — Schro-
der ; Luther and Calvin are rncUned to excuse Jacob
(oh. xxxi. 12).

Section Fourth. Ch. xxxi. 1-3. Starke : It is
a very great reproach if acquaintances and relatives
slander each other. — Hall: As the godless enjoy no
peace with God, so also the pious enjoy no peace
with godless men. — Cramer : Sin in man is so poi-
sonous that it glitters in the eye, and is sweet to the
taste, and pleasant to all the members. — Schroder :
Thus the Lord often serves his people more through
the jealousy of the godless, than if he suffered them
to grow feeble in prosperity. — Ver. 3. Luther : It
probably was an answer to Jacob's prayer. — The di-
vine command and promise compensates Jacob for the
promised message of the mother. Thus his return re-
ceives the character of an act of faith (Baumgarten).

FOURTH SECTION".

Jacob's flight. Laban\ perseeutum. The covenant between the two on the mmmtain of Qilead.

Departure.

Chapter XXXL 4— XXXH. 2.

4, 5 And Jacob sent and called Eachel and Leah to the field unto his flock. And sam
unto them, I see [am seeing] your father's countenance, that it is not toward me as be-

6 fore : but the God [Elohim] of my father hath been with me. And ye' know that with

7 all my power I have served you;- father. And your father hath deceived ' me, and

8 changed my wages ten times: but God suffered him not to hurt me. If he said thus,
The speckled shall be thy wages ; then all the cattle bare speckled : and if he said thus,
The [Symm.: whits-footed] ring-streaked shall be thy hire ; then hare all the cattle ring-

9 streaked. Thus God hath taken away the [acquisitions] cattle of your father, and given

10 them to me. And it came to pass at the time that the cattle conceived, that I lifted up
mine eyes, and saw in a dream, and behold [l saw], the rams which leaped upon the

11 cattle were ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled.' And the angel of God spake unto me

12 in a dream, saying, Jacob : And I said. Here am I. And he said. Lift up now thme
eyes and see, all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ring-streaked, speckled, and

13 grizzled: for I have seen all that Laban [is doing] doeth unto thee. I am the God of
Beth-el, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me :
now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred [birtli]

14 And Rachel and Leah answered, and said unto him, Is there yet any portion or inben

940 GENESIS, OR THE FIEST BOOK OF MOSES.

15 tance for us in our father's house? Are we not cou_ited of him strangers? for he hath

16 sold us, and hath quite devoured' also our money. For all the riches which God hath
taken from our father, that is ours, and our children's now then, whatsoever God hatli
said unto thee, do.

J 7, 18 Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and wives upon camels; And he carried
away all his cattle, and all his goods [ms moTabie property, gain] which he had gotten, the
cattle of his getting, which he had gotten in Padan-aram ; for to go to Isaac his fathe.

19 in the land of Canaan. And Laban went to shear liis [tothefeastofshcep-shearingr] sheep.

20 and Rachel had stolen the images' [TerapMm, homoiioid gods] that were her father's. And
Jacob stole away unwares [the heart of] to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not

21 that he fled. So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the

22 river [Euphrates], and set his face [journey] toward the mount Gilead. And it was told

23 Laban on the third day, that Jacob was fled. And [Then] he took his brethren with
him, and pursued after him seven days' journey : and they overtook him in the mount

24 Gilead. And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said unto him.
Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.

25 Then Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mount: and

26 Laban with his brethren [tented] pitched in the mount of Gilead. And Laban said to
Jacob, What hast thou done, that thou hast stolen away unwares to me, and carried

27 away my daughters, as captives taken with the sword [theGpoUsofwar] ? Wherefore
didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me, and didst not tell me, that I
might have sent thee away [given thee a convoy] with mirth, and with songs, with tabret,

28 and with harp ? And hast not suffered me to kiss my sons [grandsons], and my daughters ?

29 thou hast now done foolishly in so doing. It is in the power of my hand' to do you
hurt : but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take thou heed

30 that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad. And now, though thou wouldest
needs be gone, because thou sore longedst after thy father's house ; yet wherefore hast

31 thou stolen my gods ? And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid :
for I said [said to myself ], Peradventure thou wouldest take by force thy daughters from

32 me. With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live : before our brethren
discern thou what is thine with me, and take it to thee : for Jacob knew not that

33 Eachel had stolen them. And Laban went into Jacob's tent, and into Leah's tent, ami
into the two maid-servants' tents; but he found them not. Then went he out of Leah's

34 tent, and entered into Rachel's tent. Now Rachel had taken the images [household gods],
and put them in the camel's furniture, and sat upon them. And Laban searched all

35 the tent, but found them not. And she said to her fatlier, Let it not displease my lord
that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women [female period] is upon me.
And he searched [au], but found not the images.

36 And Jacob was wroth, and chode with Laban: and Jacob answered, and said to La-
ban, What is my trespass ? what is my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued [burned] after

37 me ? Whereas thou hast searched all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household-
stuff? set it here before my brethren, and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt

38 us both. This twenty years have I been with thee ; thy ewes and thy she-goats have

39 not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not eaten. That which waa
torn of beasts, I brought not unto thee ; I bare the loss of it [must make aatlsfactioii for it] ;

40 of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night. Thus I
was ; in tlie day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night ; and my sleep

41 departed from mine eyes. Thus have I been twenty years in thy house : I served thee
fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle : and thou hast

42 changed my wages ten times. Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and
the fear of Isaac had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty.
God hath seen mine f,ffliction, and the labor [wearisome labor] of my liands, and rebuked
[ijdged] thee yesternight.

i3 And Laban answered, and said unto Jacob, These daughters are my daughters, and
these children are my children, and these cattle are my cattle [herds], and all that t.iou
seest is mine ; and what can I do this day unto these my daughters, or unto their

44 children which they have borne ? Now therefore come thou, let us make a corenant

45 fa covenant of peace], I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee. And

CHAF. XXXT 4— XXXir. 2.

541

46 Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. And Jacob said unto his brethren.
Gather stones ; and they took stones, and made an heap : and they did eat tl ere upon

47 the heap. And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha [syriao: heap of witness] : but Jacob called

48 it Galeed [the same in Hebrew] : And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and

49 thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed : And Mizpah [watch-tower] ;
for he said, The Loed watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from

50 another. If thou shalt afBict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives besides

51 my daughters, no man is with us; see, God, is witness betwixt me and thee. And
Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap [stone heap], and behold this pillar, which I hav*

52 cast [erected] betwixt me and thee ; This heap he witness, and this pillar he witness, that 1
will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and thi?

53 pillar unto me, for harm. The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God oi
their father, judge [plural] betwixt us. And [But] Jacob sware by the fear of his father

54 Isaac. Then Jacob offered sacrifice upon the mount, and called his brethren to eat

55 bread : and they did eat bread, and tarried all night in the mount. And early in the
morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them : and
Laban departed, and returned unto his place.

Ch. XXXIf. 1. And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And
2 when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host : and he called the name of that
place Mahanaim [two camps; double camp].

(* Ch. xxxL ver. 6. — The full form of the pronoun, see Giieen's Grammar, 71, (2.)— A, G.]

[• Ver. 7.— bnn , Hiphil from ViV\ ; see Geebn's Granmiar, 142, (3.)— A. G.]

[8 Ver. 10. — Heb., Beruddim, spotted with hail. Our word, grizzled, is from the French, grele, hail, and thus a literfU
translation of the Hebrew. — A, G.]

[* Ver. 15. — The Hebrew form, the absolute infinitxTe after the finite verb, denotes continuance of the action. — He
has constantly devoured. — A. G.]

[" Ver. 19. — D^S'^n . The word occurs fifteen times in the Old Testament ; three times in this chapter, and nowhera
else in the Pentateuch. It is always in the plural. It means, perhaps, to live welL or to nourish. In two passages (Judg.
xvii. and xviii., and Hosea iii. 4), they are six times associated with the ephod. The use of them in the worship of God,
1b denounced as idolatry (I Sam. xv. 23), and hence they are classed with the idols put away by Josiah, 2 Kings xxiii

Murphy. — A. G.l
(• Ver. 29.— Heb.,

There is to God my hand. — A. G.]

GENERAL PEELIMINAEY EEMABKS.

1. Delitzsch regards the present section as
throughout Elohistic ; but according to Knobel, Je-
hovistic portions are inwrought into it, and hence
the narrative is here and there broken and discon-
nected.

2. The present journey of Jacob is evidently in
contrast with his previous journey to Mesopotamia ;
Mahanaim and Peniel form the contrast with Bethel.

3. We make the following division : 1. Jacob's
■inference with his wives, rers. 4-16 ; 2. the flight,
vers. 17-21 ; 3. Laban's pursuit, vers. 22-25 ; 4.
Laban'a reproof, vers. 26-30 ; 6. Laban's search in
the tents of Jacob, rer. 31-35 ; 6. Jacob's reproof,
vers. 36-42 ; 1. the covenant of peace between the
two, vers. 43, 53 ; 8. the covenant meal and the de-
parture, ver. 64-ch. xxxii. 2.

EXEGETICAIi AND CEITICAL.

1. Vers. 4-16. Jacobus conference wUh his
B!"'<». — ^Unto his flock. — Under some pretext Jacob
had left the flocks of Laban, although it was then
the feast of sheep-shearing, and gone to his own
flocks (a three days' journey, and probably in a di-
rection favoring his flight). Hither, to the field, he
calls his wives, and Rachel, as the favorite, is called
first. — Changed my wages ten times. — The
expression ten times is used for frequently, in Numb.
riv. 22 and in other passages. [Keil holds that the

ten, as the number of completeness, here denotes as of-
ten as he could, or as he had opportunity. It is proba-
bly the definite for an indefinite. — A. G.] — If he said
thus, The ring-streaked. — As Laban deceived Ja-
cob in the matter of Rachel, so now in the arrange-
ment for the last six years, he had in various ways
dealt selfishly and unjustly, partly in dividing
equally the spotted lambs, according to his own
terms, and partly in always assigning to Jacob
that particular kind of spotted lambs which
had previously been the least fruitful. — And the
Angel of God. — Jacob here evidently joins togeth-
er a circle of night-visions, which he traces up to the
Angel of the Lord, as the angel of Elohim, and
which run through the whole six years to their close.
If Laban imposed a new and unfavorable condition,
he saw in a dream that now the flocks should bring
forth lambs of that particular color agreed upon,
now ring-streaked, now speckled, and now spotted.
But the vision was given to comfort him, and indeed,
under the image of the variegated rams which served
the flocks. This angel of Elohim declares himself
to be identical with the God of Bethel, i. e., with Je-
hovah, who reveals himself at Bethel as exalted ahovt
the angels. It is thus his covenant God who haa
guarded his rights against the injustice of Laban, and
prepares this wonderful blessing for him ; a fact
which does not militate against his use of skill and
craft, but places those in a modified and milder light
The conclusion of these visions is, that Jacob musi
return. [The difference between this narrative .inii
that given in ch. xxx., is a difference having 't!

642

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

grcund and explaiMtion in the facts of the case.
For obvious reasona Jacob chose here to pass oyer
his own strategy and craft In silence, and brings out
into prominence the divine providence and aid to
which his prosperity was due. That Jacob resorted
to the means he did, is not inconsistent with the ob-
jectife reality of the dream-vision, but rather con-
firms it. If he regarded the vision as prophetic of
the issue, as he must have done, the means which he
used, the arts and cunning, are characteristic of the
man, who was not yet weaned from cotifidence in
himself, was not entirely the man of fnilh. If we
regard this vision as occurring at the beginning of
the six years' service, it is entirely natural that Jacob
should now connect it so closely with the voice of
the same angel commanding him to return to the
land of his birth. — A. G.] — Are ^^e not counted
of him strangers ? — Laban takes the same posi-
tion towards his daughters as towards Jacob himself
Hence they have nothing more to hope for from him.
He had sold them as strangers, i. e., really, as slaves,
for the service of Jacob. But this very price, i. e.,
Che blessing resulting from Jacob's service, he had
entirely eoi;sumed, i. e., the daughters had received
no share of it. Hence it is evident that they speak
with an inward alienation from him, although not
calling him by name, and that they desired the
Bight.

2. Vers. 17-21. The Blight. — The circumstance
that Jacob, with his wives, was already at the station
of his herds, while Laban remained at his own sta-
tion, three days' journey distant, keeping the feast of
sheep-shearing, fkvored the flight. Either Laban
had not invited Jacob to this feast, which is scarce-
ly probable, since he was usually at this station, or
Jacob took the opportunity of leaving, in order to
visit his own flocks. As the sheep-shearing lasted
several days (1 Sam. xxv.) the opportunity was a very
favorable one. — And Rachel had stolen. — This
feature, however, as also the following, when she de-
nied the theft to her father, reveals a cunning
which is far more befitting the daughter of Laban,
than the wife of the prudent Jacob. — The images. —
Literally Teraphlm (see Delitzsch, p. 410, Note 73),
Penates, small figures, probably resembling the
human form, which were honored as guardians of
the household prosperity, and as oracles. But as
we must distinguish the symbolic adoration of re-
ligious images (statuettes) among ancients, from the
true and proper mythological worship, so we must
distinguish between a gentler and severe censure of
the use of such images upon Shemitic ground.
Doubtless the symbolic usage prevailed in the house
of Laban and Nahor. It is hardly probable that
Rachel intended, by a pious and fanatical theft, to
free her father from idolatry (Greg. Naz., Basil), for
then she would have thrown the images away. She
appears to have stolen them with the superstitious
idea that she would prevent her father from consult-
ing them as oracles, and under their guidance, as the
pursuer of Jacob, from overtaking and destroying
him (Aben Ezra). The supposition of a condition
of war, with its necessity and strategy, enters here
with apologetic force. This, however, does not ex-
clude the idea, that she attributed to the images a
certain magical, though not religious, power (perhaps,
as oracles. Chrysostom). The very lowest and most
degrading supposition, is that she took the images,
often overlaid with silver, or precious metals, from
mercenary motives (Peirefius). Jacob himself had
tt first a lax rather than a strict conscience in regard

to these images (see oh. xxxv. 2), but the atnctei
view prevails since the time of Moses (Ex. xx.; Josh,
xxiv. 2, 14 f.) [The derivation of the Heb. wore
teraphim, always used in the plural, is doubtful
Some derive it from taraph, to rejoice — thus dispen
sers of good ; others from a like root, to inquire-
thus they are oracles ; and others, as Kurtz and
Hofmann, make it another form of <Ssra/)AJm. Thej
were regarded and used as oracles (Judg. xvii. 5-6
Ezek. xxi. 21 ; Zech. x. 2). They were not idols in
the worst sense of the word ; and were sometimes
used by those who professed the worship of the true
God (1 Sam. xix. 13). The tendency was always
hurtful, and they were ultimately rooted out from Is-
rael. Laban had lapsed into a more corrupt form ol
religion, and his daughters had not escappd the in-
fection. We may modify our views of Rachel's
sin, but it cannot be excused or justified (see Keil,
"Arch.," p. 90 ; Wordsworth, p. 132 ; Hengstenbehg,
" Christology ; " HAVERicK's'-Ezek."xiii. 47). — A.G.]
— And Jacoij stole away unawares to Laban. —
The explanation KX^nreiv i/ooz/in the sense of ''to de-
ceive " (Del., Keil), appears to us incorrect. The ex-
pression indeed does not bear the sense which we
moderns associate with the words " steal the heart,"
and ver. 26 seems to indicate that the heart of Laban
is the love which this hard-hearted father bears
towards his daughters. Rachel, however, seems tc
have been his favorite. He regarded and treatec
her not only as a wise but cunning child, and
hence, while he searched carefidly everything in all
the tents, he did not venture to compel her to
arise. The last clause of ver. 20, further cannot
possibly mean " in that he told him not that he fled."
For who would betray his own flight ? We interpret
T'ail impersonally, it was not told him. — The
Syrian. — " Moses gives this title to Laban because
the Syrians were more crafty than other nations."
Jacob, however, surpassed him (Cleric). Over the
river. — The Euphrates. — Tow^ard the mount
Gilead. — For the mountains of Gilead see Geogra-
phies of Palestine,Bible Dictionaries, Books of Travels,
etc. " Knobel understands "isbil ^n to be the
mountain range now known as Gebel Gilad, or Gebel
es-Ssalt, and combines neSB with the present Ssalt.
But this assumption leads to the improbable results
that Mahanaim, south of Jabbok and Succoth (prob-
ably the one on the other side), lay north from Jab-
bok, and thus Jacob's line of march would be back-
wards in a. north-westerly direction." Delitzsch.
Delitzsch understands correctly, that it is the north-
em side of the mountains of Gilead, above the Jab-
bok, which lay nearest to those coming from Meso-
potamia.

3. Vers. 22-25. Labari's pursuit. — On the
third day. — This is partially explained by the
long distance between the two stations. — His
brethren vrith him. — Of the same tribe, kinsmen.
— Seven days' journey. — As Jacob,with his herds,
moved slower than Laban, he lost his start of three
days in the course of seven days. — And God came
to Laban. — A proof that he had still some nobler
traits of character, — Either good or bad. — The
translation neither good nor bad is not fitting here.
Literally from good to bad (Knobel). It presupposes
that he was inclined to pass from a hasty greeting
of his daughters and their children, to reproaches
and invectives. — Novr Jacob had pitched his
tent. — As soon as he reached the heights of th(
mountain range, the mount Gilead, he pitched hi"

CHAP. XXXI. 4— XXXn. 2.

543

tent but here Laban with his retinue overtook him,
and tented near by him. The text assumes : 1. That
a certain mountain, north of Jabbok, gave its
name to the whole range of mountains (just as
Galilee, ori^nally designating a small mountain re-
gion, gradually extended its significance). 2. That
thus we must distinguish between this first moun-
tain in the range of Gilead, and the principal
mountain mentioned later.

4. Vers. 26-30. The words of Laban are charac-
teristic, passionate, idiomatic, exaggerated even to
falsehood !ind hypocrisy, and still at the end there
in a word which betrays the man — shows his hu-
man nature and kindness. He calls his daughters
his heart; their voluntary flight (although he had
sold them) an abduction, as if they were cuptives.
He asserts that he had not given any occasion to
Jacob to flee, on the contrary, that he would have
sent him away with music and mirth. He
had not, however, even suffered him to take leave
of bis daughters and grandsons. These tender ut-
terances are followed at once by haughty threats
(ver. 29). From his own point of view it seems im-
prudent to relate the ni,"ht warning, but his pride
and animosity lead him t^ do it. Jacob should not
think that he willingly lei him go unpunished, but
"the God of your father," he says, with a bitter
heart, has forbidden me. He finally (ver. 30) ac-
knowledges in a sarcastic way that Jacob might go,
but only to crush him with the burden of his ac-
cusation, in which, however, there was a two-fold
exaggeration ; first, in calling the leraphim his
gods, and then, second, in makmg Jacob the thief.
The true sentiment for his children, the fear of
3od, and, finally, a real indignation at the secrecy of
Jacob's departure, form the core of the speech, which
assumes at last the shape of a pointed accusation.
Theie is no trace of self-knowledge or humility. —
With mirth. — (See 1 Sam. xviii. 6 ; 2 Sara. vi. 6.)
The word nnrlu is indeed a collective for all that
follows, and Delitzsch thinks it probably means dance.
-With tabret. — See Winer; "Musical Instru-
ments." [Also KiTTO and Smith. — A. G.]. — Thou
hast done foolishly Thou who art usually so pru-
dent hast here acted foolishly. The reproach of folly
carries with it that of immorality. — It is in the
power of my hand.— Knobel and Keil [and Jaco
bus. — A.G.] translate "There is to God my hand," with
I'eference to Job, xii. 6 ; Hab. i. 11. Others translate
is power (so Rosen., vtcspu.), [Wordsworth, Bush,
A. G.] and this seems acre io be preferable, notwith-
standing Knobel's objection since Laban immediately
says it is Elohim who restrains his hand.

5. Vers. 31-35. Laban's search. — Laban's rash
accusation gives Jacob, who knew nothing of the
theft of the teraphim, great boldness. — Let him not
live. — We must emphasize the finding, otherwise
Jacob condemned Rachel to death. " The cunning
of Rachel was well planned, for even if Laban had
not regarded it as impure and wrong to touch the
seat of a woman in this state (see Lev. xv. 22), how
could he have thought it possible that one in this
state would sit upon his God." — Delitzsch. But
Keil calls attention to the fact that the view upon
which the law (Lev. xv.) was based, is much older
than that statute, and exists among other people.
[See also KuetZ : Geseh.,vol. i. p. 25 2 ; Baehe's " Sym.
of the Mosaic Cultus," vol. ii. p. 466.— A. G.] For
the camel's furniture or saddle, see Knobel, p. 251.

6. Vers, 36-42. Jacob's reproof. He connects

it with Laban's furious pursuit and searca. Then
he reminds him generally of his harsi treatment, at
opposed to his own faithful and self-sacrificing shep-
herd service for more than twenty years. "The
strong feeling and the lofty self-consciousness whici
utter themselves in his speech, impart to it a rhyth-
mical movement and poetic forms C^nx pbfl to
pursue ardently ; elsewhere only 1 Sam. xvii. 53.")
Delitzsch. — And the frost by night. — The cold
of the nights corresponds with the heat of the day io
the East (Jer. xxxvi. 30 ; Psalms, cxxi. 6). — My
sleep. — Which I needed and which belonged to me.
He had faithfully guarded the flocks by night. Not-
withstanding all this Laban had left him unrewarded,
but the God of his fathers had been with him and
secured his rights. Both the name of his God, and
of his venerable father, must touch the conscience of
Laban. — The fear of Isaac. — [Heb : he whom
Isaac feared.] The object of his religious fear, and
veneration ; of his religion, o-c'iSctj, ai^airfia. — Re.
buked thee yesternight. — This circumstance,
which is only incidentally alluded to in the course of
Laban's speech, forms the emphatic close to that of
Jacob. Jacob understands the dream-revelation of
Laban better than Laban himself.

1. The covenant of peace between the two. Laban
is overcome. He alludes boastfully indeed once
more to his superior power, but acknowledges that
any injury inflicted upon Jacob, the husband and
father, would be visited upon his own daughters and
their children. — What can I do unto thee. — i. e.,
in a bad sense. The fact that his daughters and
grandsons were henceforth dependent upon Jacob,
fills his selfish and ignoble mind with care and solici-
tude about them ; indeed, reminded of the promises
to Abraham and Isaac, he is apprehensive that Jacob
might some time return from Canaan to Haran a? a
mighty prince and avenge his wrong. In this view,
anticipating some such event, he proposes a covenant
of peace, which would have required merely a feast of
reconciliation. But the covenant of peace involved
not only a cold reconciliation, but a theocratic sepa-
ration.— Let us make a covenant. — Laban makes
the proposal, Jacob assents by entering at once upon
its execution. The pillar which Jacob erected, marks
the settlement, the peaceful separation; the stones
heaped together by his brethren (Laban and his reti-
nue, his kindred) designate the friendly communion,
the covenant table. The preliminary eating (ver. 46)
appears to be distinct from the covenant meal (ver.
54), for this common meal continued throughout the
day. The Aramaic designation of the stone heap
used by Laban, and the Hebraic by Jacob, are ex-
plainable on the supposition "that in the fatherland
of the patriarchs, Mesopotamia, the Aramaic or Chal-
dee was used, but in the fatherland of Jacob, Canaan,
the Hebrew was spoken, whence it may be inferred
that the family of Abraham had acquired the Hebrew
tongue from the Canaanites (Phoenicians)." — Keil.
[But this is a slender foundation upon which to base
such a theory. The whole history implies that the
two famiUes of Abraham and Nahor down to this time
and even later found no difficulty in holding inter-
course. They both used the same language, though
with some growing dialectic differences. It is just
as easy to prove that Laban deviated from the
mother tongue as that Jacob did. — A. G.] Knobe!
regards it an error to derive the name Gilead, wMcb
means hard, firm, stony, from the Gal-Ed here used
But proper names are constantly modified as to theii
significance in popular use, from the original or mor«

5-14

GENESIS, OR THE FUiST BOOK OF MOSES.

1 emote, to that which ia proximate. — And Mizpah,
for he said. — Keil concedea that vera. 49 and 60
have the appearance of an interpolation, but not
such as to justify any resort to the theory of combina-
tion from different aourcea. But since Laban'e prin-
cipal concern was for the future of his daughters, we
might at least regard the words, And MizpaA, for he
laid, as a later explanatory interpolation. But there
is not sufficient ground even for this, since Galeed and
Mizpah are here identical in fact, both referring to
the stone heap as well as to the pillar. Laban prays
specifically to Jehovah, to watch that Jacob should
not aflSict his daughters ; especially that he should not
deprive them of their acquired rights, of being the an-
cestress of Jehovah's covenant people. From this
hour Jehovah, according to his prayer, looks down
from the heights of Gilead, as the representative of
his rights, and watches that Jacob dhould keep his
word to his daughters, even when across the Jordan.
But now, as the name Gilead has its origin in some
old sacred tradition, so has the name Mizpah, also.
It is not to be identified with the later cities bearing
that name, with the Mizpah of Jephthah (Judg. xi.
11, 34), or the Mizpah of Gilead (Judg. xl 29), or
Ramoth-Mizpah (Josh. xiii. 26), but must be viewed
as the family name which has spread itself through
many daughters all over Canaan (Keil, 216). — No
man is with ua. — i. e., no one but God only can be
judge and witness between us, since we are to be
so widely separated. — Which I have cast. — He
views himself as the originator, and of the highest
authority in this covenant. — That I will not pass
over. — Here this covenant thought is purely nega-
tive, growing out of a suspicious nature, and securing
a safeguard against mutual injuries ; properly a
theocratic separation. — The God of Abraham and
the God of Nahor. — The monotheism of Laban
seems gliding into dualism ; they may judge, or
"judge." He corrects himself by adding the name
of the God of their common father, i. e., Teiah.
From his alien and wavering point of view he seeks
for sacredness in the abundance of words. But
Jacob swears simply and distinctly by the God whom
Isaac feared, and whom even hie father-in-law, Laban,
should reverence and fear. Laban, indeed, also ad-
heres to the communion with Jacob in his monothe-
ism, and intimates that the God of Abraham and the
God of Nahor designate two different religious direc-
tions from a common source or ground.

8. Ver. 54-ch. xxxii. 2. TVie covenant meal, and
the departure. — Then Jacob offered sacrifice. —
As Isaac prepared a meal for the envious and ill-
disposed Abimelech, so Jacob for Laban, whom even
this generosity should now have led to shame and re-
pentance. The fallowing morning they separate from
each other. The genial blood-tenderness of Laban,
which leads him to kiss both at meeting and parting
should not pass unnoticed (see ver. 28; oh. xxix. 13,
and the Piel forms). It is a pleasant thing that as a
grandfather he first kissed his grandsons. Blessing,
he takes his departure. — Met Mm. — Lit., came, drew
near to him, not precisely that they came from an op-
posite direction. This vision does not relate primarily
to the approaching meeting with Esau (Peniel relates
to this), but to the dangerous meeting with Laban.
As the Angel of God had disclosed to him in vision
the divine assistance against his unjust sufferings in
Mesopotamif, so now he enjoys a revelation of the
protection -nhich God had prepared for him upon
Mount Gilead, through his angels (comp. 2. Kings vi.
17). In this sense he well calls the angels, "God's

host," and the place in which they met him, dotAk
camp. By the side of the visible camp, which he,
with Laban and his retainers, had made, God hat
prepared another, invisible camp, for his protection.
It served also to encourage hnn, in a general way
for the approaching meeting with Esau. — Maha-

naim Later a city on the north of Jabbok (see V

Raumek's "PalestiEe," p. 263; Robinson: "Be
searches," vol. iii. 2 app. 166), probably the one no*
called Mahneh. [For the more distinct reference of
this vision to the meeting with Esau, see Kcetz
Geschichte, p. 254, who draws an instructive ano
beautiful parallel between this vision and that at
Bethel— A. G.]

DOCTEINAIi AND ETHICAL.

1. Jacob a fugitive even in his journey home
But the God of Bethel protects him now as the God
of Mahanaim; and the angels who, as heavenly mes-
sengers, moved up and down the ladder at Bethel,
DOW appear, as became the situation, a wariike host,
or the army of God. Keil holds that he snw tha
angels in a waking state, " not inwardly, but with-
out and above himself; but whether with the eye
of the body or of the spirit (2 Kings vi. 17) cannot
be decided." At all events, in the first place he saw
an objective revelation of God, with which was con-
nected, in the feeond place, the vision-power [i. e.,
eine visiomlre stimmung, a power or disposition cor-
responding to the vision and enabling him to perceive
it.— A. G.].

2. The want of candor between Laban and Ja
cob at Haran leads finally to the violent and passion
ate outbreak on Mount Gilead. But such outbreak,
have ever been the punishment for the want of
frankness and candor. The fearful public terrors
of war, correspond to the secrecies and blandish-
ments of diplomacy. — The blessing of a genuine
and thorough frankness. Moral storms, their dan-
ger, and their salutary results.

3. The visions in which Jacob saw how God se-
cured his rights against Laban's injustice, prove that
from his own point of view he saw nothing wrong in
the transaction witli the parti-colored rods. But
thos ! rods are thus seen to be merely a subordinate
means. There is no sufficient ground for the conjec-
ture of Keil, that it may be suspected that the
dream-vision of Jacob (of the spotted rams) was a
mere natural dream (see p. 212). It is evident that
the vision-disposition pervadi'S the night-life of Ja
cob, growing out of hia oppressed condition and his
unjust sufferings. — ScHKiiDER: "But Jacob's crafty
course (ch. xxx. 37) is not therefore commended by
God, as Luther and Calvin have taught. Jacob was
still striving to bring about the fulfilment of the di-
vine promise by his own efforts."

4. Tlie alienation of the daughters of Laban from
their father is not commendable, but is explained bj
his severity. On the other hand, they are bound to
their husband in a close and lovely union. For the
theft of the teraphim, see the Exegetical notes.

5. It is not a chance that we meet here in thi
idols of Laban the earliest traces of idolatiy in tht
Old World, although they had doubtless existed else-
where much earlier and in a grosser form. We can
thus see how Polytheism gradually developed itself
out of the symbolic image-worship of Monotheism
(Rom. i. 23). MoreoTer, the teraphim fire estiniatei
entirely from a theocratic point of view Tiiei

CHAP. XXXI. 4— XXXII. 2.

&t5

ConA t e stolen aa other household furniture (have
eyes bi t see not). They could be hidden under a
camel's saddle. They are a contemptible nonentity,
which can render no assistance. — ^Ver. 23. The zeal
for godn and idols is always fanatical.

B. The speech of Laban, and Jacob's answer, give
as a representation of the original art of speaking
among men, just as the speech of Eliezer did. They
form at the same time an antithesis between a pas-
sionate and exaggerated rhetoric and phraseology on
the one hand, and an earnest, grave, religious, and
moral oratory on the other hand, exemplified in his-
tory in the antithesis of the heathen (not strictly
classic) to the theocratic and religious oratory. The
contra/it between toe speeches of Tertullus and Paul
Acts xxiv. 2) is noticeable here. Laban's eloquence
agrees with his sanguine temperament. It is pas-
sionate, exaggerated in its terms, untrue in its exag-
geration, and yet not without a germ of true and
affectionate sentiment. Analysis of diffuse and
wordy speeches a diflBcult but necessary task of the
Christian spirit.

7. Prov. XX. 22, Rom. xii. 17, come to us in the
place of the example of Jacob ; still we are not jus-
tified in judging the conduct of Jacob by those ut-
terances of a more developed economy (as Keil does).
[This is true in a qualified sense only. The light
which men have is of course an important element
in our judgment of the character of their acts. But
Jacob had, or might have had, light sufficient to
know that his conduct was wrong. He might have
known certainly that it was Ids duty, as the heir of
faith, to commit his cause unto the Lord. — A. G.]

8. The establishment of peace between Laban
and Jacob has evidently, on the part of Laban, the
significance and force, that he breaks off the theo-
cratic communion between the descendants of Nahor
and Abraham, just as the hue of Harau, earlier, was
separated in Lot.

9. At all events, the covenant-meal forms a thor-
ough and final conciliation. Laban's reverence for
the God of his fathers, and his love for his daughters
and grandsons, present him once more in the most
favorable aspect of his character, and thus we take
our leave of him. We must notice, however, that
before the entrance of Jacob he had made little
progress in his business. Close, narrow-hearted
views, are as really the cause of the curse, as its
fruits.

10. The elevated state and feeling of Jacob, after
this departure of Laban, reveals itself in the vision
of the hosts of God. Heaven is not merely con-
nected with the saint on the earth (through tlie lad-
der); its hosts are warlike hosts, who invisibly guard
the saints and defend them, even while upon the
earth. Here is the very germ and source of the
designation of God as the God of hosts (Zebaoth).

11. There are still, as it appears to us, two strik-
ing relations between this narrative and that which
follows. Jacob here (ver. 32) pronounces judgment
of death upon any one of his family who had stolen
the images. But now his own Rachel, over whom
he had unconsciously pronounced this sentence, dies
soon after the images were buried in the earth (see
xixv. 4, 18). But when we read afterwards, that
Joseph, the wise son of the wise Rachel, describes
hia cup as his oracle (although only as a pretext), the
conjecture is easy, that the mother also valued the
images as a means of securing her desires and long-
ings. She even ascribes marvellous powers to the
nandrakes,

35

12. The Mount of Gilead a monument and wit-
ness of the former connection between Mesopotami*
and Canaan.

HOMILBTIOAl, AND PRACTIOAIi.

Contrasts : Jacob's emigration and return, oi the
two-fold flight, under the protection of the God of
Bethel, and of Mahanaim. — Laban the persecutor:
a. of his own ; b. of the heir of the promise. — The
persecutor : 1. His malicious companions ; 2. those
who flee from him ; 3. his motives. — The word of
God to Laban : " Take heed," etc., in its typical and
lasting significance. — The punishments of the want
of candor : strife and war. — The two speeches and
speakers. — The peaceful departure: 1. Its light side,
reconciliation ; 2. its dark aspect, separation.

First Section, vera. 4-1&. Starke: Cramer: The
husband should not always take his own way, but
sometimes consult with his wife (Sir. iv. 35). — It is a
grievous thing when children complain before God
of the injustice of their parents. — Children should
conceal, as far as possible, the faults of their parents.
— Lisoo : The human means which he used are not
commanded by God, but are his own. — Gerlach:
Jacob's conduct, the impatient weakness of faith;
still a case of self-defence, not of injustice. — Schro-
der : A contrast : the face of your father, the God
of my father.

Second Section, vers. 17-21. Starke : Although
Jacob actually begins his journey to the land of Ca-
naan, some suppose that ten years elapse before he
comes to Isaac, since he remained some time at
Succoth, Sichem, and Bethel (comp. ch. xxxiii. 17 ;
XXXV. 6). — The shearing of the sheep was in the East
a true feast for the shepherds — an occasion of great
joy (see ch. xxxviii. 12; 1 Sam. xxv. 2, 8, 36).

Section Third, vers. 22-25. Starke : Josephus.
The intervention of the night, and the warning by
God in his sleep, kept him from injuring Jacob. —
Bibl. Tub. : God sometimes so influences and directs
the hearts of enemies that they shall be favorably
inclined towards the saints, although they are really
embittered against them. — Hall : God makes fool-
ish the enemiesgtf his church, etc. — Whoever is in
covenant witMpKd need have no fear of men. —
Schroijer : JWob moves under the instant and
pressing danger of being plundered, or slain, or of
being made a slave with his family and taken to Meso-
potamia. Still the promiser (ch, xxviii. 15) fulfUs the
promise to him. Thus, whatever may oppress us for
a time, must at last turn to our salvation (Calvin).

Section Fourth, vers. 26-30. Starke : (It is the
way of hypocrites when their acts do not prosper, f
speak in other tones.) — Vers. 29. He does not say
that he has the right and authority, but that he has
the power (comp. John xix. 10). In this, however,
he refutes himself. For if he possessed the power
why does he suffer himself to be terrified and de
terred by the warning of God in the dream ? — Cai
WEK Handhuch : He cannot cease to threaten. — Ht
would have injured him but dared not. — Schroder
The images are his highest happiness, since to bin.
the presence of the Deity is bound and confined tc
its symbol.

Section Fiflh, vers. 31-35. Starke: Cramer:
Ver. 32. A Christian should not be rash and pas-
sionate in his answer. Ver. 35. The woman's cun-
ning is preeminent (Sir. xxv. 17; Judg. xiv. 16).^
Calwer Sandbuch: Ver. 38. The ewes and the

S40

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

goata in their state were the objects of his special
care. — ^Falsehood follows theft. — ^Man's cunning is
ready; woman's inexhaustible and endless (VaL
Herberger).

Section Sixth, vers. 36-42. Starke : What is in-
eluded in a shepherd's faithfulness (ver. 38). — Bibl.
Wirt. : When one can show that he has been faith-
ful, upright, and diligent, in his office, he can stand
up with a clear conscience, and assert his innocence.
Cramer : A good conscience and a gracious God give
one boldness and consolation. — Schroder : The per-
secution of Jacob by Laban ends at last in peace,
love and blessing. — Thus the brother line in Meso-
potamia is excluded after it has reached its destina-
tion.

Section Seventh, vers. 43-53. Starke : (Differ-
ent conjectures as to what Laban understood by the
God of Nahor, whether the true God or idols). —
Cramer : When a man's ways please the Lord, he
maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him
(Prov. xvi. 7). — Calwer Handbuch: Laban now
turns again and gives way to the natural affections of
a father. The circumstances which tended to calm
his mind : 1. The seven days' journey ; 2. the divine
warning; 3. the mortification resulting from his
fruitless search; 4. Jacob's self-defence and the
truth of his reproaches. — His courage and anger
gradually give way to fear and anxiety. — Schroder :
In the Hebrew, the word " if " occurs twice, pointing.

as we may suppose, to the idea, may God so punish
thee.— {Luther ; How can this fellow (Laban) so
name the thing ?)

Eighth Section, ver. 65-ch. xxxii. 2. Starke ;
Jacob has just escaped the persecutions of his unjust
father-in-law, when he began to fear that he should
meet a fiercer enemy in his brother Esau. Hence
God confirms him in his faith, opens his eyes,
etc. — It is the office of the angels to guard the sauits.
(Two conjectures as to the double camp : one that
some of the angels went before Jacob, others foU
lowed him ; the other that it is the angel camp and
the encampment of Jacob.) — (Why the angels are
called hosts: I. From their multitude; 2. their or-
der; 3. their power for the proteiition of the saints,
and the resistance and punishment of the wicked;
4. from their rendering a cheerful obedience as be-
came a warlike host. — Calwer Handhxich: The
same as ch. xxviii. Probably here as there an
inward vision (Ps. xxxiv. 7). — Schroder ; Jacob's
hard service, his departure with wealth, and the per-
•secution of Laban, prefigure the future of Israel in
Egypt. — (Val. Herberger.) Whosoever walks in his
way, diligent in his pursuits, may at all times say
with St. Paul : " He shall never be forsaken." — The
invisible world was disclosed to him, because anxiety
and fear fill the visible world. — Ltithkr : The angels.
In heaven their office is to sing Glory to God in the
Highest ; on the earth, to watch, to guide, to war.

FIFTH SECTION.

jaeob'i return. Bit fear of Esau. Hit night wrestlings with &od.
Meeting and reconciliation with Esau.

Peniel. The name Israel.

cKpter xxxn. 3— xxxin. i-ie.

3 And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother, unto the land of Seir,

4 the country of Edom. And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak unto
my lord Esau ; Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned [have been a stranger] with

5 Laban, and stayed there until now: And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and men-
servants, and women-servants : and I have sent [and now I must send, the fi paragogio] to tell
my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight.

6 And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and

7 also he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him. Then Jacob was greatly
afraid, and distressed : and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and

8 herds, and the camels into two bands : And said [thought], If Esau come to the one
company, and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape.

9 And Jacob said, 0 God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, ths
Lird which saidst [art saying] unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred [birth.

10 iLice], and I will deal well with thee: I am not worthy [too little for] of the least of all the
mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant : for with my staff

I ] [alone] I passod over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands [camp.-]. Deliver me, I
pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau : for I fear bim, lest he

12 will come and smite me, and the mother with [upon, over] the children. Ani thou

CHAP. xxxn. 3— xxxni. i-ie. 54

Baidst, I will surely do thee good, and make [estabiieh] thy seed as the sand of the sea,

which cannot be numbered for multitude.
13 And he lodged there that same night," and took of that which came to his hand a
U present for Esau his brother ; Two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred
|5 ewes and twenty rams, Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine and ten bulls,

16 twenty she-asses and ten foals. And he delivered them into the hand of his stirvauts,
every drove by themselves ; and said unto his servants. Pass over before me, and puf

17 a space betwixt drove and drove. And he commanded the foremost, saying, When
Esau my brother meeteth thee, and asketh thee, saying. Whose art thou ? and whithe

18 goest thou? and whose are these before thee [what he drives before him]. Then thou sha'l
say. They be thy servant Jacob's : it is a, present sent unto my lord Esau : and behold,

19 also, he is behind us. And so commanded he the second, and the third, and all that
followed the droves, saying, On this manner shall ye speak unto Esau, when ye find

20 him. And say ye moreover. Behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said
[thought], I will appease " him with the present that goeth before me, and af .erward 1

21 will see his face; peradventure he will accept [make cheerful my fa<»] of me. S'. went the

22 present over before him ; and himself lodged that night in the company. Aud he rose
up that night, and took his two wives, and his two women-servants, and his elaven sons,

23 and passed over the ford Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the brook,
and [then] sent over that he had [his herds].

24 And Jacob was left alone ; and there wrestled ' a man with him, until the breaking

25 of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the
hollow of his thigh [hip-joint or socket] : and the hollow of Jacob's tliigh was out of joint,

26 as he wrestled with him. And he said. Let me go, for the day breaketh : and he said,

27 I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him. What is thy

28 name? And he said, Jacob. And he said. Thy name shall be called no more Jacob,
but Israel [Yisrael] : for as a prince hast thou power [ihou hast contested] with God, and with

29 men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said. Tell me, I pray thee, thy
name : and he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name ? And he

30 blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel [face of God] : for I

31 have seen God face to face, and my life [soul] is preserved. And as he passed over

32 Penuel [Peniei], the sun rose upon him, and he halted [was lame] upon his thigh. There-
fore the children of Israel eat not o/ the sinew [sciatic nerve], which shrank, which is
upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day ; because he touched the hollow of Jacob's
thigh in the sinew that shrank.

Ch. XXXIII. 1. And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, Esau came,
and with him four hundred men. And he divided the children unto Leah, and unto

2 Rachel, and unto the two handmaids. And he put the handmaids and their children
foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost [at the last].

3 And he passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until

4 he came near to his brother. And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell

5 on his neck, and kissed him : and they wept. And he lifted up his eyes, and saw [now]
the women and the children, and said. Who are those with thee' [whom hast thou there] V

6 And he said. The children which God hath graciously given thy servant. Then the
1 handmaidens came near, they and their children, and they bowed themselves. And

Leah also with her children came near, and bowed themselves ; and afler came Joseph

8 near and Rachel, and they bowed themselves. And he said. What meanest thou by
all this drove [camp] which I met ? ' And he said, These are to find grace in the siglit

9 of my lord. And Esau said, I have enough, my brother ; keep that thou hast unto

10 thyself. And Jacob said, Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found grace in thy sight,
then receive my present at my hand : for therefore [now] I have seen thy face, as

11 though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me. Take, I pray
thee, my blessing that is brought to thee ; because God hath dealt graciously with me,

12 and because I have enough : and he urged him, and he took it. And he said. Let us

13 take our journey, and let us go, and I will" go before thee. And [But] he said unto him.
My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and the flocks and herds with young ' ar(

14 with me, and if men should over-drive them one day, all the flock will die. Let my
lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant : and I will lead on softly, according ' a?

V

ft48

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OP MOSES.

the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to endure ; until 1 come untc

15 my lord unto Seir. And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee somt of the folk that
are with me: And he said, What needeth it? Let me find grace in the sight of m;
lord.

16 So Esau returned that day on his way unto Seir

\} Ch. xzxii. ver. 13.— The night after the return of the messengers, and his arrangemeat of bis company. — A, Q.)
[^ Ver. 20.— Heb., cover his face ; and so, in the last clause : he will lift up my fern— A. G.]

[** Ver. 24.— pDX"^ , an antique form, only used here and v. 25, 26, from p'Zik , to straggle vith, or the kindred rool
pI3H , to limit, enclose, as one member the other. Keil, p. 219. — A, G.J

[* Ch. XKXiii ver. 5. — Lit., Who these to thee.— A. G.]

[' Ver. 8.— What to thee all this train.— A. G.]

[8 Ver. 13. — Heb., which are milking. — A. G.]

f' Ver. 14. — According to the foot, or pace. — A. G.]

PEELIMINARY REMARKS.

Knobel supposes here an artificial mingling of
heterogeneous and even coutradictory parts, talten
from different sources, a supposition resting, as is
often the case, upon a want of insight as to the con-
nection, which is the great lever in that kind of crit-
icism. The sending of messengers by Jacob to Esau,
is regarded as a proof that he was not afraid of his
brother, while the Jehovist represents him as being
in terror of him, etc. (p. 256). All parts of this
section turn upon Jacob's relation to Esau : 1 . The
sending of messengers (vers. -3-6) ; 2. the fear of
Jacob, and his preliminary division of the train
into two bands (vers. 7, 8) ; 3. Jacob's prayer (vers.
9-12) ; 4. tlie delegation of new messengers with
his presents (vers. 13-21); 6. the night passage of
the train over Jabbok, and Jacob's wrestling ; Peniel
(vers. 21-32) ; 6. Esau's approach, the new arrange-
ments of the train, and the greetings (ch. xxxiii.
1-11) ; 7. Esau's offer and return (vers. 12-16).

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.

1. Tlie sending of the messengers (vers. 3-6). —
Sent messengers before him. — The measure was
precautionary, to inspect what the danger was, and
to conciliate his brother. — Unto the land of Seir.
— The natural taste for hunting and the thirst for
power, must have led Esau, even during the hfetime
of Isaac, to think of a location more suitable to him,
since the thickly settled region of Hebron was not
favorable either for hunting or for the establishment
of a strong power. The region of Seir, or the moun-
tians of Edom (see Bible Dictionaries and geogra-
phies, and books of travels) seemed more favorable
in both respects. We thus see that Esau had already
made a decided progress in his occupation of the
new land, without having completely transferred his
residence from Hebron to Seir, which followed after-
wards (see ch. xxxvi. 6). The same distinction be-
tween the chief residence, and an out-station or
colony, meets us in the life of Isaac. Keil says he
severed the relations which bound him to his father's
house and possessions, " because he was more and
more thoroughly convinced that the blessing pro-
nounced by \a» father upon Jacob, and which ex-
cluded him from the inheritance of the promise, the
future possession of Canaan, could not be changed."
But this would ascribe too much to Jacob's obedience
of faith to Esau. The fact takes place, doubtless,
upon natural grounds. Esau's power did not lie in
lis laith, hut in his strong hand. This man of might

had gathered his sons, servants, and confederates,
and already partially completed the conquest of the
Horites. He deems the momentary possession of
power of greater value than the promise of a relig
ious dominion, the actual possession of which lay in
the dim future. He entertains, no doubt, therefore,
that he has already surpassed his brother, and this
may, first of all, have predisposed him to peaceful
thoughts towards him, especially after Jacob's hum-
ble message, whose prominent thought was that he
now cheerfully conceded to him the external honors
of the first-born. In his present state of mind Esau
is satisfied to leave his brother to struggle a little
longer with his fear, and to harass and distress him
with >i pompous show of his forces. The messen-
gers return without bringing back any friendly
counter-greeting. He comes as a princely sheik of
the desert, with his retainers. This is the prelir>
inary answer. The text here presupposes that Jacob
had received some notice of Esau's operations at
Seir. [There is no contradiction between this text
and ch. xxxvi. 6. It is not said here that Esau had
any fixed abode or dwelling in Seir. The fact that
he appears with his armed band shows that he was
out upon a warlike expedition, and probably with the
design of driving the Horites from Seir. It was not
his home. His family and possessions were still in
Canaan, and were first removed to Seir (ch. xxxvi. 6)
when it had been freed from his enemies, and thus
made a safe abode for his wives and children. —
A. G.]

2. The fear of Jacob, and his preliminary di-
vision of the train into two bands (vers. 7, 8). —
Was greatly afraid. — Jacob's fear was not ground-
less. Rebekah had not called him back. Esau has
not intimated that he was reconciled or would be
easily appeased. The messengers had not brought
back any counter-greeting. Esau was coming with
his four hundred men. The promise at Bethel, too, re-
lates definitely only to the journey and the return, and
the vision at Mahanaim was a disclosure as to his de-
liverance from the hand of Laban, but not accompa^
nied with new promises. The main thing, however,
was this, he is ill at ease in his conscience, with regard
to his offence against Esau. His fear, therefore, aa
well as his prudence, appears in the division of hia
trun into two bands. This measure precedes hi»
prayer, as the last act of his overhasty and impatient
cunning, which does not appear to have been exer-
cised after his prayer and struggle. The measure
itself has little to do with the name Uahanaim, to
which Knobel refers it. It may serve to explain th«
fact that the Bedouins usually march in divisions.

3. The prayer of Jacob (vers. 9-12). Jacob i»

CHAP. XXXII. 3— XXXIII. 1-16.

bii

sonscious now that all his cunning cannot give his
heart rest. — Which saidst unto me. — Here begins
the third link in the chain ; God of Abraham and God
of Isaac. He appeals to the repeated promise of the
covenant God of his fathers, given to him in the di-
rine intimation and warning to return. — I will deal
well with thee. — He strives to draw from this
ragiie expression a promise of protection against
Esau. On the other hand, he cannot appeal with
my confidence to the blessing of his father Isaac,
which he had stolen. — I am not worthy of the
least. — Literally, am less than. Humiliation and
gratitude underlie the joyful confidence in asking
lor deliverance. — This Jordan. — We must conceive
of the ford of Jabbok, as lying in the neighborhood
of the Jordan. — The mother with the children.
— Literally, upon the children, since she protects the
children against the raging foe. Used proverbially
(see Deut. xxii. 6 ; Hosea x. 14). Knobel, Keil,
Delitzsch, reject the rendering, upon the children. —
As the sand of the Sea, — This is the sense to him
of the promise ch. xxviiL 14, as tlie dint of the earth ;
and thus he changes the imagery of the Abrahamic
promise, ch. xxii. 17. Such a destructive attack as
now threatens him, would oppose and defeat the di-
vine promise. Faitli clings to the promise, and is
thus developed. [The objection that it is unbecom-
ing in Jacob to remind God of his promise, shows
an utter misconception of true prayer, which pre-
supposes the promise of God just as truly as it im-
plies the consciousness of wants. Faith, which is
Ihe life of prayer, clings to the divine promises, and
oleads them. — A. G.]

i. The delegation of new messengers with his
m-eserUs (vers. 13-21) — And took of that, etc. —
His prayer led him to better means of help than the
division of his train in fear, and for a flight near at
band. He passes from the defensive to the offensive.
He will not flee from Esau, but go to meet him, and
overcome him with deeds of love. Delitzsch thinks
he did not select the present until the next morning.
Keil, however, says, correctly, that the prayer, the
delegation with the present, the transfer across the
Jabbok, and Jacob's struggle, all took place on the
same night (ver. 14). Delitzsch, indeed, admits that
the crossing of the Jabbok, and Jacob's struggle,
occur in the same night. The present which Jacob
chose for an immediate departure during the night,
was a great propitiatory sacrifice to the injured
brother, and an humble homage to the mighty prince
of the desert, consisting of five hundred and fifty
head of cattle. And thus, while making an atone-
ment to Esau, he actually atones also for his cunning
course towards Laban. The selections corresponded
with the possession of the Nomadic chiefs, as to the
kinds of animals (comp. Job i. 3 ; xlii. 12), and as
to the proportion between the males and females to
the rule of Varro, Df re rustica. Keil. The present
is broken up into divisions with intervening spaces
[lit., breathing places. — ^A. G.], and thus approaches
Esau, that by the regular appearance of these differ-
ent droves, he might, by one degree after another,
Bof'ten the fierce disposition of his brother. Observe :

1. The climax; goats, sheep, camels, cattle, asses.

2. The spaces between the droves. Each impression
must be made, and its iorce felt by Esau, before the
Bext comes on. 3. The ever repeated form of hom-
ige: Thy servant, Jacob. A present. My lord

• Ssau. 4. The final aim : friendly treatment : Thy
servant, Jacob himself, is behind us. Knobel sup-
poses that he finds here even, a difference between

the interpretation of the Jehovist, and the design of
his predecessor to describe the procession according
to oriental custom (p. 230). — For he said. — We
meet here, for the first time, the later important ^BS
(comp. XX. 16). Esau's face is to be covered bj
atoning presents, so that he should not see, any mora
the offence which Jacob had committed against him.
Jacob had, in an ideal sense, deprived him of prince-
ly honor; he now recognizes, in a true and real
sense (and one entirely suited to Esau's thought and
disposition), his princely honor, and thus atones, in
fact, for his fault, since Esau cared nothing for the
ideal element in and by itself. "IB3 here, at its first
occurrence, refers to the reconciling of one who is
angry, and to the atonement for guilt. Since the of-
fence is covered for Esau's face, so even Esau's face
is covered as to the offence. It is very remarkable,
moreover, that the word " face " here occurs three
times. Esau's face is covered towards Jacob's obliga-
tion and guilt. Then Jacob beholds the face of Esau,
and is comforted, and Esau lilts up Jacob's face, i. e.,
cheers, enlightens it, since he receives him kindly.

5. The night-crOKfiing of the train oi^er Jabbok^
and Jacobus wrestling (vers, 21-32). — And he rose
up that night. — the confidence of Jacob, rising
out of his prayer and the sending of his present, ia
so strong tliat lie does not defer the crossing of bis
train over the ford of Jabbok until the morning.
Jabbok is now called the Zeika, i. e., the blue, from
its deep-blue mountain water. " It rises near the car-
avan route at Castell Zerka ; its deep mountain valley
then forms the boundary between Moered on the
north and Belka on the south. It empties into the
Jordan about midway between the Sea of Tiberias
and the Dead Sea, and about an hour and a half
from the point at which it breaks through the moun-
tain." VoN Racmee: "Palestine," p. 1i. The
Jabbok comes from the east nearly opposite to Si-
chem. It was at one time the boundary between the
tribes of Gad and Manasseh. For further details,
see the Bible Dictionaries. — Although it is quite cus-
tomary in the East to travel during the night (see
Knobel, p. 258), yet still the crossing of his train
over a rapid mountain stream would be difficult
The ford which Jacob used was not that upon it»
upper course, upon the route of the Syrian caravans,
at KiSla't Zerka, " but the one farther to the west,
through which Buckingham, Burkhardt (' Syria,' p.
597), and Seetzen (' Travels,' i, p. 392j passed, be-
tween Jebel Adschlun and Jebel Jelaad, and at which
are still to be seen traces of walls, buildings, and the
signs of an older civilization (Ritter, ed. xv. p.
1040)." Keil.— And he was left alone. — It is
generally supposed that Jacob remained on the north
side of the Jabbok. Kkil, p. 218; Delitzsch, p.
334. [Jacobus; WoEnswoRTH, p. 186. — A. G.] Ro-
seimiiiller and Knobel reject the idea that Jacob re-
crossed the stream, although nothing there claimed
his attention, the latter indeed, on the incorrect as-
sumption that Jacob crossed the Jabbok going from
the south, northwards. In ver. 23 it is, he passed
over, i. e., he himself, without mentioning that he
took his family, which is specially related elsewhere.
[It seems probable that he first went over himself,
and then, finding the crossing safe, he returned and
sent over his herds and his family.— A. (}.] Then,
too, it is not necessary that nnj^] should be under-
stood in a local sense (see Ges. under in"'). More-
over, we fini him (ver. 32), when leaving the plac«
of his wrestling, Peniel, ready to proceed on hii

bbO

GENEECrf, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

journey. Lastly, it would seem an act of cowardice
r Jacob had sent his wives and children across the
broolt, which was a protection against the danger,
while he himself remained behind. [Still, tbe narra-
tive plainly implies that Jacob remained on the north
of the Jaijbok. And whatever courage may have
prompted to do, as to protect his own with his life,
Ja«ob was dimly conscious that the crisis of his life
■vas now upon him, and that be must be alone with
'.Tod. It was not the want of courage, but the sense
ihat help must come from God, and the working of
his faith which led him to cling to the arm of God,
wMch kept him here for the prayer and struggle and
victory. — A. G.] — And there wrestled a man
with him. — Now, when he supposed everything ar-
ranged, the greatest difficulty meets him. The un-
measured homage, with which he thought to recon-
cile Esau, touches the violation or at least puts in
peril the promise which was given to him. More-
over, he has not only injured Esau, but offended God
(Elohim), who is the God of Esau, and will not suffer
him to be injured with impunity. — There wrestled
a man. — This archaic form occurs only here and in
vers. 25 and 26. Dietrich traces It to the idea of
"struggling or freeing oneself from; " Delitzsch to
p;n , to hmit, to touch each other closely, member to
member. We prefer the reference to the kindred form,
pSN , to hold fast, to adhere firmly, etc. Hithpael,
to restrain oneself. There seems to be an allusion in
the word to the name Jabbok (Knobel), or rather,
the brook derives its name from this struggle, p3^
instead of p3X'^ (Keil). An older derivation traces
the word, " to dust," to raise dust in the struggle.
The question arir^es whether the sense of the word
here is, that the nameless man came upon Jacob, as
if he had been his enemy, or that Jacob seized the
man, as he appeared to hira, and held him fast,
while he strives to free himself from the grasp. Ac-
cording to ver. 27, the last sense is the true one.
If we take the other supposition, we must conceive
that Jacob, during the night-wresthng, recognized as
a friend the man who came upon him as an enemy.
StiU there is no intunation of a hostile attack. The
passage in Hosea xii. 4, also supports the idea that
Jacob held fast the mysterious man, and not vice
vend. " He took bis brother by the heel in the
womb — and by his strength he had power with God
— he had power over the angel and prevailed — he
wept and made supplication unto him — he found
bim in Bethel." — And when he saw that he pre-
vailed not against him. — That is, ver. 27, he
could not compel him to let him go. — For the day
breaketh. — In regard to this, and to the circum-
stance that Jacob remained alone, Knobel remarks,
" that the acts of God are not spectacles for the eyes
of impious mortals (see ch. xix. 17 ; xxii. 13; Exod.
xii. 29)." There is, however, a broad distinction
between the heathen and theocratic interpretation
of this event. There is no reference here to any
fear or dread of the day-light on the part of spirits.
— The hollow of his thigh. — Lit., the socket of
the hif . It is not said that he struck it a blow
(Knobel) ; the finger of God (for it is God who is
epoken of ) needs but to touch its object, and the full
result is secured. — And the hoIlow^ of Jacob's
thigh was out of joint. — This is explained more
fully in the thirty-fourth verse. The sinews of his
thigh [nervus ischiadicus) were paralyzed through
the extreme tension and distortion. But this bodily
paralysis does not paralyze the persevering Jacob. —

I Will not let thee go. — Now the blessing whick
he obtained from his father by cunning and deceit,
must be sought with tears from this mysterious di
vine man. And then he blesses him when he give!
him the name Israel, i. e., the God-wrestler or fight-
er (from n"iiu and bs). [The captain and prince
of God, from sarah, to marshal in battle, to lead, ti
command, to fight, and hast prevailed, mnio, as >
prince. Wordsworth, p. 138. — A. G.] Instead ol
a supplanter, he has now become the holy wrestlei
with God, hence his name is no longer Jacob, bu'
Israel. There is no trace in his after-history of the
application of his wisdom to mere selfish and cun-
ning purposes. But the new name confirms to him
in a word the theocratic promise, as the name Abra-
ham confirmed it to Abram. For the connection of
this passage with ch. xxxv. 10, see the Exegetical
note upon that passage. — And hast prevailed. —
Has he overcome in his wrestUng with God, he need
have no further fears as to his meeting with Esau. —
Wherefore is it, that thou dost ask after my
name 7 — The asking after his name in this particu
lar way, not the general inquiry, is the point which
occasions this answer. The believer is not to leam
all the names of the Lord in this theoretic manner,
but through the experience of faith ; thus even the
name Immanuel. Indeed, he had already learned
his name substantially. — Thou hast wrestled
with God and men. — It does not rest upon " the
view which the Jews have when they regard the
name Jehovah as a^jiriTov," as Knobel asserts. —
And he blessed him. — The blessing contained al-
ready in the name Israel, is now definitely completed.
— Peniel, or Fennel with the 1 conj., face of Crod.
The locahty of this place has not been definitely
fixed (V. Rauuee, p. 255), but if it could be identi-
fied it would be idle to look for it upon the north
of the Jabbok. Knobel refers for an analogy to the
Phoenician promontory 0toD irpoauTTov. [Keil thinks
Peniel was upon the north of the Jabbok, though
he does not regard it as certain. Kiepert locates it
on the Jabbok. It was certainly east of Succoth
(see Judg. viiL 8, 9), and was most probably on the
north of the Jabbok. — A. G.]^race to face. — With
his face he had seen the face of God (Exod. xxxiii. ;
Deut. xxxiv. 10). Exod. xxxiii. 20 is not in contra-
diction to this, since that passage speaks of the see-
ing of God beyond and above the form of his reve-
lation in its legal development. — And my life ia
preserved. — Luther's translation and my soul is
healed, saved, is equally beautiful and correct. For
it is impossible that the idea here is that of the later
popular notion: he rejoices that he had seen the face
of God and did not die. — The sun rose upon him.
— The sun not only rose, but rose especially upou
him ; and with a joyful mind he begins with the sun
rise his journey to meet Esau. — ^And he halted
upon his thigh. — He appears not to have noticed
this before. In the effort of the wrestling it had es-
caped him, just as the wounded soldier oftentimes
first becomes aware that he is wounded by the blood
and gash, long after the wound was received.—
Therefore the children of Israel eat not. —
" The author explams the custom of the Israelites,
in not eating of the sinew of the thigh, by a refer-
ence to this touch of the hip of their ancestor bj
God. Through this divine touch, this sinew, lik«
the blood (ch. ix. 4) was consecrated and sanctifiec.
to God. This custom is not mentioned elsewhere ic
the Old Testament ; the Talmudists, however (Tract

CHAP. XXXn. 3.— XXXIII. 1-16.

55 1

Gholin, Mischna, 1), regard it aa a law, whose trans-
gression was to be punished with several stripes."
inobel. Delitzseh adds : " This exemption exists still,
out since the ancients did not distinguish clearly in
1^5 (naisn li;, the large, strong cord of the sinew
of the thigh), between muscle, vein, and nerve, the
sinew is now generally understood, i. e., the interior
cord and nerve of the so-called hind-quarter, includ-
ing the exterior also, and the ramifications of both."
6. Esau's approach, the new arrangement of the
train, and the greeting (ch. xxxiii. 1-11). — And Ja-
cob lifted up his eyes. — In contrast to his previous
inward contemplation, and in confident expectation.
—And he divided the children. — ^We read no
more of the two bands or trains. He now separates
his family into three divisions. He himself, as the
head of the family, aa its protector and representa-
tive, takes the lead ; then follow the handmaids witl^
their children; then Leah with hers; and at last,
Rachel with Joseph. This inverted order, by which
the most loved came last, is not merely chosen from
a careful and wise prudence, but at the same time
the free expression of the place which they occupied
in his affections. — To the ground seven times. —
Not that he cast himself seven times to the ground,
which would have been expressed by nsi!t D^SS ,
but he bowed himself seven times with the low in-
clination of the head [the low oriental bow, in which
one bends the head nearly to the groimd without
touching it. Keil. — A. G.]. But even this courtesy
far excels the usual degree in oriental greetings, and
finds its explanation in the number seven. The bow-
ing itself expresses the recognition of an external
princely prerogative, from which Esau believed that
he had robbed him ; the seven-fold utterance of this
recognition stamps it with the mimic (Ger., mimische) .
seal of the certainty which belongs to the covenant.
Thus Jacob atones for his offence agaiust Esau.
The manifestation of this courtesy is at the same
time, however, a barrier which in the most favorable
issue protects him, before mingling with the spirit
and temper of the Edomitic army. — And Esau ran
to meet him. — He is overcome; his anger and
threats are forgotten; the brother's heart speaks.
Jacob's heart, too, now released from fear, is filled
with like aifection, and in their common weeping
these gray-headed men are twins once more. " The
unusual pointing of ^njJIS"; probably indicates a
doubt as to the sincerity of this kiss. But the doubt
is groundless. The Scriptures never authorize us to
regard Esau as inhuman. He is susceptible of noble
desires and feelmgs. The grace of God which ruled
m his paternal home has not left him without its in-
fluence." Delitzseh. The assertion of Knobel, " that
the author of ch. xxvii. 1 ff. and xxxii. 8 ff'. could
not thus write if he wrote propria marte,'" is critically
on the same level with the remark of Tuch upon
Jacob's prayer, ch. xxxii. 9 — " it is unseemly in the
narrator that he allows Jacob to remind God of his
promises." The old Jewish exegesis has indeed
outbid tUi modem zeal in effacing this great and
beautiful moral feature in the narrative. "The
Breschitl. Rabba and Kimchi inform us that some in
the earlier time held that inpyi-i meant here that he
bit him. The Targum of Jonath. says that Jacob's
weepmg sprung from a pain in his neck, and Esau's
from a toothache." Knobel. — The children which
God — The name Elohim, out of regard to Esau's
Iicint of view [and, aa Delitzseh and KeU suggest, in

order not to remind Esau of the blessins: of Jehovah
of which he was now deprived. — A. G.] — Josepk
and Rachel.— It is a fine trait in the picture tha.'
the order is here reversed, so that Joseph comes bo
fore his mother. The six-year-old lad seems to break
through all the cumbrous ceremonial, and to rush
confidently into the arms of his uncle. — By all this
drove (camp or train). — Knobel thinks that he her*
discovers a third explanation of the name Mahanaim,
and finds in the answer of Jacob, these are to find
grace, etc., an offensive fawning, or cringing humil-
ity. But in fact, it is not a mere present which is
here in question, but a voluntary atonement — an in-
direct confession that he needed forgiveness. We
find this same thought also in Esau's refusal. — I
have enough. — Esau had a two-fold reason for his
refusal, for he doubtless possessed a large share of
the paternal estate, while Jacob had earned all that
he had by the labor of his hands. It is nevertheless
a noble strife, when Esau says, keep that thou
hast, / have enough, and Jacob overcomes him,
take, I pray thee, my blessing, / have enough of
all, or briefly all. — For therefore I have seen.
— This cannot mean, I have gained the friendly as-
pect of thy face by my present, but therefore, for
this purpose, is it. As things now stand, the present
is an offering of gratitude. — As though I had seen
the face of G-od. — The words sound like fiattery,
but they bear a good sense, since in the fiieudly face
of his brother he sees again in full manifestation the
friendUness of God watching over his life's path
(Job xxxiii. 26 ; Ps. xi. 1). [He refers either to his
wrestling with the angel, in which he had " learned
that his real enemy was God and not Esau, or in ths
fact that the friendly face of his brother was th»
pledge to him that God was reconciled. " In the
surprising, unexpected change in his brother's dispo-
sition, he recognizes the work of God, and in his
brother's friendliness, the refiection of the divine.'
Delitzseh. — A. G.] The words, take, I pray thee,
my blessing, are just as select and forcible. It is as
if, in allusion to the blessing he had taken away, he
would say, in so far as that blessing embraced pres-
ent and earthly things, and is of value to you, I give
it back. Knobel explains the choice of the expres-
sion from the benedictions which accompanied the
present. " The presents to the clergy in the middle
ages were called benedictions." But the idea of
homage Ues nearer here. In the reception of his
present he has the assurance that Esau is completely
reconciled to him. The friendliness in Esau's coun-^
tenance is a confirmation to him of the friendlinesi
of the divine countenance, a seal of the grace of
God, which he saw in his face at Peniel.

Y. Esau's offer and return (vers. 12-16). — ^I will
go before thee. — The kindness of Esau assumes a
confidential and ofiicious character. He will take
the lead in the way, go before as the protector of his
caravan. But that could have happened only at the
expense of Jacob's freedom. Besides this, the car.
avan, with tender children, and sucklings among the
cattle, could not keep pace with a train of Bedouin.
Jacob urges this strenuously, in order to effect % sep-
aration. It is no pretence on his part, but it is tha
only reason he ventures to offer to the powerful Esau,
whose superficial nature unfitted him to appreciate
the other reasons. He reveals to him also, in a
striking way, his purpose to come to him at Seir. U
this the new Israel or the old Jacob who speaks ?
The words are ambiguous, even if he actually visiteQ
him in after years at Seir, as some have urged as aii

552

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

jxcuse. There is, iudeed, a peculiar emphasis upon
the word ■'issb , in connection with the verb, which
excludes any obligation to hasten there. He decUnes,
also, the offer of a protecting band. — What need-
eth it? — He is conscious of a higher protector. He
desires nothing from Esau but a peaceful and friend-
ly deportment. [Jacob's promise of a visit was
honestly made. His course led him to Canaan, prob-
ibly to Hebron, and from thence he contemplated a
visit to Esau at Seir. Whether it was ever made, or
Dot, we do not know. The narrative does not record
all the events of Jacob's life, and this may well have
been one of those less important, which it passes
over ia silence. There is no ground, 'u\ any case, to
question his sincerity, or to think that it is the old
Jacob who speaks. — A. G.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. This section belongs to the more important
parts of Genesis, especially of the patriarchal his-
tory, holdmg in the life of Jacob a position like ch.
XV., xvii., xviii., and xxii., in the life of Abraham,
ch. xxvii. in the life of Isaac, and ch. xh. and xlv.
in the life of Joseph. We have here, indeed, the
full development of patriarchalism, the bud which
shall open into its most perfect flower, and which
unfolds fully in the blessing of Jacob (ch. xlii).
As the institution of a sacred sacrifice reached its
full development in the offering of Abraham (ch.
xxii.), and the mysterious fact of election comes into
prominence in the blessing of Isaac (ch. xxvii.), so
this narrative brings out in a clear, distinct form : 1.
The prayer of faith, based upon the promise and the
clear consciousness of the contrast between human
nnworthiness and divine grace ; 2. the actual occur-
rence of a beheving wrestling with God, and its re-
sult, the prelude to the theanthropic hfe ; 3. the con-
trast between the old and new man, between Jacob
and Israel, the token of the new birth growing out
of the circumcision of the heart ; hence, also, 4.
the dawn of the love of one's enemies, and of the
triumph of that affection over the hatred of our en-
emies, through confidence in God and the proofs of
dis reconciliation ; and 6. lastly, that divine law,
according to which behevers inwardly and truly over-
come the world, by their outward subjection to the
demands of its power. In the struggle with Jnoob,
moreover, the form of the Angel of the Lord passes
already into the form of the angel of his face, which
afterwards, in the book of Exodus, develops itself
more completely. Thus, also, we find here already
clearly intimated the germ of the distinction between
the external aspect of the kingdom of God (the
blessing of Isaac), and its inward essence, a distinc-
tion which was not fully comprehended by Israel at
the time of Christ, and over which, even in our own
day, many toil and labor without clear conceptions.
This section contains also a representation of the
nightly and sacred birth hour of Israel, and in a
formal point of view is well fitted to introduce a
true insight into the fundamental form of revelation.

2. The intellectual movement and progress in the
niTau.e, correspond to the most subtle laws of the
Bj.iritual and intellectual life of the souL After Ja-
cob had seen the divine messengers, the angels, in his
journey, he takes heart, and sends a human embassy
to (rreet Esau. The contents of their message is de-
termined ny his prudence. He greets hia lord Esau,

as Jacob his servant. The unpleasant and d^ngeroue
recollections of the events which had occasioned hii
long absence, are passed over ; on the contrary, he
speaks of his rich possessions in herds and flocks,
which he had acquired while with Laban, lest Esau
should think that he was now returning, longing for
the paternal goods. He wishes only to find favor in
the eyes of Esau. In thus rendering homage to him,
he recognizes the earthly and temporal prerogativef
of the first-born, and at the same time makes indi
rectly a confession of his guilt. When the messen
gers return without any counter-greeting, and an-
nouncing that Esau was drawing near, the mere
human prudence of Jacob again suggests his course.
As he apprehends a hostile attack from Esau, so he
thinks of resisting force with force, but with the
prospect of being vanqxiished. Hence the division
of his caravan into two bands. But this measure
gives him no rest. His pressing wants drove him to
faith and prayer, a prayer which marks already a
great development of the patriarchal life and faith.
His soul was thus so sustained and comforted, that he
can no moie rest or sleep during the night. He now
boldly crosses the Jabbok (his Rubicon, or better,
his Kedron) with his whole train. And then, in the
lonehness and solitude, he meets with the decisive
struggle of his life. After the victory of his faith
in this struggle, he is, as Jacob, lame in his thigh;
he no longer expects salvation from his natural
struggles with Esau, but has found, in the grace of
Jehovah, the source of his world-subduing humility
and love. He thinks no longer of the two bands for
mutual self-defence or flight, but on the contrary, he
sends his five bands to the attack, five different acta
of homage embodied in presetits, which, as a contin-
uous train, has the most impressive aspect, and gives
the highest satisfaction to Esau in the presence of
his four hundred men. The closing word of the
messengers was that Jacob was coming after them j
he himself, and thus the strongest expression of hia
confidence toward his brother. Upon the five droves
which designate the completed act of homage, as an
actual outward occurrertce (since five is the number
of free choice), there follows now the seven-fold
bowing of Jacob himself, as a sacred assurance of
his intellectual, r-al homage, as to the prerog.ativea
of the first-bom which belonged to Esau. Hence
his family also, in three intervals and acts, which
follow the salutation, must render the same homage.
Jacob, in offering so large a portion of his herds,
had made a great sacrifice ; so that probably it may
be literally true that his children, who at first rode
upon camels, now that so few of the camels were
left, were obliged to walls. But it was both noble
and wise not to take advantage of Esau's magnani-
mous feelings, as he had formerly done of his nat-
ural and sensual infirmity in the matter of the lenlile
pottage. And now he has completely overcome him,
and even more than this. As he had at first to guard
against his former threats, and his alarming appear-
ance, BO now against his amiable importunity, which
might have led him into the danger of mingling and
developing his cause and future history with thosi
of Esau. Esau actually yields to his request, and
returns. He overcomes him in this, too, but not aa
Jacob the supplanter, but as Israel the warrior >,f
God [the prince with God. — A. G.].

3. Jacob's prayer. The great development ol
faith which marked this prayer : 1. The resting of
the prayer upon the divine promises, and the morf
definite development of prayer in its general idea

CHAP. XXXII. 3.— XXXin. 1-16.

553

2.

the contrast : I am not worthy, etc. [literally, I
am too little for, leaa than. — A. G.], an ancient denial
of any righteousness of works, a watchword of hu-
mility for all time ; 3. the connection of the divine
goodness and grace (here in the plural) and truth, or
faithfulness, which henceforth runs through the
sacred scriptures ; i. the beautiful description of
the divine blessing, for with my staff I passed over
this Jordan, etc. [Jacob's faith appears in the very
terms by which he addressee God, 'n his confidence
iu the divine promise and command, the two pillars
of his hope, in his expectation of deliverance, not-
withstanding his deep sense of his personal unwor-
thineas, and in the clear, sharp contrast which he
makes between the destruction he feared and the
divine promise. How could the promise : I will
make thy seed as the sand of the sea, be saved, if
the mother was to be slain with the children ? As
Luther has said, this is a beautiful specimen of all
hearty prayer, and has all the attributes of real pray-
er.—A. G.]

4. The prayer of Jacob precedes his choice of
his presents for Esau. We must first deal with God,
be reconciled with him, then with men. First faith,
then works.

5. Jacob's present. A great sacrifice of peni-
tence and restitution, of large value iu itself, but far
more glorious in its spiritual form and import.

6. Jacob's wrestling. We must distinguish: 1.
The motive of the struggle ; 2. its elements ; 3. its
greatness ; 4. the fruits of victory. Its motive can-
not lie in Jacob's fear of Esau, although he was not
yet free from all fear. For as to the main thing, his
fears have been removed by the foregoing prayer
and the sending of the present, with which, indeed,
is connected also the announcement that Jacob him-
self was coming to meet Esau. The motive arises
from the fact, that a new, and indeed the final and
greatest necessity, sprang from this act of homage
which Jacob had just performed. He had restored
to Esau in spirit as well as in his outward arrange-
ments the honor of the first-born, as io its earthly
aspects. But had he not thus resigned also his theo-
cratic birthright, the Abrahamic blessing ? This
question rested upon his mind with great weight,
since the external aspect of the blessing was appar-
ently inseparably connected with the inward. To
how many of his descendants has the external theo-
cracy occupied the place of the inward and real king-
dom of God ! Abraham must distinguish the pres-
ent from the future, Isaac between patient endurance
and dominion, but Jacob must now learn to distin-

between the external attributes and the internal
and real possession of the birthright and the bless-
ing. And since these things have hitherto been in-
separably blended in his mind, there must now be,
as it were, a rent in his very soul ; it is only through
the sorest birth-throes that he can attain a faith in
the blessing, stripped of its outward and temporal
glory. If he wUl retain the real blessing, then ap-
parently he must recall the messengers who have
gone to render homage to Esau. If he suffers these
to go on, then all his hopes for the future seem to
vanish. And still this is impossible, since his hope
ia inscribed, as a destination, in his innermost being,
his election. Like Abraham upon Moriah, he must
also, through his readiness to make the sacrifice,
attain the full assurance in, its great gain, the new
life springing out from this sacrifice. Hence his
wrestling. According to Hosea, it consisted essen-
tially and fundamentally in weeping and tears; a

iCguish

weeping and tears that he might secure the assurance
of the blessing in his very sacrifice of the blessing.
His sacrifice must be completed in his heart, for it ii
the genuineness of his repentance, but he must alsc
have the certainty of his blessing, for it is the genu
iiieness and certainty of his faith. And all that he
can present to the God of revelation, for redemption
and deliverance from this fearful appearance of op-
position in his inward life, is his sighs and tears,
There his prayer becomes a vision of the most
intensive form and nature. Jehovah appears to him
in his Angel, the Angel appears to him in human
form, in the form, indeed, of some individual man.
The man in a certain measure is his alter ego in an
objective form, in so far as he is the image of hia
iimermost individuality in its communion with Jeho-
vah, or the type of the Son of Man, the God-man.
But the man meets him as a stranger. He must in
him become certain of his own inward election, aa
Moses was made certain of the law in his own heart,
in the law of the two tables of stone. At first he
meets him as a mighty wrestler, who will cast him
to the ground, and then proceed on his way. That
is, the Angel of his election will cast him down and
then leave him lying in his repentance in bitter an-
guish over his lil'e lost through his sin and guilt.
But Jacob wrestles with him, although unable, and
even not choosing, to make use of his strivings aj
Jacob, of his supplanting and crafty efforts. His
human prudence discerns no way of escape from
this fearful inward sorrow, nor does it seek any.
But what was the very core and centre of his nature
as Jacob, his adherence to his faith in the fviure^
that is preserved, even now ; he does not yield in
his wrestling. The day dawns upon the struggle,
and now the strange man seems to get the upper
hand ; he puts Jacob's thigh out of joint. The
human strength and elasticity of the patriarch were
gone. And now the trial culminates, when the man
says: Let me go. But now also the precise thought
of Jacob, and the purpose of his heart, comes out
in the words: I will not let thee go except thou bless
me. He struggles no more, but throws his arms
around the neck of the divine man and clings to
him. This is the full renunciation, and the fuU and
determined embracing of faith, both in one act, and
there lies his victory. The mysterious stranger askg
after his name and his name is now as an acknowl-
edgment, a confession, Jacob. His new name, Israel,
which is now given to him, on the other band, im-
ports not only his absolution, but also his restitution,
indeed, his exaltation above his previous blessed
condition. From this time onwards he is the war-
rior of God. He not only overcomes Esau, but God
suffers him to prevail over him in that specific way
of wrestling which he has just learned. Jacob now
asks after hia name. He must not seek this name,
however, prematurely, but learn it in his actual ex-
perience. The names Peniel, Shiloh, Immanuel, are
for him to be developed from the name Israel. But
when the parting one gives him a special blessing,
that is the assurance, that in bringing the offering of
the external qualities of the blessing to Esau, he has
perfectly and fully gained the essential blessing of
Abraham. As in the very beginning of his new
birth he had learned to distinguish between the old
and new life, between Jacob and Israel, between the
wrestlings of Jacob and the strength of Israel, so
also he has now been taught to distinguish between
the rights of the natural human birth, and the rightf
of the new divine birth. [There is another view oi

bbi

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

this wrestling, which bases it upon the character and
previous history of Jacob. He was not, indeed, des-
titute of faith and rKliance upon God, but the promi-
nent feature of his character was a strong reliance
upon his own resources and strength. He had thus
fallen into doubtful and censurable courses. In tliis
confidence he had wrestled with Esau for the birth-
right, and with Labau for the reward of his wages
and his present possessions. God had dealt with
him by chastisements. He had been involved in
difficulties and trials which he could not well have
failed to connect with his sins. Still his fault was
not corrected. And now, on his return to the land
of promise, and his paternal home, to inherit the
blessing he had so striven to secure, he is met by
Esau with his four hundred men. Conscious of his
weakness, and reminded of his sins, feeling as he
doubtless did that Esau's anger was not unprovoked,
he flies to God for help (vers. 10-13). His prayer
gives him relief from his fears. But it does not
necessarily wean him from his self-reliance. He
must feel that his crimes against men are at the same
time sins against God. And to teach him this, and
at the same time bring him to unreserved reliance
upon God, is the purpose with which God meets him
here. The progress of the struggle and its issue
show this. He struggles with this new combatant
to the very end, or as long as he had any strength,
but when his thigh was thrown out of joint, then he
saw how vain the struggle in this form was. In his
disabled state he merely hangs upon the conqueror,
and thus overcomes him. He is no longer strong in
himself, but in the Lord. It is his faith, the divine
principle planted in him, in one sense " the divine
energy " working in him, which secures the victory.
The lesson wliich Jacob here learned reveals its
power in his whole after-life. He is no longer the
supplanter. His life is not marked by his own striv-
ings, but by his reliance upon God. And this is in
accordance with the prophet Hosea (xii. 4 £f.), who
not only teaches that the sighs and tears were promi-
nent features in the struggle, but that in his wrest-
ling with God in this way, Jacob has completely
Becured what he had been striving for from his birth,
the inheritance of the first-bom, the promise and
blessing of the covenant; secured it, however, not
by his own strength, but by casting himself upon
God.— A. G.]

1. With regard to the form of the struggle, it
cannot on the one hand be a dream-vision which is
spoken of (Rosenm. and others), nor on the other
hand an external event (Kurtz: "History of the
Old Covenant," i. p. 260 ; Adberlen, in the article
"Jacob," in Heezoo's Mncyclopaidie.) [Jacobus;
" Notes," ii. p. 134 ; Mukpht, p. 414 ; Wordsworth,
p. 137. — A. G.] ; for the mythdcal explanation may
be entirely left out of view. For moral struggles
Mid decisions are not wrought in dreams or in dream-
visions. Against an external bodily wrestling,
Hengatenberg reminds us forcibly that an outward
wrestling does not occur in the form of weeping and
Bupplicaiion. Kurtz attempts to evade this difficulty
by assuming two acts in the struggle, in which the
external bodily wrestling precedes the spiritual wrest-
ling with tears and prayers. He thus seeks to ex-
clade the vision and the ecstasy (conditions which
in our view are only two aspects of one and the
same state). Keil rejects the idea of a natural cor-
poreal wrestling, but thinks that an ecstasy, of a
like or related condition of the body and soul, must
be received We have often seen already that the

condition of vision or ecstasy does not exclude th«
objective manifestation. We now see, also, that the
soul-struggles in vision, might present themselves
under the form of bodily labor, and wrestlings of the
soul, since in the vision the whole spiritual process
is represented in pictures ; and further, that such e
struggle may even produce bodily eifects, as here the
lameness of Jacob's thigh. Kurtz replies, on the
contrary, that such effects of the inward life upon
the body are not certainly ascertained ; that, indeed,
the reverse is for the most part true in such cases,
the germinant bodily complaint giving Its peculiai
form to the dream. But how can one confound
these mere natural dreams with the very highest re-
ligious events in the world of mind ? Should we
suppose that the whole history of the despised one
resied upon a mere illusion, still the history of Geth-
semane would not stand there in vain with reference
to the event here before us. It has been denied that
such a lameness as that described here, could result
from any corporeal wrestling. [It may be said, how-
ever, that there is no necessity here for departing
from the obvious and literal sense of the passage.
The idea of close personal corporeal conflict seems
to be suggested in the very terms which the sacred
writer has chosen to describe this wrestling. It is
certainly implied in the crippling of the thigh. And
if God walked in the garden with Adam, and partook
of the feast which Abraham prepared, there is no
reason why he should not enter into bodily conflict
with Jacob. The other events in the narrative, the
crossing of the Jabbok, the rising of the sun, seem
also to require that we should understand this wres-
tling as real, objective, corporeal, without any at-
tempt, however, to define too closely its precise
mode. — A. G.]

8. The man who wrestled with Jacob. " Some
have absurdly held that he was an assassin sent by
Esau. Oeigen ; The night-wrestler was an evil spirit
(Eph. vi. 12). Other fathers lield that he was a good
angel. The correct view is that he was the constant
revealer of God, the Angel of the Lord." Schroder.
Delitzsch holds " that it was a manifestation of God,
who through the angel was represented and visible
as a man." The well-known refuge from the recep
tion of the Angel of the Incarnation ! In his view,
earlier explained and refuted, Jacob could not be
called the captain, prince of God, but merely the
captain, prince of the Angel. "No other writer in
the Pentateuch," Knobel says, " so represents God
under the human form of things as this one." Jacob
surely, with his prayers and tears, has brought God,
or the Angel of the Lord, more completely into the
human form and likeness than had ever occurred be-
fore. The man with whom he wrestles is obviously
not only the angel, but the type also of the future
incarnation of God. As the angel of his face, how-
ever, he marks a development of the form of the
angel of revelation which is taken up and carried on
in Exodus.

9. The angel and type of the incarnation, ia at
the same time an angel and type of atonement.
When Kurtz (p. 257) says " that God here meets
Jacob as an enemy, that he makes an hostile at-
tack," I he expressions are too strong. There is an
obvious distinction between a wrestler and one wlio
attacks as an enemy, leaving out of view the fact,
that there is nothing said here as to which party
makes the assault. After the revelations which Ja^
cob received at Bethel, Harau, and Mahanaim, c
peculiar hostile relation to God is out of the qut>«'

CHAP, xxxn.— 3.— xxxm. i-ie.

55e

lion. So much, certainly, is true, that Jacob, to
whom no mortal sins are imputed for which he
must overcome the wrath of God (Kdetz, p. 258,
the difine wrath is not overcome but atoned), must
now be brought to feel that in all his sins against
men he has striven and sinned against God, and that
he must first of all be reconciled to him, for all the
hitherto unrecognized sins of his life.

10. The wrestling of Jacob has many points of
tesemblance to the restoration of Peter (John xxi.).
As this history of Peter does not treat of the recon-
stituting of his general relation to Jesus, but rather
of the perfecting of that relation, and with this of
the restitution of his apostolic calUng and office, so
here the struggle of Jacob does not concern so much
the question of his fundamental reconciliation with
Jehovah, but the completion of that reconciliation
and the assurance of his faith in his patriarchal
calling. And if Christ then spake to Peter, when
thou wast young thou girdedst thyself, etc., in order
that he might know that henceforth an entire reli-
ance upon the leading and protection of God must
take the place of his sinful feeling of his own
strength and his attachment to his own way, so,
doubtless, the lameness of Jacob's thigh has the
same significance, with this difference, that as Peter
must be cured of the self-wiU of his rash, fiery tem-
perament, so Jacob from his selfish prudence, tend-
ing to mere cunning.

11. A like relation holds between their old and
new names. The name Simon, in the narrative of
Peter's restoration, points to his old nature, just aa
here the name Jacob to the old nature of Israel.
Simon's nature, however, was not purely evil, but
tamted with evil. This is true also of Jacob. He
must be purified and freed from his sinful cunning,
but not from his prudence and constant perseverance.
Into these latter features of his character he was
consecrated as Israel. The name Abram passes over
into the name Abraham, and is still ever included in
it; the name Isaac has in itself a two-fold signifi-
cance, which intimates the laughter of doubt, and
that of a joyful faith ; but the name Jacob goes
along with that of Israel, not merely because the
latter was preeminently the name of the people, nor
because in the new-birth the old life continues side
by side, and only gradually disappears, but also be-
cause it designates an element of lasting worth, and
still further, because Israel must be continually re-
minded of the contrast between its merely natural
and its sacred destination.

12. The sacred and honored name of the Israelit-
ish people, descends from this night- wrestling of
Israel, just as the name Christian comes from the
birth and name of Christ. The peculiar destination
of the Old-Testament children of the covenant is
that they should be warriors, princes of God, men
of prayer, who carry on the conflicts of faith to vic-
tory. Hence the name Israelites attains complete-
ness in that of Christians, those who are divinely
blessed, the anointed of God. The name Jews, in
its derivation from Judah, in their Messianic des-
tination, forms the transition between these names.
They are those who are praised, who are a praise
and glory to God. But the contrast between the
cunning, running into deceit, which characterized
the old nature of Jacob, and the persevering struggle
of faith and prayer of Israel, pervades the whole
history of the Jewish people, and hence Hosea, ch.
lii. 1 S., applies it to the Jewish people (see Eubtz, 1

p. 259, with reference to the " Practical Com. ' of
UMBBiyT, iv. p. 82). The force of this contrast
lies in this, that in the true Israelite there is no guile
since he is purified from guile (John i. 47), and thai
Christ, the king of Israel (ver. 44), is without guile,
while the deceit of the Jacob nature reaches iti
most terrible and atrocious perfection in the kisa of
Judas.

13. The natural night, through which Jacob car
ried on his long wrestling, not only figures symboli-
cally the inner night which brooded over his soul,
but also the mystery of his new-birth, determined of
course by its Old-Testament Umits. Hence the dawn
and sunrise indicate not only the blessed state of
faith which he had now gained, but also the fact that
he, as the halting and lame, now appeared as a new
man in the light of the breaking day.

14. When it is said of Israel that lie had prevailed
with God, we must not forget that he prevailed with
him because God permitted him to do so. The idea
that God permits himself to be overcome, assumes
a gross and dangerous form if we should apply it
to our selfish prayers according to our own selfish
thoughts. In the entire concession to the grace of
God, the believer first reaches that turnipg-point in
his life where the will of God becomes even his own
will, where God can yield and confide himself to the
will of his faith.

15. In the apparent rejection of Jacob's question,
Tell me, I pray thee, thy name ? the angel proceeds
in the same way with Christ in his public ministra-
tions. He does not immediately call himself Christ.
Believers must attain the true idea of his name from
the experience of its effects.

16. The growth in Jacob's life of faith is marked
by the names Bethel, Mahanaim, Peniel. But it is
surely an entirely unallowable explanation of the
words " I have seen God face to face, and my life ia
preserved," when they are explained upon the preva-
lent Jewish notion, that whoever has seen Jehovah
must die. Leaving out of view the essential germ
of that notion, that the sight of the glory of God
terrifies sinful men and mortifies sin within them,
which takes place in this case also, it might be held
more plausibly that this very notion grew out of a
misunderstanding of these words (comp. the similar
expression of Hagar, ch. xvi. 13). Delitzsch : "The
sun which rose upon Jacob at Peniel has its antitype
in the sun of the resurrection morning."

17. The glorious reconciliation between Jacob and
Esau is based upon the perfect reconciliation of Jacob
with God. For the old way in which he hoped to
overcome Esau, he now makes amends in the new
method by which he actually overcomes him. We
shall do injustice to the history if we do not distin.
guish here the elements of humility, satisfaction,
reconciling love, and confidence. Jacob's humiliar
tion before Esau implies his humiliation before Goi ,
his satisfaction to Esau, his reconciliation with God ;
and the strength of his love and confidence by which
he overcomes Esau, comes from Jehovah's grace and
truth.

18. The fact that Jacob after his reconciliation
with Esau, could not be prevailed upon by any con-
sideration whatever, either of fear or favor, to mingle
with him, is the clearest proof of the strength of tij
patriarchal consciousness.

19. For the mythical traditions which resemble
this wrestling of Jacob with God, see DeUtzscfci
Bunsen, Schroder, upon the passage.

556

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES,

ICOMILKTICAL AND PitACTICAL.

See the Doctrinal paragraphs. — Jacob between
Laban and Esau on his homeward journey. — Jacob's
progress from struggle to struggle. — His conflict with
Laban compared with that with Esau. — His struggle
with men, in comparison with that with God. — How
the sins of youth are punished after a long period of
years. How Jacob, through his prayer, passes from
the plan of flight from Esau, suggested by his human
ifears, to the method of attacking him with the
weapons of humiUty and love ; from a mere human
defensive, to a divine offensive. — The prayer of Ja-
cob.— The distinction between his prayer and his
wrestling. — Jacob's act of faith in crossing the Jab-
bok. — Jacob's struggle and victory, or how from
Jacob he became Israel. — The features of the devel-
opment of revealed faith in Jacob's wrestUng ; 1.
The germ of the incarnation (Godhead and humanity
wrestling with each other; the Godhead in the form
of a man) ; 2. the germ of the atonement (sacrifice
of the human will); 3. the germ of justification by
faith ( I will not let thee go, etc.) ; 4. the germ of the
new-birth (Jacob, Israel); 6. the germ of the prin-
ciple of love to one's enemies (the reconciliation
with God, reconcihation with the world). — Jacob's
night and Israel's dawn. — The sacrifice of human
prudence upon the altar of God, one of the most
diSicult sacrifices (more so than that of human
strength). — Bethel, Mahanaim, Peniel, divine stations
in the journey of the pilgrim of faith. — The shep-
herd train of Jacob, and the warlike procession of
Esau. — Civihty a barrier against injury, and a source
of security and protection. — In their tears Jacob and
Esau are twins once more. — Thus the nobler life of
the world and the life of faith have twin elements
and moments. — The permanent friendsliip Letween
Jacob and Esau (persons so in antipathy with each
other, the childien of God and men of the world, the
church and the state), under proper conditions and
at proper distance'^. — The triumph of departing Esau,
arid Jacob (the future Bedouin sheik and the ances-
tor of Israel). — Jacob between the Jabbok and the
Jordan. — The return of the banished to his father-
land. —The native country. — The bloom of patri-
archalism.

First Section, vers. 4—7. Starke : Christians
must be open to reconciliation with their enemies
(Rom. xii. 18). — Schroder : If his mother had sent
him the message, as was agreed upon : Thy brother
has now laid aside his anger, then Jacob would have
had an easier journey than now, when he returns
leaning upon the hand of the invisible God (Baum-
gai ten). — The httle ship nears the haven, all depends
on this last moment. — Esau as prince in Mount Seir.
■ — Thus he chooses with perfect freedom what God
has from the beginning determined (Baum. and
Calvin).

Second Section, vers. 8, 9. Schroder : We must
not overlook the name of Jehovah in his prayer. The
danger is so great that a mere general belief in a gen-
eral providence will not sustain him (Hengstenberg).

Third Section, vers. 10-13. Starke : Nothing is
more humbling than the grace of God. — Cramer:
There is no better way to avoid danger than by be-
'ieving prayer (Ps. xxvii. 8). — Schroder : His humil-
ity does not blush at the recollection : for with my
BtafP, etc. — The mother with tlie children. The words
describe the most relentless cruelty. — The death of
a mother, over and with her children, is the most
cruel way of taking Ufe imaginable (Baumgarten). —

God saved his promise in saving Jacob. — Taobk
The school of the cross is the most glorious school,
for : 1. It reveals his God to the Christian ; 2. il
reveals also the Christian heart before God and ths
world.

Fourth Section, vers. 14-22. Starke ; If we ma»
infer from his presents, as to the size of his flockt
of difierent kinds, we shall easily see how abundantly
God has blessed Jacob, and fulfilled to him his prom-
ise of prosperity. — Schroder : He chooses milch-
camels because they are more valuable for their milk,
which is used by the Arabians as a drink. The
camel's milk becomes intoxicaring when it has stood
a few hours, but when fresh has no such property
(Michaelis).

Fifth Siction, vers. 23-33. Starke: Cramer:
When a Christian has prayed, he is not to sit down
in idleness and security, but should consider wel
how he may best accomplish his end. — There is nc
better way to win the heart of an enemy than bj
good deeds (1 Sam. xxv. 18). — Bibl. Tub. : There is
no conflict more blessed and glorious than when we
wrestle with God in faith and piayer, and thus take
heaven by violence. — Osiander : God is often accus-
tomed thus to try his saints, and prove their faith ;
he sends upon them many afflictions at the same
time, but still sustains his saints so that they shall
not sink (Exod. iv. 24 ; Ps. xxxviii. 6 fif.). — We bear
about with us the marks of our sin, our misery, and
our mortality, that we may not become proud (2 Cor.
xii. 7). — (Ver. 26. The Jews, who hold this man to
have been an angel, suppose that in thus addressing
Jacob he wished to remind him that it was time for
him to sing his morning song. For the Jews be-
lieved that at the dawn the angels raised their
hymns of praise to God. — Ver. 28 (no more ; No,
here, is equivalent with not alone). — Luther : Here
the temptation to despair often enters, a temptation
by which the greatest saints are wont to be tried.
Whoever stands the test, he comes to the perfect
knowledge of the wiU of God, so that he can say, I
have seen God face to face. — Hall : When the angel
of the covenant has once blessed, no trial can make
us miserable (John x. 28). — (Ver. 32. The Jews
think that Jacob was healed at Sichem, and hence
the city was called Shalem.) — Compare the conflict
of Jacob after he had crossed the Jabbok, with the
conflict of Jesus in Gethsemane, after he had crossed
tlie Kedron. [Wordsworth also has a long and sug-
gestive note, in which Jacob is held up as a type of
Christ, and this comparison is carried out into vari-
ous minute points. — A. G.] — Jacob a type of the
New-Testament church. — Bibl. Tub. : They are
blessed who see the face of God in faith, for thus
their souls are healed. — Cramer : To see God is the
best food for souls, their strength and courage (1
Cor. xiii. 12). — Gerlach, upon the 28th verse: In
the words, with men, God reminds him of the more
consolatory aspect of the events of his former life,
of the opposition which first Esau, then Isaac, etc.
(We must remember, however, that in the previous
struggles he was victorious as Jacob merely.) — Calw.
Hand. : Although all human power is weakness com-
pared with God, yet he suifers himself to be over-
come by faith and prayer. — His name truly was a
confession of his sin. — Schroder : Quotations Irom
G. D. Krommacher's "Contest and Victory of Ja-
cob."— The thigh is the very basis of the body ; when
it is put out of joint the body falls (Krummachkr ■
Jacob, however, did not fall). — There was notbin."
left for him but to hang upon his neck if he woulJ

CHAP. XXXIII. 17— XXXV. 1-16.

55'.

not fall. — Hope maketh not ashamed —The wrestler
Srst for himself and with men, then with God and
with men, lastly for God and for men. — The name of
Christian is the completion of the name Israel. —
TiOBK : Jacob's conflict and victory : 1. The con-
test ; 2. the victory.

Bxth Section, ch. xxxiii. 1-11. Starke : In this
manner we Christians are in the eyes of the world
the most miserable, subject to every one, but in truth
we are and remain the heirs of heaven and earth. —
Ver. 7. The wives of Jacob. Now when they thought
to reach his father's house and their kindred, they
are in fear of death. This was certainly a severe
test. — How beautiful when contending parties come
together ; but then previous difficulties must not be
called up (Eom. xii. 10). — In the world, among all
outward means there are none more effectual than
presents and gifts (Prov. xvii. 8). — Gerlach : An
atoning present is indeed blessing (1 Sam. xxv. 27).
— Lisco : His victory of faith is typical for all the
nhildren of God.

Seventh Section, ver. 12-16. Starke: (Ver. 14.
Some are offended at Jacob and have charged hin
with deceit (Calvin). But it rather seems that at
the first he was willing to go thither. Peihaps GoC
had warned him, as he did the wise men (Matt, ii,
12). — Ver. 15. Osiander: All official persons is
ecclesiastical or worldly positions should use wis*
precaution, that they may direct affairs according to
the power of those who are entrusted to them, lest
they should be rather injured than helped. — Schro-
der : Luther : Note, the justified and those resting
in their good works cannot walk together. — Calw.
Hand. : Persons so widely different as Esau and Ja-
cob are the best friends when they do not come into
too close relations. — Schroder: The sacred Scrip,
tures are indeed sacred. As the dark side of tlie elect
is revealed without any attempt at concealment, so
they do not pass without notice the brighter features
of those who are without. We find traces of the
divine image in every one, and it is too frequently
true that the world teaches morality to the believei

SIXTH SECTION.

Jaeoh^s settlement in Canaan. At Suecoth. At Shechem. Dinah. Simeon and Levi. The jirst mam'
f Citation of Jewish fanatieum,. JacoVs rebuke, and removal to Bethel,

Chapter XXXIII. 17— XXXV. 1-16

IV And Jacob journeyed to Suecoth [booths], and built bim an house, and made booths
for his cattle : therefore the name of the place is called Suecoth.

18 And Jacob came to Shalem ' [in peace], a city of Shechem, which is in the land of
Canaan, when he came from Padan-aram [Mesopotamia] ; and pitched his tent before the

19 city. And he bought a [the] parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the
hand of the children of Hamor [ass; peaceful hearer of public hmdens], Shechem's father, for

20 an hundred pieces ' of money. And he erected there an altar, and called it EI-Elohe-

Israel [strength of God, the God of Israel]

Oh. XXXIV. 1. And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out

2 to see the daughters of the land. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite,
prince of the country [region], saw htr, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.

3 And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and

4 spake ^ kindly unto the damsel. And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying,

5 Get me this damsel [froin Jacob] to wife. And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah
his daughter: (now his sons were with his cattle i'" '■^e field : and Jacob held his peace
[held in, or to himself ] until they were come).

6 And Hamor the father of Shechem went out unto Jacob to commune with him.

7 And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it: and the men were
grieved, and they were very wroth because he had wrought folly in Israel, in lying

8 with Jacob's daughter ; which thing ought not to be done [and remain]. And Hamor
communed with them, saying. The soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter :

9 I'pray you give her him to wife. And make ye marriages with us, and give your

10 daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you. And ye shall dwell with us : and
the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions there-

11 in. And Shechem said unto her father, and lanto her brethren, Let me find grace ic

12 your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me, I will give. Ask me never so much dowry
and gift [priee of the bride], and I will give according as ye shall say unto me : but give

558 GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

13 me the damsel to wife. And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor hij
father deceitfully [under mere pretence], and said, Because he had defiled Dinah their sistftr :

14 And they said unto them, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one that ia

1 5 uncircumcised : for that were a reproach unto us : But in this [condition] will we consent
1 3 unto you : If ye will be as we he, that every male of you be circumcised ; Then will

we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will

17 dwell with you, and we will become one people. But if ye will not hearken unto us,

18 to be circumcised; then will we take our daughter, and we will be gone. And theiT

19 wordn pleased Hamor, and Shechem, Hamor's son. And the young man deferred not
to do the thing, because he had delight in Jacob's daughter : and he was more honor
able than all the house of his father.

20 And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city, and communed

21 with the men of their city, saying, These men are peaceable with us, therefore let them
dwell in the land, and trade therein : for the land, behold, it is large enough for them :

22 let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters. Only
herein [on this condition] will the men consent unto us for to dwell with us, to be one

23 people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised. Shall not their
cattle, and their substance, and every beast of theirs he ours? only let us consent unto

24 them, and they will dwell with us. And unto Hamor, and unto Shechem his son,
hearkened all that went out of the gate of his city : and every male was circumcised,
all that went out of the gate of his city.

25 And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons
of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon

26 the city boldly, and slew all the males. And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son
with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went out.

21 The sons of Jacob came [now] upon the slain and spoiled the city; because they

28 [its inhabitants] had defiled their sister. They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their

29 asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field. And all their
wealth and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled even all

30 that was in the house. And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me
[so greatly] to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaan-
ites, and the Perizzites : and I heing few in number [of a small household ; easily numbered],
they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me, and I shall be de-

31 stroyed, I and my house. And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an
harlot ?

Ch. XSXV. 1. And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and
make there an altar unto God [ei] that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the

2 face of Esau thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household and to all that were
with him. Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change

3 your garments: And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar
unto God, who answered me in the day [at the time] of my distress, and was with me in

4 the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in
their hand [possession], and all their ear-rings which were in their ears ; and Jacob hid

5 them under the oak [terebinth] which was by Shechem. And they journeyed : and the
terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue
after the sons of Jacob.

6 So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan (that is Bethel), he and all

7 the people that were with him. And he built there an altar, and called the place El-
beth-el ; because there God appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his

8 brother. But Deborah [hee], Kebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried beneath Beth-
el, under an oak : and the name of it was called Allon-bachuth.

9 And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padan-aram [Mesopotamia] ;
LO and blessed him. And God said unto him. Thy name is Jacob : thy name shall not

be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name : and he called his name Israel

11 And God said unto him, I am God Almighty : be fruitful and multiply ; a nation and
a company [^np] of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins.

12 And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed

13 after thee will I give the land. And God went up from him, in the place where ha

CHAP. XXXni. 1'?.— XXXV. 1-lB.

55!J

14 tilked with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him
iven a pillar of stone : and he poured a drink-offering thereon, and he poured oil there

15 on. And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him. Bethel

(> Ver. IB.—Shalem is not a proper noun, but must be rendered in peace, as in Jacob's vow (xxviil. 21). to whick
evidently refers. — A. G-.]

f • Vor. 19. — Qitesitah — weighed or measured. Sept., Vul., Onk., have lamb, as if stamped upon the coin ; but coined
Bioney was not in use among the patriarchs. — A. G.]

'■ Ch. xxxiv. 3. — Lit., spake to her heart — A. 6.]

PEELIMINAET EEMAEKS.

The section now before us, whose unity con«ists
In the remarkable sojourn of Jacob at the different
stations, on his homeward journey to Hebron, may
be divided as follows : 1. The settlement at Succoth ;
2. the settlement at Shechem ; 3. Dinah : a. The
rape of Dinah ; b. Sheehem's offer of marriage ; c.
the fanatical revenge of the sons of Jacob, or the
bloody wedding ; the plot, the massacre, the sacking
of the city, the judgment of Jacob upon the crime ;
4. the departure tor Bethel ; 5. the sealing of the
covenant between God and the patriarch at Bethel.
Knobel, as usual, finds here a commingling of Jeho-
vistic and Elohistic elements, since the internal rela-
tions are brought into view as little as possible,
while names and words are emphasized.

EXEGETICAL AND CEITICAl.

1. Ver. 17. — To Succoth. — The name Succoth,
hoothx, tents, might have been of frequent occur-
rence in Palestine, but the locality here spoken of
Is generally regarded as the same with the later well-
known city of Succoth, which lies east of the Jor-
dan. It was situated within the limits of the tribe
of Gad (Jos. xiii. 27 ; Judg. viii. 5-14 ; Ps. k. 6).
Josephus speaks of it under its Greek name ^Kri^al,
and Jerome says Succoth is to day a city across the
Jordan, in the neighborhood of Seythopolis. Rob-
inson (later " Resear.," pp. 310-312) identiftes Suc-
coth with S4kut, lying west of the Jordan, and
southerly from Beisan. The fact that the traditional
Succoth lies too far to the north, and that it is not
easy to see how Jacob, after crossing the Jabbok,
should come hither again, is in favor of this sug-
gestion. Nor is it probable that, having so nearly
reached the Jordan, he would have settled in the
east-Jordan region (comp. ch. xxxii. 10). Knobel
thinks that the writer wished to show that the patri-
arch had now fixed his abode in the trans-Jordan re-
gion. That Succoth belonged to the tribe of Gad,
does not disprove Robinson's conjectures, since there
may have been more than one Succoth. Compare,
further, as to the traditional Succoth, Von Raumer
p. 236 ; Knobel, p. 204 [also Keil, Murphy, Words-
worth, Jacobus, Smith's " Bib. Die.," all of whom
decide against Robinson. — A, G,] — And he built. —
He piepares here for a longer residence, since he
builds himself a house mstead of tents, and booths
for his flocks, i. e., inclosures made of shrubs or
stakes wattled together. Knobel thinks " that this
Is very improbable, since Jacob would naturally wish
to go to Canaan and Isaac " (ch. xxxi. 8). But if
we bear in mind that Jacob, exhausted by a twenty-
years' servitude and oppression, and a flight of more
than seven days, shattered by his spiritual conflicts,
ind lame bodily, now, first, after he had crossed the
Tordaa and upon the spiritual and home land, came

to the full sense of his need of repose and quiet,
we shall then understand why he here pauses and
rests. As the hunted hart at last sinks to the ground,
so he settles down and rests here for a time. He
seems to have hoped, too, that he would be healed at
Succoth, and it is probably with a special reference
to this that it is said, ver. 18, that Jacob came " in
peace or in health " to Shechem. Jacob, too, after
his experience of his brother Esau's importunity, had
good reason tor inquiring into the condition of things
at Hebron, before he brought his family thither.
[The fact that he built a house for himself, and
permanent booths for his flock, indicates his contin-
ued residence at Succoth for some years; and the
age of Dinah at his flight from Laban makes it ne-
cessary to suppose either that he dwelt hero or at
Shechem six or more years before the sad events nar-
rated in the following chapter. — A. G.] And it ap-
pears, indeed, that, either from Succoth or Shechem,
he made a visit to his father Isaac at Hebron, and
brought from thence his mother's nurse, Deborah,
since Rebekah was dead, and since she, as the confi-
dential friend of his mother, could relate to him the
history of her life and sufferings, and since, more-
over, she stood in closer relation to him than any one
else. Nor could Jacob, as Keil justly remarks, now
an independent patriarch, any longer subordinate
his household to that of Isaac.

2. The sojourn at Shechem (vers. 18-20). —
And Jacob came (to Shalem) in good health. —
The word nVa is taken by the Sept., Vul., and
Luther [and by the translators of the Eng. Bib. —
A. G.], as a proper noun, to Shalem, which some
have regarded as another name for Shechem, and
others as designating an entirely different place, and
the more so, since the village of Salim is still found
in the neighborhood of Shechem (Robinson : ' ' Re-
searches," vol. iii. p. 114 ff.). But it is never men-
tioned elsewhere in the Old Testament, and a'SS
as an adjective, refers to the Dli'Ja, ch. xxviii. 21.
Jehovah has fulfilled his promise. — A city of She-
chem.— Or, to the city. Lit., of Shechem. The
city was not in existence when Abraham sojourned
in this region (ch. xii. 6). The Hivite prince Ha-
mor had built it and called it after the name of hia
son. For the old name Mamortha of Pliny, see
Keil, p. 224 [who holds that it may be a corruption
from Hamor; but see also Robinson, vol. iii. p. 119.
— A. G.]. — In the land of Canaan. — Keil infers
from these words that Succoth could not have been
in the land of Canaan, i. e., on the west of the Jor-
dan. But the words here, mdeed, refer to the un-
mediately following Hebraic acquisition of a piece
of ground, just as in the purchase of the cave at
Hebron by Abraham it is added, " in the land of
Canaan" (ch. xxiii. 19). — Padan-aram (see ch.
XXV. 20) — before the city. — [See the Bible Diction-
aries, especially upon the situation of Jacob's well,
and Robinson, vol. Mi. pp. 113-136.— A. G.]. Evei

560

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

after his rerarn to Hebron Jacob kept a pasture sta-
tion at Shechem (cii. xxxvii. 12). — A parcel of a
field (Josli. xiiT. 32). — Abraham purchased for
himself a possession for a burial place at Hebron.
Jacob goes further, and buys a possession for him-
self during life. " This purchase shows that Jacob,
in his faith in the divine promise, viewed Canaan as
his own home, and the home of his seed. Tradition
fixes this parcel of land, which, at the conquest of
Canaan, fell as an heritage to the sons of Joseph,
and in which Joseph's bones were buried (Josh,
ixiv. 32), as the plain lying at the southeast opening
of the valley of Shechem, where, even now, Jacob's
well (John iv. 6) is shown, and about two hundred or
three hundred paces north of it a Mohammedan
wely, as the grave of Joseph (Robinson ; " Re-
searches," vol iii. pp. 113-136, and the map of
Nablous, in the " German Oriental Journal," xvi. p.
634)." Keil. For the relation of this passage with
ch. xlviii. 22, see the notes upon that passage. — An
hundred pieces of money. — Onk., Sept.jVul., and
the older commentators, regard the Quesita as a
piece of silver of the value of a Iamb, or stamped
with a lamb, and which some have held as a proph-
ecy pointing to the Lamb of God. Meyer (Heb.
Diet.) estimates the Quesita as equal to a drachm, or
an Egyptian double-drachm. Delitzsch says it was
a piece of metal of an indeterminable value, but of
greater value than a shekel (see Job xlii. 11). — An

altar, and named it That is, he undoubtedly

named it with this name, or he dedicated it to El-
Elohe-Israel. Delitzsch views this title as a kind of
superscription. But Jacob's consecration means
more than that his God is not a mere imaginary deity ;
it means, further, that he has proved himself actually
to be God (God is the God of Israel); God in the
clear, definite form of El, the Mighty, in the God of
hrael, the wi ealler with God. Israel had experienced
both, in the almighty protection which his God had
shown him from Bethel throughout his journeyings,
and in the wrestlings with him, and learned his
might. In the Mos-aic period the expression, Jeho-
vah, the God of Israel, takes its place (Ex. xxxiv.
23). " The chosen name of God, in the book of
Joshua." Delitzsch. [The name of the altar em-
braces, and stamps upon the memory of the world,
the result of the past of Jacob's life, and the expe-
riences through which Jacob had become Israel. —
A. G.]

3. Dinah(ch. xxxiv. 1-31). — Dinah the daugh.
ter of Leah. — a. The rape of Dinah (vers. 1-4).
Dinah was bom about the end of the fourteenth year
of .Jacob's residence in Haran. She was thus about
six years old at the settlement at Succoth. The
sojourn at Succoth appears to have lasted for about
two years. Jacob must have spent already several
years at Shechem, since there are prominent and
definite signs of a more confidential intercourse with
the Shechemites. We may infer, therefore, that
Dinah was now from twelve to sixteen years of age.
Joseph was seventeen years old when he was sold by
his brethren (ch. xxxyi. 2), and at that time Jacob
had returned to HebropJ There must have passed,
tierefore, about eleven years since the return from
Haran, at which time Joseph was six years of age.
If now we regard the residence of Jacob at Bethel
and the region of Ephrata as of brief duration, and
bear in mind that the residence at Shechem ceased
with the rape of Dinah, it foUovrs that Dinah must
have been about fourteen or fifteen years of age
when she was deflowered. In the East, too, females

reach the age of puberty at twelve, and sometmiei
still earlier (Delitzsch). From the same circum.
stances it is clear that Simeon and Levi must have
Deen above twenty. — Went out to see. — Scarcely
nowever, to see the daughters of the native inhabit,
ants for the first time, nor to a fair or popular festi-
val (Josephus). Her going indicates a friendly visij
to the daughters of the land, a circumstance which
made her abduction possible, for she was taken by
Shechem to his house (ver. 26). — His soul clavs
unto Dinah, — This harsh act of princely insolence
and power is not an act of pure, simple lust, whicl
usually regards its subject with hatred (see the his-
tory of Tamar, 2 Sam. liii. 16). — Spake kindly to
her. — Probably makes her the promise of an honor-
able marriage. ^b. Shechems offer of marriage

(vers. 6-12). — And Jacob heard it In a large

nomadic family the several members are doubtless
often widely dispersed. Besides, Dinah did not re-
turn home. — Held his peace until they vrere
come. — The brothers of the daughter had a voice
in all important concerns which related to her (xxiv.
50 if.). Moreover, Jacob had to deal with the proud
and insolent favorite son of the prince, i. e., prince
of that region, and a painfiil experience had made
him more cautious than he had been before. — And
Hamor the father of Shechem. — As if he wished
to anticipate the indignation of Jacob's youthful

sons. — Because he had TOTOUght folly Keil

speaks of " seduction," but this is an inadequate ex-
pression. Some measure of consent on the part of
Dinah is altogether probable. In this case the dis-
honor (S^I3) bad a double impurity, since an uncir-
cumcised person had dishonored her. — And the
men ■were grieved. — Manly indignation rises in
these young men in all its strength, but as the wise
sons of Jacob, they know how to control themselves.
[It was more than indignation. They were enraged ;
they burned with anger ; it was khuUed to them. —

A. G.]— He had wrought foUy nbrs niss ,

a standing expression for crimes which are irrecon-
cilable with the dignity and destination of Israel as
the people of God, but especially for gross sins of
the flesh (Dent. xxii. 21 ; Judg. xx. 10 ; 2 Sam. xiii.
12), but also of other great crimes (Josh. viL 16). —
Wtiich thing ought not to be done. — A new
and stricter morality in this respect also, enters with
the name Israel. — My son Shechem. — The hesi-
tating proposal of the father gives the impression of
embarrassment. The old man offers Jacob and hia
sons the full rights of citizens in his little country,
and the son engages to fulfil any demand of the
brothers as to the bridal price and bridal gifts. Keil
confuses these ordinary determinations. [He holds
only with most that they were strictly presents (and
not the price for the bride) made to the bride and to
her mother and brothers. — A. G.] — o. Tltefanat col
revenge of the sons of Jacob (vers. 13-29). — De*
ceitfuUy. — Jacob had scarcely become Israel when
the arts and cuiming of Jacob appear in his sons,
and, indeed, in a worse form, since they glory in
being Israel. — And said (^S")), vre cannot do thii
thing. — KeU thinks the refusal of the proposition
lies fundamentally in the proposal itself, because if
they had not refused they would have denied the
historical and saving vocation ot Israel and his seed
The father, Israel, appears, however, to have been
of a different opinion. For he doubtless knew th«
proposal of his sons in reply. He does not condemn
their proposition, however, but the fanatical way in

CHAP. XXXm. 11—XXKY. 1-15.

561

irhich they availed themselves of its consequences.
Dinah could not come into her proper relations afrain
but by Shechem's passing over to Judaism. This
vfay of passing over to Israel was always allowable,
and those who took the steps were welcomed. We
must therefore reject only : 1. The extension of the
proposal, according to which the Israehtes were to
blend themselves with the Sheohemites ; 2. the mo-
tives, which were external advantages. It was, on
the contrary, a harsh and unsparing course in refer-
ence to Dinah, when Leah's two sons wished her back
again ; or, indeed, would even gratify their revenge
and Israelitish pride. But their resort to subtle and
fanatical conduct merits only a hearty condemnation.
-The young man deferred not. — We lose the
force of the narrative if we say, with Keil, that this
is noticed here by way of anticipation ; the thing is
as good as done, since Shechem is not only ready to
do it, but will make his people ready also. The pur-
pose, indeed, could only be executed afterwards,
since Shechem could not have gone to the gate of
the city after his circumcision. — And communed
with the men of the city. — They appeal in the
strongest way to the self-interest of the Sheohem-
ites. Jacob's house was wealthy, and the Shechem-
it.s, therefore, could only gain by the connection. —
nans . Beasts of burden, camels, and asses. "Ac-
cording to Herodotus, circumcision was practised by
the Phcenicians, and probably also among the Ca-
naanites, who were of the same race and are never
referred to in the Old Testament as uncircumcised,
as e. g., it spenks of the unCanaanitish Philistines.
It is remarkable that the Hivites, Hamor and She-
chem, are spoken of as not circumcised. Perhaps,
however, circumcision was not in general use among
the Phoenician and Canaanitish tribes, as indeed it
was not among the other people who practised the
rite, e. g., the Ishmaelites, Edomites, and Egyptians,
among whom it was strictly observed only lay those
of certain conditions or rank. Or we may suppose
that the Hivites were originally a different tribe from
the Canaanites, who had partly conformed to the
customs of the land, and partly not." Knobel. — On
the third day. — After the inflammation set in.
This was the critical day (see Delitzsch, p. 340).
[He says it is well known that the operation in case
of adults was painful and dangerous. Its subjects
were confined to the bed from two to three weeks,
and the operation was attended by a violent inflam-
mation.— A. G.] " Adults were to keep quiet for
three days, and were often suffering from thirty-five
to forty days." — Simeon and Levi. — Reuben and
Judah were also brothers of Dinah, but the first was
probably of too feeble a character, and Judah was
too frank and noble for such a deed. " Simeon and
Levi come after Eeuben, who, as the first-born, had
a special responsibility towards his father (ch. xxxvii.
21 £f ; xlii. 22), and appears, therefore, to have
withdrawn himself, and as the brothers of Diuiih
next in order undertake to revenge the dishonor of
their sister. For the same reason Ammon was killed
by Absalom (2 Sam. xiii. 28). Seduction is punished
with death among the Arabians, and the brothers of
the seduced are generally active in inflicting it (N"iE-
Bfhe: Arabien, p. 39 ; Buekhaedt's 'Syria,' p.
861, and 'Bedouins,' p. 89)." Knobel. Keil says
that the servants of Simeon and Levi undoubtedly
took part in the attack, but it may be a question
whether each son had servants belonging to himself.
The city lay in security, as is evident from the ncsab.

36

— Sons of Jacob. — Without the 1 conjunctive. The
abrupt form of the narrative does not merely indi-
cate " the excitement over the shocking crime." For
it is not definitely stated that all the sons of Jacob
took part in sacking the city (Keil), although the
slaughter of the men by Simeon and Levi may have
kindled fanaticism in the others, and have !ed them
to view the wealth of the city as the spoUs of war,
or as property without an owner. Much less can it
be said that Simeon and Levi were excluded from
these sons (as Delitzsch supposes). On the contrary,
they are charged (xlix. 6) with hamstringing ths
oxen [Eng. ver., digged through a wall. — A. G.],
i. e., with crippling the cattle they could not take
with them. Nor are we here to bring into promi-
nence that the Jacob nature breaks out again in this
act, but, on the contrary, that the deed of the soni
of Jacob is entirely unworthy. [Kurtz urges as an
extenuation of their crime ; 1. The fact that they
viewed the rape as peculiarly worthy of punishment
because they were Israel, the chosen people of God,
the bearers of the promise, etc. ; 2. their natural
character, and the strength of their pass'ons ; 3.
their youthful ardor ; 4. the absence of counsel with
their depressed and suffering father. But with every
palhation, their treachery and bloodthirstiness, their
use of the covenant sign of circumcision as a means
to cloak their purpose, their extension of their re-
venge to the whole city, and the pillage of the slain,
must shock every one's moral sense. — A. G.] —
d. 27i(; judr/ment of Jacob upon their crime (vers.

30, 31). — ^Ye have troubled me If we look at

the places in which the word t^S occurs (Josh. vi.
18; vii. 16), we shall see plainly that Jacob is not
speakirg here of mere simple grief. The idea pro-
ceeds from the ahaking of water, to the utmost con-
fusion and consternation of spirit, or changes and
loss of life. The expression made to stink, signi-
fies not merely to become odious, offensive, but to
make infamous^ Uterally, to mak« one an abomina-
tion. When Knobel concludes from the words :
And I being few in number, that Jacob did not
censure the act as immoral, but only as inconsiderate,
and one which might thus cause his ruin, the infer-
ence is manifestly false and groundless. He ex-
presses his censure of the act as immoral in the
words trouble me, put him to shame, made him
blameworthy, while they thought that they were
glorifying him. — ShoiJd he deal. — Should one
then, not should he then (Knobel), for he is dead ;
nor even should they then. The idea is, that if they
had suffered this patiently they would thereby have
consented that their sister should generally have
been treated in this way with impunity. They thus
insist upon the guilt of Shechem, but pass over his
offer of an atonement for his crime, and their own
fearful guilt. " They have the last word (Delitzsch),
but Jacob utters the very last word upon his death-
bed." [And there, too, he makes clear and explicit
his abhorrence of their crime, as not merely dan-
gerous, but as immoral, and this in the most solemn
and emphatic way. — A. G.] Indirectly, indeed, he
even here utters the last word, in his warning call to
rise up and purify themselves by repentance. They
must now flee from their house and home, i. e., from
the land which they have so lately purchased.

4. The departure to Bethel. Oh. xxxv. 1-8. — •
And God said to Jacob. — The warning to depart
comes from Elohim, and hence Knobel and Delitzsch
regard the section in ch. xxxv. as Elohistic, t&ough

5G2

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Knobel thinks the Jehovist has made additions.
Without regard to this, we can easily see, that God,
who is to hold the Canaanites under his fear, so that
they shall not take revenge on the house of Jacob,
must be called Elohim. Although Jacob had suffer-
ed nearly ten years to elapse since his return from
Mesopotamia, without fulfilling the vow he had made
(ch. xxviii. 20) at Bethel, when he fled from Esau
(Keil), we are not, therefore, to infer that he had
been regardless of his duty during these ten years.
F;r a perfect security against Esau was a part of
♦hat which was to complete his happy return ; but
there arose a necessity between Peniel and Succoth,
that he must not only have security for himself and
his family, against the persecutions of Esau ; but
against his officious importunity, before he could go
beyond Shechem with his whole train. Hence his
sojourn at Succoth and Shechem. But when he is
now reminded of a duty, too slowly fulfilled, the mo-
tive is found not merely in the vow which he has to
fulfil, but in the circumstances occasioned by his
eons, which make his longer stay at Shechem unsafe,
te which we must, doubtless, add, that in the mean-
while the relations and distinctions between his house
and that of Esau,were more securely and permanent-
ly established. Have not the sons, who formerly
were easily infatuated to render homage to their
stately uncle, now manifested in an extreme way their
Jsraelitixh consciousness ? The recollection (ch. xxxi.
30) proves that Jacob cherished the consciousness of
his duty. He seems, indeed, to have gone too far in
his precautionary tardiness. In seeking to entirely
avoid Esau, he is entangled with the Shechemites.
The caU and warning also — Make an altar at
Bethel — informs him that the time for his complete
return home has now come. — Up to Bethel, —
Bethel lay in the mountain region. — Put away the
strange gods. — The shock that Jacob had expe-
rienced by the rape of Dinah, the crime of his sons,
the imperilled existence of his family, and the divine
warning immediately following, strengthens his sense
of the holiness of God, and of the sinfulness in him-
self and his household, and he enjoins, therefore, an
act of repentance, before he can enter upon the act
of thanksgiving. He has, moreover, to confess, in
reference to his house, the sins of a refined idolatry,
the sins of his sons at Shechem, and his own sins of
omission. His love for Rachel had, doubtless, led
him weakly to tolerate her teraphim until now. B t
now he has grown strong and decided even in re-
spect to Rachel. The fanatical Israehtish zeal of his
sons had also a better element, which may have
quickened his monotheistic feeling. Since the ma-
jority of Jacob's servants caine from the circle and
influence of the Nahorites, whose image-worship was
viewed by the stricter Israehtish thought as idola-
try (Ex. XX. ; Josh. xxiv. 2), there were probably
to be found in Jacob's house other things, besides the
teraphim of Rachel, which were regarded as the ob-
jects of religious veneration. But the purification
was necessary, not merely because they were now to
remove to Bethel, the place of the outward revela-
tion of Jehovah (Knobel), but because the spirit of
Jehovah utters stronger demands in the conscience
of Jacob, and because the approaching thanksgiving
must be sanctified by a foregoing repentance. [There
Is good gronnd for the conjecture that there was a
special reason for the charge now, since in the spoil
of the city there would be images of gold and silver.
— A.G.] — And be clean — The acts take place in the
following order : 1. The putting away of the st-inge

gods ; 2. A symbolical purification, completed, with
out any doubt, through religious washings (Ex. xxix
4 ; and similar passages) ; and 3. The change of gar
ments. In some cases (Ex. xix. 20) a mere washing
of the garments was held to be sufiicient, here the
injunction is more strict, since the pollution has been
of longer duration. In Knobel's view they were tc
put on their best garments, but they would scarcely go
on their mountain journey in such array. The chang
ed garments expre=8 the state of complete purification,
even externally. — Unto God Tvho answered me.
— He will thus fulfil his vow, and hold a thanksgiving
feast with them. — And all their ear-rings. — They
followed the injunction of Jacob so strictly, that they
not only gave up the religious images, but also their
amulets (chains), for the ear-iings were especially so
used (see Winkr : Real Worterbuch, Amulets). — And
Jacob hid them. — As stripped and dead human
images they are buried as the dead (Isa. ii. 20). —
Under the oak (Terebinth). — Knobel: "In the
Terebinth grove at Shechem, i. e., under one of its
trees (comp. ch. xii. 6; Judg. vi. 11). According
to ch. xii. 7, and other passages, it was a grove. We
must, therefore, read here nisn, as in Joshua, xxiv.
26, by the same author, to whom belongs also Ex.
xxxii. 2, or assume that there were both kinds of
trees in the grove." — And the terror of God was
upon. — The genume repentance in the house of Ja-
cob was followed by the blessing of divine protec-
tion against the bloody revenge with which he was
threatened from those who dwelled near Shechem.
God himself, as the protecting God of Jacob, Inid
this terror upon them, which may have been intro-
duced on the one hand, through the outrage of She-
chem (Knobel); and on the other, through the fear-
ful power of Jacob's sons, their holy zeal, and that
of their God. — Luz, which is in the land of Ca-
naan— The words appear to be added, in order to
fix the f ict, that Jacob had now accomplished his pros-
perous return. [The name Luz, almond tree, still re-
curs, as the almond tree is still flourishing. Murphy.

—A. G.]— And all the people The number

of Jacob's servants, both in women and children,
may have been considerably increased through the
sudden overthrow of Shechem. Although Jacob
would have restored all, as some have conjectured,
the heads of the families to whom this restitution
could be made were wanting. — That is Bethel.—
There is no contradiction, as Knobel thinks, between
this passage and ch. xxviii. 19, which is to be ex-
plained upon the assumption of an Elohistic account,
but as (vers. 1 5) a confirmation of the new name which
Jacob gave the city. Luz is so called by the Canaan-
ites now, as it was before, although a soHtary wander-
er had named the place, where he spent the night,
more than twenty years before. Bethel. — Bl-Bethel.
He names the altar itself, as he had also the altar at
Shechem (ch. xxxiii. 20). and still further the place
surrounding the altar, and thus declared its conse-
cration as a sanctuary. El, too, is here in the geni-
tive, and to be read of God; the place is not called
God of Bethel, but of the God of Bethel He thus
evidently connects this consecration with the earlier
revelation of God received at Bethel.* — Then Belx
orah died. — The nurse of Rebekah had gone with
her to Hebron, but how came she here ? DeUtzsch
conjectures that Rebekah had sent her, according
to the promise (ch. xxvii. 45), or to her daughter-

* (Tlie verb ibjj, appeared, is here plural— one of th
few cases ul which Elohim takes the plural -erb.— A. H.J

CHAP. XXXIII. l"?— XXXV. 1-16.

56S

in-law and grandchildren, for their care ; but we
have ventured the suggestion that Jacob took her
with him upon hia return from a visit to Hebron.
She found her peculiar home in Jacob's house, and
(rith his children after the death of Rebelcah. For
other views see Knobel, who naturally prefers to
find a difSculty even here. It is a well-known
method of exaggerating all the blanks in the
Bible into diversities and contradictions. — Allon-
baohuth. — Oak of weeping. Delitzsch conjectures
that perhaps Judg. iv. 5 ; 1 Sam. xvi. 3, refer to
the same tree as a monument, a conjecture which,
however, the locality itself refutes. — And God ap-
peared unto Jacob. — The distinction between
Ood spake and God appeared is analogous to the dis-
tinction in the mode of revelation (ch. xii. vers. 1
and "7). " He now appears to him," Keil says, " by
day in visible form ; for the darkness of that form-
er time of anguish has now given way to the clear
Ught of salvation. The representation is incorrect,
and is based upon the assumption, that the night
revelations are confined to times of trouble. — -Again.
— Now, at his return when the vow has been paid,
as before in his migration, when the vow was oc-
casioned and made. But now Jehovah appears to
him as his God, according to his vow, tli^n shall
the Lord he my God. [ When hecarrn outofPadan-
aram. — This explains the clause (ver. 6), which is
in the land of Canaan. Bethel was the last point
in the land of Canaan that was noticed in his flight
from Esau. His arrival at this point indicates that
he has now returned to the land of Canaan. Murphy,
p. 427. — A. (j.] — And blessed him. — So also Abra-
ham was blessed repeatedly. — Thy name is Jacob ?
— We read the phrase according to its connection
with ch. xxxii. 27, as a question. Then Jacob an-
swered to the question " what is thy name ? Jacob.
Here God resumes the thread again, thou art Jacob ?
But if any one is not willing to read the words as a
question, it still marks a progress. The name Israel
was given to him at Peniel, here it is sealed to him.
Hence it is here connected with the Messianic prom-
ise. [Murphy suggests also that the repetition of
the name here implies a decline in his spiritual life
between Peniel and Bethel. — A. G.] — t am God

Almighty This self-applied title of God has the

same significance here as it had in the revelation of
God for Abraham (xvii. 1) ; there he revealed him-
self as the miracle-working God, because he had
promised Abraham a son ; here, however, because he
promises to make from Jacob's family a conmiunity
[assembly. — A. G.] of nations. [The kahal is sig-
nificant as it refers to the ultimate complete fulfil-
ment of the promise in the true spiritual Israel
—A. G.] * Knobel sees here only an Elohistic
statement of the fact which has already appeared
of the new naming of Jacob, which, too, he re-
gards as a mere poetic fiction. According to this
supposition, Israel here cannot be warrior of God,
but, perhaps, prince with God. Even Delitzsch
fravers between the assumption of an Elohistic redac-
tion or revision, and the apprehension and recognition
of new elements, which, of course, favor the idea of a

* [Murphy says, from this time the multiplication of
Israrfis rapid. In tweaty-iiTe years after this time he goes
3ow!i into Egypt with seventy souls, and two hundred .and
tea years after that Israel goes out of Egypt numbering
About one million eight hundred thousand. A nation and
ft ccm^egalion of natimis, such as were then known in the
frorld, had at tlie last date come of him, and " kings" were
« follow in due time.— A.. G.]

new fact. To these new elements belong the libation,
the drink-offei ing (probably of wine), poured upon the
stone anointed with oil, Jacob's own reference to this
revelation of God at Bethel (ch. xlviii. 3), and the
circumstance that Hos. xii. 6, can only refer to this
revelation. Under a closer observation of the devpf
opment of Jacob's faith, there is no room to speali
of any confounding the theophany at Peniel witjj »
second theophany at Bethel. It must be observed,
too, that henceforth the patriarch is sometimes called
Jacob, and sometimes Israel. [This is the first men-
tion of the drink-offering in the Bible. — A. G.]

DOCTEINAL AOT) ETHICAL.

1. We view Jacob's settlement at Succoth: a. In
the light of a building of booths and houses for re-
freshment, after a twenty years' servitude, and the
toils and soul-conflicts connected with his journey-
ings (comp. the station Ehm, Ex. xv. 27, where Is-
rael first rested) ; b. As a station where he might
regain his health, so that he could come to Shechem
well and in peace ; u. As a station where he could
■tarry for a time on account of Esau's importunity
(comp. Exegetical notes).

2. Jacob's places of abode in Canaan, in their
principal stations, are the same with those of hia
grandfather Abraham. He settles down in the vicin-
ity of Shechem, as formerly Abraham had done in
the oak groves of Moreh (ch. xii. 6). Then he re-
moved to Bethel, just as Abraham had gone into the
same vicinity (ch. xii. 8), and after his wandering to
Egypt returned here again to Bethel. At last he
comes to Hebron, which had been consecrated by
Abraham, as the seat of the patriachal residence.

3. The importance of Shechem in the history of
the kingdom of God (see Bible Diet.) It is: a. A
capital of the Hivites, and as such the scene of the
brutal heathenish iniquity, in relation to the religious
and moral dignity of Israel ; b. The birth-place of
Jewish fanaticism in the sons of Jacob ; a A chief
city of Ephraim, and an Israelitish priestly city ;

d. The capital of the kingdom of Israel for some time ;

e. The principal seat of the Samaritan nationality
and cultus. The acquisition of a parcel of land at
Shechem by Jacob, forms a counterpart to the pur-
chase of Abraham at Hebron. But there is an evi-
dent progress here, since he made the purchase for
his own settlement during life, while Abraham barely
gained a burial place. The memory of Canaan by
Israel and the later conquest (comp. xlviii. 22), ia
closely connected with ttiis possession. In Jacob's
life, too, the desire to exchange the wandering no-
madic life for a more fixed abode, becomes more appa-
rent than in the life of Isaac. [RoBrssoN's " History
of Shechem " is full and accurate. Wordsworth's re-
mark here, after enumerating the important events
clustering around this place from Abraham to Christ,
is suggestive. Thus the history of Shechem, combin-
ing so many associations, shows the uniformity of
the divine plan, extending through many centuries,
for the salvatian of the world by the promised seed
of Abraham, in whom aU nations are blessed ; and for
the outpouring of the spirit on the Israel of God,
who are descended from the true Jacob; and for
their union in the sanctuary of the Christian church ,
and for the union of all nations in one liousebold is
Christ, Luke, i. 68.— A. G.]

4. Dinah's history, a warning history for th<
daughters of Israel, and a foundation of the Old

bM

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Testament limitation of the freedom of tlie female
sex.

6. The collision between the sous of Jacob and
Shechem, the son of Hamor, is a vivid picture of the
collisions between the youthful forms of political
despotism and hierarchal pride. Sheehem acts as
an insolent worldly prince, Jacob's sons as young
fanatical priests, luring him to destruction.

6. After Jacob became Israel, the just conscious-
ness of his theocratic dignity appears manifestly in
Ills sons, under the deformity of fanatical zeal. We
may view this narrative as the history of the origin,
and first original form of Jewish and Christian
fanaticism. We notice first that fanaticism does not
originate in and for itself, but clings to religious and
moral ideas as a monstrous and misshapen outgrowth,
since it changes the spiritual into a carnal motive.
The sons of Jacob were right in feeling that they
were deeply injured in the religious and moral idea
and dignity of Israel, by Shecliem's deed. But still
they are already wrong in their judgment of She-
chem's act ; since there is surely a dilTerence between
the brutal lust of Ammon, who after his sin pours
his hatred upon her whom he had dishonored, and
Sheehem, who passionately loves and would marry
the dishonored maiden, and is ready to pay any sum
as an atonement; a distinction which the sons of
Jacob mistook, just as those of the clergy do at this
day who throw all breaches of the seventh command-
ment into one common category and as of the same
heinous dye. Then we observe that Jacob's sons
justly shun a mixture with the Shechemites, al-
though in this ease they were willing to be circum-
cised for worldly and selfish ends. But there is a
clear distinction between such a wholesale, mass
conversion, from improper motives, which would
have corrupted and oppressed the house of Israel,
and the transition of Sheehem to the sons of Israel,
or the establishment of some neutral position for
Dinah. But leaving this out of view, if we should
prefer to maintain (what Jacob certainly did not
maintain) that an example of revenge must be made,
to intimidate the heathen, and to warn the future
Israel against the Canaanites, still the fanatical zeal
in the conduct of Jacob's sons passed over into fa-
naticism strictly so called, which developed itself
from the root of spiritual pride, according to its three
world-historical characteristics. The first was cun-
ning, the lie, and enticing deception. Thus the Hu-
guenots were eaticed into Paris on the night of St.
Bartholomew. The second was the murderous at-
tack and carnage. How often has this form shown
itself in the history of fanaticism ! This pretended
sacred murder and carnage draws the third charac-
teristic sign in its train: rapine and pillage. The
possessions of the heretics, according to the laws of
the middle ages, fell to the executioner of the pre-
tended justice ; and the history of the crusades
against the heretics testifies to similar horrors and
devastation. Jacob, therefore, justly declares his
condemnation of the iniquity of the brothers, Simeon
and Levi, not only at once, but upon his death-bed
(ch. xlix.), and it marks the assurance of the apocry-
phal standpoint, when the book Judith, for the pur-
pose of palliating the crime of Judith, glorifies in
a poetical strain the like fanatical act of Simeon (ch.
ix.). Judith, indeed, in the trait of cunning, appears
»s the daughter in spirit of her ancestor Sin]eon.
We must net fail to distinguish here in our history,
in this first vivid picture of fanaticism, the nobler
point of departure, the theocratic motive, from the

terrible counterfeit and deformity. In this rclatioi
there seems to have been a difference between tht
brothers, Simeon and Levi. While the former ap
pears to have played a chief part in the history ol
Joseph also (ch. xlii. 24, and my article, " Simeon,'
in Herzos's " Real Encyclopedia "), and in the divi-
sion of Canaan was dispersed among his brethren,
the purified Levi came afterwards to be the repra-
sentative of pure zeal in Israel (Exod. xxxii. 28 j
Deut. xxxiii. 8) and the administrator of the priest-
hood, i. e., the theocratic priestly first-bom, by the
side of Judah the theocratic political first-bom. A
living faith and a faithful zeal rarely develop them-
selves as a matter of fact without a mixture of fa-
naticism ; " the flame gradually purifies itself from
the smoke." In all actual individual cases, it is a
question whether the flame overcomes the smoke, or
the smoke the flame. In the life of Christ, the Old-
Testament covenant faithfulness and truth bums
pure and bright, entirely free from smoke; in the
history of the old Judaism, on the contrary, a dan-
gerous mixture of fire and smoke steams over the
land. And so in the development of individual be-
lievers we see how some purify themselves to the
purest Christian humanity, while others, ever sinking
more and more into the pride, cunning, uncharitable-
ness and injustice of fanaticism, are completely
ruined. Delitzsoh : " The greatest aggravation of
their sin was that they degraded the sacred sign of
the covenant into the common means of their mal-
ice. And yet it was a noble germ which exploded so
wickedly."

7. This Sheohemite carnage of blind and Jewish
fanaticism, is refiected in a most remarkable way, as
to all its several parts, in the most infamous crime
of Christian fanaticism, the Parisian St. Bartholo-
mew. [The narrative of these events at Sheehem
shows how impartial the sacred writer is, bringing
out into prominence whatever traits of excellence
there were in the characters of Sheehem and Hamor,
while he does not conceal the cunning, falsehood,
and cruelty of the sons of. Jacob. Nor should we
fail to observe the connection of this narrative with
the later exclusion of Simeon and Levi from the
rights of the first-born, to which they would natu-
rally have acceded after the exclusion of Reuben ;
and with their future location in the land of Canaan.
The history furnishes one of the clearest proofs of
the genuineness and unity of Genesis. — A. G.]

8. Jacob felt that, as the Israel of God, he was
made offensive even to the moral sense of the sur-'
rounding heathen, through the pretended holy deed
of his sons ; so far so that they had endangered the
very foundiition of the theocracy, the kingdom of
God, the old-covenant church. Fanaticism always
produces the same results ; either to discredit Chris-
tianity in the moral estimate of the world, and im-
peril its very existence by its unreasonable zeal, or
to expose it to the most severe persecutions.

9. The direction of Jacob to Bethel, by the com-
mand of God, is a proof that in divine providence
the true community of believers mu.rt separate itself
from the condition into which fanaticism has placed
it. . By this emigration Israel hazards the possession
at Sheehem which he had just acquired.

10. Divine providence knows perfectly how to
miite in one very different aims, as this narrative
very clearly shows. They are then, indeed, subordi-
nated to the one chief end. The chief end her«
which the providence of God has in view in the jour
ney of Jacob from Sheehem to Bethel, is the dut^

CHAP. XXXm. n— XXXV. 1-15.

562

)f Jacob to fulfil the tow he had made at Bethel.
But with this the object of his removing from She-
jhera and of his concealed flight is closely connects
3d. So also the purpose of purifying his house from
the guilt of fanaticism, and the idolatrous image-
worship. At the same time it is thus intimated that
both these objects would have been secured already,
if Jacob had been more in earnest in the fulfilment
of his vow.

11. As Jacob intends holding a feast of praise and
thanksgiving at Bethel, he enjoins upon his house-
hold first a feast of purification, i. e., a fast-day.
This preparation rests upon a fundamental law of the
inner spiritual life. We must first humble ourselves
for our own deeds, and renounce all known evil
practices, if we would celebrate with joyful praise
and thanksgiving, with pure eyes and Ups, the gra-
cious deeds of God. The approach of such a feast
is a foretaste of blessedness, and hence the con-
science of the pious, warned by its approach, is
quickened and made more tender, and they feel
more deeply the necessity for a previous purification
by repentance. In the Mosaic law, therefore, the
purification precedes the sacrifices ; the solemnities
of the great day of atonement went before the joy-
ful feast of tabernacles. Hence the Christian pre-
pares himself for the holy Supper through a confes-
sion of his sins, and of his faith, and a vow of re-
formation. The grandest form in which this order
presents itself is in the connection between Good-
Friday and Easter, both in reference to the facts
commemorated (the atonement and the new life in
Christ) and in reference to the import of the solemni-
ties. The Advent-season affords a similar time for
oreparation for the Christmas festival (comp. Matt.
'. 28).

12. Viewed in its outward aspect, the purification
of Jacob's house was a rigid purification from relig-
ious image-worship, and the means of superstition,
which tlie now awakened and enlightened conscience
of Jacob saw to be nothing but idolatry. But these
works of superstition and idolatry are closely con-
nected with the fanaticism for which Jacob's house
must also repent. The common band or tie of idol-
atry and fanaticism is tlie mingling of the religious
state and disposition with mere carnal thoughts or
sentiments. There is, inc' ^od, a fanaticism of icono-
olasm, but then it is the ? a»e carnal thought, which
regards the external aspect of religion as religion
itself, and through this extreme view falls into an
idolatrous fear of images, as if they were actual hos-
tile powers. The marks of a sound and healthy
treatment of images idolatrously venerated, are clear-
ly seen in this history : 1. A cheerful putting away
of the images at the warning word of God ; but no
threats or violence against the possessors of the im-
ages ; 2. a seemly removal, as in the burial of the
dead body. Whatever has been the object of wor-
ship should be buried tenderly, unless it was used
directly for evil and cruel purposes. The sacred
washings follow the removal of the images, the pre-
lude to the religious washmgs of the Jews, and the
Brat preliminary token of baptism. The washing
Has a symbol of the purifying from sin and guilt by
lepentance ; and as such was connected with the
change of garments, the new garments symbolizing
the new disposition, as with the baptismal robes.

13. The religious earnestness with which Israel
departed from Shechem set the deed of the sons of
Jacob in a different light before the surrounding l^a-
Baanites. They saw in the march of Israel a host

with whom the holiness and power of God was ii
covenant, and were restrained from pursuing them
by a holy terror of God. The terror of God her«
indicates the fact, that the small surrounding nations
received an impression from the religious and mora,
earnestness of the sons of Israel, far deeper and
more controlling than the thirst foi revenge. A hke
reUgious and moral working of fear went afterwards
before the nation of Israel when it entered Canaan,
and we may even view the present march of Jacob
as foreshadowing that later march and conquest.
But the same terror of God has at various times
protected and saved the people of God, both during
the old and new covenants.

' 14. The fulfilment of a pious vow in the life of thd
believer, corresponds, as the human well-doing, tc
the fulfilment of the divine promise. It stands in
the same relation as the human prayer and amen to
the word of God. The vow of baptism and con-
firmation* is fulfilled in the pious Christian life,
upon the ground of the grace and truth with which
God fulfils his promises. Jacob's vow refers to a
special promise of God, at his entrance upon a diffi-
cult and dangerous journey, and hence the fulfilment
of the .vow was the glorification of the gracious lead-
ing of God, and of the truth and faithfulness of God
to his word. It was a high point in the life of Israel,
from which, while holding the least, he looked back
over his whole past history, but more especially ovei
his long journey and wanderings. But for this very
reason the feast was conseciated also to an outlook
into the future. For the further history of Bethel,
see Bible Dictionaries.

15. The solemn, reverent burial of Deborah, and
the oak of weeping dedicated to her memory, are a
proof that old and faithful servants were esteemed
in the house of Jacob, as they were in Abraham's
household. As they had taken a deep interest and
part in the family spirit and concerns, so they were
treated in life and death as members of the family.
The aged Deborah is the counterpart to the aged
Eliezer. The fact that we find her hei'e dying in the
family of Jacob, opens to us a glance into the warm,
faithful attachment of this friend of Rebekah, and
at the same time enables us to conclude with the
highest certainty that Rebekah was now dead. Debo-
rah would not have parted from Rebekah while she
was living. Deliizsch : " We may regard the hea-
then traditions, that the nurse of Dionysius (n'Da ,
BaKxos) lies buried in Soythopolis (Plin. H. ISf. ch.
V. 15), and that the grave of Silenos is found in the
land of the Hebrews (Pausan. Miaca, cap. 24),
with which F. D. Michaelis connects the passage, as
the mere distorted echoes of this narrative."

16. We may regard the new and closing revelation
and promise which Jacob received at Bethel after his
thanksgiving feast, as the confirmation and sealing
of his faith, and thus it forms a parallel to the con-
firmation and sealing of the faith of Abraham upon
Moriah (ch. xxii. 15). But it is to be observed here
that Jacob is first sealed after having purified his
faith from any share in the guilt of fanaticism. And
the same thing precisely may be said of the sealing
of Abraham, after he had freed himself from the
fanatical prejudice that Jehovah could in a rehgious

* [Among the continf^ntal churches conflrmation is re.
garded in much the same light as we regard the open recep-
tion of the baptized memliere of the cliurch, to their firs,
communion ; when they are said to assume for themse-Tefi
the vows which were made for them in their bart-sm.— A. j.

666

GBNESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

sense literally demand the sacrifice of a human life,
L e., the literal killing, he became certain of his life
of faith, of the promise of God, and of hia future.
Thus here the flame of Israel is completely purified
from the smoke. But here, again, it lies in the very
law of the inward life, that God cannot seal the
faith from which the impure elements hare not been
purged. Otherwise fanaticism, too, would be con-
firmed and sanctioned. Hence the assurance of faith
will always waver and fluctuate, even to its disap-
pearance in any one, in the measure in which he
combines impure and carnal elements with his faith,
and then holds it more and more as a confidence of
a higher grade. Enthusiastic moments, mighty hu-
man acts of boldness, party earnestness and temerity,
will not compensate for the profound, heavenly as-
surance of faith, an established life of faith, which
is the gift of the Holy Spirit. True it is, that the
precondition of sealing is justification, the heart ex-
perience of the peace of God, of reconciliation by
faith ; but this gift of God the Christian must keep
pure by steadfastness in the Lord, even in the midst
of temptation, which is often a temptation to fanati-
cism (see the Epistle of James), and then he is con-
firmed. In our estimate of the stages of confirma-
tion, it is not at all strange that Jacob should have
the name of Israel, first given to him at Peniel, here
confirmed to him. Henceforth he is more frequently
called Israel, for the new Ufe in him has become a
new nature, the prominent and ruling feature of his
being.

17. The reuewed Messianic promise assured to
Jacob (ch. XXXV. 1 1 ).

1 8. From the fact that Jacob erected a stone pil-
lar at Bethel, on which he poured a drink-offering,
and then oil, Knobel conjectures, without the least
ground, that the Elohist here introduces the sacrifice
in this form, and knows nothing of an altar and of
animal sacrifices (p. 274). But it is evident that
this pillar was taken from the altar before mentioned
(ver. 7), and that this drink-offering must therefore
be distinguished from the sacrifice upon tliat altar.
As in the wrestling of Jacob, the distineiion between
the outward and inward aspects of the right of the
first-born, and thus also of the priesthood, first comes
into view, so here, also, we have the distinction be-
tween the peculiar sacrifice in the strict sense and
the thank-offering. The stone designates (ch. xxviii.
20) the ideal house of God, and in this significance
must be distinguished from the altar. Through the
thank-offering Jacob consecrates the enjoyment of
his prosperity to the Lord ; through the oil he raises
the stone, as well as his thanksgiving, to a lasting,
sacred remembrance. [Kurtz remarks here : " The
thirty years' journey from Bethel to Bethel is now
completed. The former residence at Bethel stands
to the present somewhat as the beginning to the end,
the prophecy to the fulfilment ; for, the unfolding of
the purpose of salvation, so far as that could be
done in the life of Jacob, has now reached its acme
and relative completion. There the Lord appeared
to him in a dream, here in his waking state, and the
dream is the prophetic type of the waking reality.
There God promised to protect and bless him, and
bring hijn back to this land — a promise now fulfilled.
There Jacob made his vow, here he pays it. There
God consecrates him to be the bearer of salvation,
and makes the threefold promise of the blessing of
salvation. So far as the promise could be fulfilled
in Jacob, it is now fulfilled ; the land of promise is
open before him, he has already obtained possession

in part, and the promised seed reaches its first stag*
of completeness in the last son of Rachel, giving the
significant number twelve, and the idea of salvation
attains its development, since Jacob has become Is-
rael. But this fulfilment is only preliminary and
relative, and in its turn becomes a prophecy of the
still future fulfilment. Hence God renews the bless
mg, showing that the fulfilment lies in the futurj
still ; hence God renews his new name Israel, which
defines his peculiar position to salvation and his re-
lation to God, showing that Jacob has not yet fully
become Israel ; the promise and the name are cor-
relates— the one will be realized when the other is
fulfilled. Hence, too, Jacob renews the name Beth-
el, in which the peculiarity of the relation of God
to Jacob is indicated, his dwelling in arid among the
seed of Jacob, and the renewing of this najne pro-
claims his consciousness that God would still became
in a far higher measure, El-beth-el." — ^A. G.]

HOMrLETICAL AND PRACTICAI,.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical remarks. Jacob's
settlement at Shechem: 1. The departure thither
from Succoth ; 2. the settlement itself: 3. the new
departure to Bethel. — The settlement itself; 1. How
promising ! happy return. Prosperous acquisition
of the parcel of land. Peaceful relations with the
Shechemites. Religious toleration. 2, How seri-
ously endangered (through Jacob's carelessness. He
does not return early enough to Bethel to fulfil hia
vow. Probably he even considers the altar at She-
chem a substitute. His love for Rachel makes him
tolerant to her teraphim, and consequently to the
teraphim of his house generally. His polygamy is
perhaps the occasion of his treating the children with
special indulgence). 3. How fearfully disturbed I
Dinah's levity and dishonor. Importunity of the
Shechemites ; the carnage of his sons. The exist-
ence of his house endangered. 4. The happy con-
clusion caused by Jacob's repentance and God's pro-
tection.— The first great sorrow prepared for the
patriarch by his children. — Dinah's conduct. — The
dangerous proposals of friendship by the Shechem-
ites.— The brothers, Simeon and Levi. Their right.
Their wrong. — Fanaticism in its first biblical form,
and its historic manifestations. — Its contagious pow-
er. All, or at least the majority, of Jacob's sons,
aie swept along by its influence. — Jacob's repentance,
or the feast of purification of bis house. — How the
union of repentance and faith ia reflected in the
sacred institutions. In both sacraments, in the cele-
bration of the Lord's Supper, in the connection of
sacred festivals, especially in the connection between
Good-Friday and Easter. — The thanksgiving at Beth-
el.— Here, too, the feast of joy is followed by deep
mourning and funeral obsequies. — Deborah : 1. We
know very little of her ; and yet, 2. we know very
much of her. — The greatness of true and unselfish
love in the kingdom of God. — The nobility of free
service. — Jacob's confirmation — confirmed as IsraeL
— The renewed promise.

Mrst Section. The settlement at Succoth. Ch.
xxxiii. 17. Starke: He, no doubt, visited his father
during this interval. — Gkrlach : (On some accounts
we believe that Succoth was situated on the right
side of Jordan, in the valley of Succoth, in which lay
the city of Beth-Shean. Succoth are literally huts
made of boughs, here folds made of boughs of trees
and bushes.)

CHAP. XXXIII. 17— XXXT. 1-15.

56'<

Second Section. The settletnent at Shechem, Ch.
Mxiii. 18-20. Starke : (Shechem, Quesita. The
Septuagint transl., lamba ; Chald., pearls. Others un-
derstODd money. JSpiph., de pond, et mons., asserts
that Abraham introduced the art of coining money
in Canaan). Soheodee: Von Kaumer considers
Shalem as the more ancient name of Shechem. Robin-
son regards it as a proper name, and finds it now in the
village of Shalem, some distance east from Shechem.

TUrd Section. Dinah. Ch. xxxiv. 1-31.
Starke ; Dinah's walk : without doubt, taken from
motives of curiosity. — Contrary to all his expecta-
tions (for a peaceful, quiet time of worsliip, etc.),
Jacob's heart is most keenly mortified by Dinah s
disgrace, and the carnage committed by Simeon and
Levi. — He who wishes to shun sin, must avoid also
occasions of sin. — Curiosity is a great fault in the
female sex, and has caused many a one to fall.

ScHEODEK ; (Val. Herb.) A gadding girl, and a
lad who has never gone beyond the precincts of home,
are both good for nothing (Tit. ii. 5). a. Tlierape.
Starke: (2 Sam. xiii. 12) By force (2 Sam. xiii. 12-
14). (Judging from Dinah's levity, it was not with-
out her consent.) — Cramer : Rape a sin against the
sixth and seventh commandments. — What a disgrace,
that great and mighty lords, instead of being an ex-
ample to their subjects in chastity and honor, should
surpass them in a dissolute and godless deportment.
— Gerlaoh : Yer. 1. Fool and folly are terms used
frequently in the Old Testament to denote the perpe-
tration of the greatest crimes. The connection of
the thought is this, that godlessness and vice are
the greatest folly, etc. — Schroder : Josephus says,
Dinah went to a fair or festival at Shechem. The
person that committed the rape was the most distin-
guished (ver. 19) son (the crown-prince, so to speak)
of the ruling sovereign. — The sons of Jacob, for the
first time, transfer the spiritual name of their father
to the house of Jacob, etc. They are conscious,
therefore, of the sacredness of their families. The
sharp antithesis between Israel and Canaan enters in-
to their consciousness (Baumgarten). b. The propo-
sal of marriage. Starke; Although it is just and
proper to strive to restore fallen virgins to honor by
asking their parents or friends to give them in mar-
riage, and thus secure their legal position and rights,
yet it is putting the cart before the horse. — Little
children bring light cares, grown children heavy
cares. (God afterwards prohibited (Dent. vii. 3) them
to enter into any friendly relations with the heathen
nations.) c. The fanatical revenge of JacoVs sons,
Starke : Take care that you do not indulge in wrath
and feelings of revenge. — Hall ; Smiling malace is
generally fatal. — Even the most bloody machinations
are frequently gilded with religion. — FreibergerBibel :
Hamor, the ruling prince, is a sad example of an
unfaithiful and interested magistracy, who, under the
pretence of the common welfare, pursues his own ad-
vantage and interests, while he tries to deceive his
Bubjects. — The Shechemites, therefore, did not adopt
the Jewish religion from motives of pure love or a
proper regard for it, but from self-interest and love
of gain. — Cramer : It is no child's play, to treat re-
ligion in a thoughtless and careless way, and to
change from one form to another. — One violent son
may bring destruction upon a whole city and country.
—Hall : The aspect of external things constrains
many more to a profession of religion, than con-
Icience (John vi. 26). But how will it be with those
frho do not use the sacraments from proper motives ?
•-Strictures upon the apology for this deed in the

book of Judith, and by others. — Cramer : God some-
times punishes one folly by another. — Hall: To
make the punishment more severe than the sin, is no
less unjust than to injure. — What Shechem perpe
trated alone, is charged upon all the citizeus in com
mon, because it seems that they were pleased with it.
— Lange : This was a preliminary judgment of God
upon the Shechemites, thus to testify what the Ca-
naanites in future had to expect from Jacob's de-
scendants.— OsiANDEE : When magistrates sin, their
subjects are generally punished with them. They
evidently do not present circumcision as an entire-
ly new divine service, as an initiation mto the cove-
nant with the God of Israel, but only as an external
custom. — It is remarlcible here, how adroitly Hamor
and Shechem represent to the people as pertaining
to the common advantage, what was only for their
personal interest. — We here meet the wild Eastern
vindictiveness in all its force. Moreover, the carnal
heathen view, that all the people share in the act of
the prince. — Schroder : We have here the same sad
mixture of flesh and spirit which we have seen at
the beginning, in Jacob. — Tadbe : Sins of the world
and sins of the saints in their connection, d. Jacobus
judgment upon this crime. Stakke : (Jacob, no
doubt, sent back all the captives with their cattle.) —
(It seems that, while not altogether like Eli, he did
not have his sous under a strict discipline, since his
family was so large.) — For the wrath of man work--
eth not the righteousness of God (James i. 20). —
Gerlach : How miraculously God protected this
poor, despised (?) company from mingling with the
heathen on the one hand, and from persecution on
the other. — Schroder: Judging from this test,
what would have become of Jacob's descendants, if
divine grace had left them to themselves in such a way
(Calvin) ? It was not due to themselves, certainly, that
they were not entirely estranged from the kingdom
of God, etc.

Fourth Section. The departure to Bethel. Ch.
XXXV. 1-8. Starke ; Because the true church was
in Jacob's house, God would not permit it to be
wholly destroyed, as Jacob, perhaps, conjectiired —
Ohan;,e your garments. — Which are yet sprinkled
with the blood of the Shechemites. — -Osiander : Le-
gitimate vows, when it is in our power to keep them,
must be fulfilled (Deut. xxiii. 21). — Cramer: The
Christian Church may err, and easily be led to super-
stition ; pious bishops, however, are to recognize
these errors, and to do away with them. They are
to purify churches, houses, and servants, and point
them to the word of God. Repentance and conver-
sion of the soul is the proper purification of sins. —
Bibl. Tub. : Is our worship to please God, then our
hearts must be cleansed, and the strange gods, our '
wicked lusts, must be eradicated. — The proper refor-
mation of a church consists, not only in the extirpa-
tion of idolatry and false doctrines, but also in the
reformation of the wrong courses of life(N^eh. x. 29)i
— Ver. 8. All faithful servants, both males and fe-
males, are to be well cared for when they become
sick or feeble, and to be decently buried after their
death. — Cramer : Christ is the pillar set up, both in
the Old and New Testament ; he is anointed with
the oil of gladness, and with him only we find the
true Bethel, where God speaks with us. — Gerlach:
Ver. 1. His worship of God connects itself with this
critical point in his history. As in the New Test.,
" The God of peace and of comfort," etc., is frequent-
ly mentioned, so also the faith of the patriarch clings
to God in his peculiar personal revelations. It ia

568

GENESIS, OR THE FIEST BOOK OF MOSES.

the God who revealed himself at Bethel. (Still the
name, El-Bethel, given with the first revelation at
Bethel, includes the whole journey of Jacob until his
return to Bethel.) — Schroder: Jehovah has accom-
plished what he has said. — We can only approach the
house of God in faith, when we have first penitential-
ly put away from our houses all strange gods. (Mi-
CHAELis finds here the first and oldest trace of the
baptism of proselytes.) I consider that Deborah, a
wise and pious matron, was esteemed, so to speak, by
the servants as a grandmother, who served and ccm-
Boled Jacob (Luther). — Taube : The house of the
patriarch Jacob as a mirror of Christian family Ufe.

Fifth Section. The sealing of the covenant bttween
God and the patriarch at Bethel. Ch. xxxv. 9-15.
Starke : As God appears to Abraham ten times, so

he appears to Jacob six times (eh. xxviiL ISJ ; ixxi,
11, 13 ; xxxii. 1-2 ; xxxii. 24; xxxv. 1 ; the present
passage ; and ch. xlvi. 2). — Soiieoder : Now that
Jacob has become Israel in its fullest sense, the re-
newal of the promise connected with the conferring
of the name has a far greater signification than be-
fore (Hengstenberg). — Ver. 13. God comes down to
us, whenever he gives us a token of his presence.
Here, therefore, we have a designation of the end of
the vision ((Jalvin). — For the symboUcal signification
of oil, see Bihr. — As Israel, as patriarchal ances-
tor, the foundation-stone of the spiritual temple, he
lays the first (?) stone to the building which his de-
scendants are to complete. (Dreohslee: So mueb
is certain, that the first idea of a definite house of
God is connected with the Bethel of Jacob.)

SEVENTH SECTION,

Departure from Bethel. Benjamin^a birth. RacheVs death.

Chapter 5XSV. 16-20.

16 And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little' way to cometc

17 Ephrath [fruit, the fruitful] : and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor. And it came
to pass, when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou

18 shalt have this son also.^ And it came to pass as her soul was in departing, (for she
died,) that she called his name Ben-oni [my son of pain or sorrow] : but his father called him

19 Benjamin [son of the right hand]. And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath,

20 which is Beth-lehem [house of bread]. And Jacob set a pillar [monument] upon her grave:
that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day.

\} Y^^'rrT'^yii , a spane or stretch of ground. How long is unlmown ; see ch. xlviii. 7 ; 2 Kings v. 19. Josephna
fenders a lurlong ; the Sept, " somewhat longer distance." — A. G.]
[' Lit., for this is also to thee a son. — A. G-.]

EXEGETIOAIi AND CRITICAL.

And they journeyed. — The residence at Beth-
el, enjoined upon him, had reached its end with the
founding of the altar, and the completed thanksgiv-
ing.— And there was but a little way. — An un-
known distance. The Kabbinieal explanation, " as
far as one could plough in a day," is senseless^ for in
one dire'.'tion they could plough miles, but in plough-
ing a field, the breadth ploughed depends upon the
length of the field, but in any case is too small to
be the measure of distances. The Sept., misunder-
standing the passage, makes it the name of a place.
[In the 19th verse, however, the Sept. has hippo-
drome.— A. G.] Delitzsch conjectures a distance
equal to a Persian parasang. — And Rachel travail-
ed.— The wish she had uttered at Joseph's birth, that
God would give her another son, now, after a long
period, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years, is about
to be fulfilled, but it caused her death. .Jacob was
now old, and Rachel certainly was no longer young ;
moreover, she had not borne children for many
/ears. Delitzsch reckons Jacob's age at one hun-
dred and six, and Kachel's at about fifty years. —

When she was in hard labor ^The Piel and Hi

pitil forms of i^Bj^ denote rot merely heavy birth-
pains, but the very birth-throes and anguish. — The
midwife, i. e., a maid-servant skilful and trusted in

this matter. — Thou shalt have a son The last

consolation for Rachel. She dies during the final
fulfilment of the strongest wish of her life. [Af her
soul was departing, denotes not the annihilation of
the soul, but the change of state and place. It pre-
supposes, of course, its perpetual existence; at least,
its existence after death. — A. G.] In this sense we
must explain the giving of the name. The empha-
sis in the son of my pain, must be laid upon son.
From her very death-anguish, a son is bom to her
Knobel explains the name to mean son of my vanity
"OX , because his birth caused her " annihilation,"
i.e., death. In this explanation, the child becomes
the father, i. e., originator of her '' annihilation," but
is not the son. The son of her pain, on the con-
trary, denotes the great gain of her sorrow ; she
dies, as it were, sacrificing herself; and, indeed, th«
once childless, now in childbed. — But his father
called him — Against the interj retation ofBenja

CHAP. XXXV. 16-20.

56t

min, as the son of prosperity, may be urged the
'pV inthe^Hebrew, which cannot with any certainty
be said to mean prosperity ; and further, that this
would have been in harsh contrast with the dying
word of the mother. Delitzsch, therefore, holds that
the son of the right hand, may mean the son of the
Bouth, since the other sons were bom in the north.
Some derive the name son of prosperity from the fact
that Jacob had now reached a happy independence, or
from the fact that Benjamin filled up the prosperous
number twelve (see Delitzsch). But Benjamin might
bt regarded as the son of the strong right hand, since
he fills up the quiver of the twelve mighty sons (Ps.
cxxvii. 6). We may bring into view, further, the re-
lation of the name to the state of rest which Jacob
now believed that he had attained. The tired wan-
derer now prepares himself as a patriarch to rest, and
his youngest favorite must take the place at his right
hand. But he is not thereby designated as his suc-
cessor. Jacob seems, in some erroneous way, for a
long time to have had Joseph in his eye for this
position ; still, not with the same self-will with which
Isaac had chosen Esau. The Samaritan explanation,
son of days, n^a"', i. e., of his old days or age, we
pass with a mere allusion. Some suggest, also, that
Jacob called him Benjamin, so that he might not be
constantly reminded of his loss by the name Ben-oni.
This lays the ground for the change of the name, but
not for the choice of Benjamin. — In the way to
Ephrath. — Ephrath (from finB ) is the fruitful, a
name which corresponds with the added name Beth-
lehem (house of bread). The distance from Jerusa-
lem to Bethlehem is about two hours, in a southerly
direction, on the road to Hebron. About a half-hour
on this side of Bethlehem, some three hundred steps
to the right of the road, there lies, in a small recess,
She traditional grave of Rachel. This " Kubbet-Ra-
hU (Rachel's grave), is merely a Moslem wely, or
the grave of some saint, a small, square stone struc-
ture, with a dome, and within a grave of the ordinary
Mohammedan form (Robinson : " Res." vol. i. p. 322),
which has been recently enlarged by the addition of
a, square court on the east side, with high walls and
arches (later " Res." p. 373)." Keil. We must dis-
tinguish between the old tradition as to the locality,
and the present structure. Knobel infers, from Micah
iv. 8, that Jacob's next station, the toner of the flock,
was in the vicinity of Jerusalem. In that case Ra-
chel's grave, and even Ephrath, must be sought north
of Jerusalem, according to 1 Sam. x. 2, and the ad-
dition—which is Bethlehem — must be viewed as
a later interpolation. In Micah, however, in the
passage which speaks of the tower of the flock, or
the stronghold of the congregation, the words seem
to be used in a symbolical sense. But the passage,
1 Sam. X. 2, is of greater importance. If Rama, the
jome of Samuel, lay to the north of Jerusalem, then
Rachel's grave must have been in that region, and
the more so, since it is said to have been within the
limits of Benjamin, whose boundaries did not run
below Jerusalem. We refer for further discussions
to Knobel, p. 276, and DeUtzsch [and Mr. Grove,
in Smith's Bible Diet.— A. G.] We are inclined to
regard it as probable that the Benjamites, at the
time of the conquest of the country, brought the
oones of' Rachel from Ephrath, into their own re-
gion, and that since then, there have been two
monu uents of Raehel, one marking the place of her
death, and her first burial ; the other, the place where
tticy laid her bones in the hom i of her Ben-oni.

Similar transportations of the remains of the blessed
occur in the history of Israel. In this view we
may explain more clearly how Rachel (Jer. xl. U
bewailed her children at Rama, than it is by the
usual remark, that the exiled were gathered at Rama,
— Unto this day. — From this notice Delitzsch in
fers that Genesis was not completed until after the
arrival of the Israelites in Canaan. Keil says this
remark would have been in place within ten or
twenty years after the erection of the pillar. Still ,
he appears to have felt that a term of from ten tc
twenty years could make no distinction between old
er and more recent times, and hence adds in a note,
if this pillar was actually preserved until the time
of the conquest, i. e., over four hundred and fifty
years, this remark may be viewed as an interpo-
lation of a later writer. It belongs, doubtless, to
the last redaction or revision of Genesis. Still
there are possible ways in which the Israelites even
in the desert could have received information as to
the existence of this monument, although this is less
probable. [Kurtz defends the genuineness of the
passage, but locates the grave of Rachel in the vi-
cinity of Rama, on the grounds that the announce-
ment here of a stretch of land is indefinite, and fur
ther, that the designation of the place by the distan*
Bethlehem, arose from the fact that the tower of the
flock in Bethlehem was the next station of Jacob,
and his residence for a considerable period ; and lastly,
that Jer. xxxi. 16 clearly points to the vicinity of
Rama. Keil urges in favor of his own view, that
the existence of a monument of this kind, in a
strange land, whose inhabitants could have had no
interest in preserving it, even for the space of ten or
twenty years, might well have appeared worthy of
notice. — A. G.]

DOCTEINAl ADD ETHICAI..

1. Rachel's wish ; Rachel's death ; but her death
at the same time her last gain in this life.

2. Rachel's confinement at Bethlehem, viewed in
its sad and bright aspects : 1. The sad aspect : A
confinement upon a journey ; a death in the presence
of the goal of the journey so long desired ; a part-
ing by death from the desired child. 2. The joyful
aspect : A son in whom her old wish is now fulfilled
(see ch. xxx. 24 ; also the passionate word, " Give
me children, or else I die," xxx. 1) ; a new enrich-
ing of Jacob, and indeed, to the completion of the
number twelve ; the triumph that she dies as the
mother of a child.

3. Rachel's death and grave. A preliminary con-
secration of the region of Bethlehem. Through her
tragic end she becomes the ancestress of the suffer-
ing children of Israel generally, even of the chil-
dren of Leah (Jer. xxxi. 16 ; Matt. ii. 17). Her
grave probably at Ephrath and Rama at the same
time. Rachel as the first example mentioned in the
Scriptures of a mother dying in travail, and a com
forter to mothers dying in similar circumstances
The solemn aspect of such a death (Gen. iii. 16)
Its beauty and transfiguration (1 Tim. ii. 15).

4. The heroic struggles, and struggling places
of travailing women. Through these painful strug-
gles they form the beautiful complement to the
manly struggles in sacred wars. While the latte-
are the causes of death, the former are the sources
of life.

6. The first midwife who appears in the regim of

670

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

lacred history, is a worthy counterpart to the first
nurse, Deborah. She shows the vocation of a mid-
wife, to support the laboring with sympathy, to en-
courage her, and to strengthen her by announcing
the birth of a child, especially of a son, or the an-
nouncement of the begiiming of the new life.

6. The name Benoni, on Rachel's lips, was not an
utterance of despair, but of a deeply painful feeling of
victory. The desired fruit of her womb came out
of these death-struggles. Jacob's naming connects
Itself with this also : the son of my right hand, com-
panionship of my rest, support, joy of my old age.
It is true, indeed, even in the sense of the usually
received antithesis, that every new-born child is a
Benoni, and a Benjamin; Benoni in Adam, Benja-
min in Christ.

1. The youngest children of a family, Benjamin's
companions ; and frequently described as Benjamin?,
they stand under the blessing of a ripe old age, un-
der the protection of older and stronger brothers and
sisters ; but on the other hand, the danger that the
paternal discipline should give way to grandfather-
like indulgence, great as it may be in particular cases,
is scarcely brought into view here. They embrace,
as it were, in themselves, the whole past of the fam-
ily and the most distant future.

8. Bethlehem here enters, clouded by Jacob's
mourning ; afterwards enlightened by David, the Old-
Testament hero out of Judah, and fiially glorified by
the fulfilment of Israel's hope.

9. The following verse shows how Jacob, as the
Israel of God, rises from his grief over Rachel's
death.

10. As her soul was departing. As Starke sug-
gests, we have thus an indication that we are to re-
gard death as the separation of the soul and body.
For if, indeed, tl3s3, the soul, is life also, .so, and
much more, is the human life, soul.

HOMILETICAL AND PBACTICAIi.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical remarks. It re-
quires no special notice that this section is peculiarly

adapted for texts at the burial of women dying ii
confinement, at the transactions over consecrated
graves, and similar occasions. — Rachel's death upon
the journey. — Rachel's journey home in a two-fold
sense. — Our life a pilgrimage. — As we are all bom
during the pilgrimage, so we must all die upon oui
pilgrimage. — We reach a fixed, permanent goal only
upon the other side. Benoni and Benjamin: 1.
The similarity of the names ; 2. the difference be-
tween them. — Jacob at Rachel's grave. — His silent
grief. — His uttered faith.

Staeke : An enunciation of Jacob's sorrows, ft
is connected with the names : Simeon, Levi, Dinah,
Rachel, Reuben, and Bilhah. Then follows Isaac's
death, and afterwards Joseph's disappearance ; the
famine, etc. Hence he says : " Few and evil have
the days of the years of my life been " (ch. xlvii. 9).
(An allegorical comparison of Rachel, at this birth,
with the Jewish Church. As Rachel died at the
birth of Benjamin, so the Jewish Church at the birth
of Christ.) — Cramer : The birth-throes are a crosa
and a reminder of our sins (Gen. iii. 16). God
recognizes this, and gives his aid (John xvi. 21). —
But if the divinely-blessed mother, or her fruit, should
die, their happiness is not put in peril (1 Tim. ii. 15).
— Christian midwives should encourage women in
this fearful crisis. — Women in this state should dili-
gently prepare themselves for death. — OsiANnEE:
The dead bodies of the pious are not to be treated
as those of irrational animals, but must be decently
buried, that we may thus testify our hope in the
resurrection from the dead (Prov. x, T). — Schroder:
Bethlehem is called now Beit-Lahm ; i. e., meat-
house. Benjamin a type of the Messiah, who, in
his humiliation, was a man of sorrows, and in his ex-
altation a son of the right hand of God (Drechsler).
[Wordsworth here brings out several striking analo-
gies between Benjamin and St. Paul, basing them
upon the word e/crpcu^a, which the apostle applies to
himself "as one born out of due time," properly,
" the child whose birth is the cause of his mother's
death." Paul speaks of himself as one thus bom,
and thus seems to invite us to compare him with
Benjamin. P. 145.— A. G.]

EIGHTH SECTION.

The station at the tower of Edar. Reuben's crime. JacoVe sons. His return to Itaac and Hebron
{Bebekah no longer living). Isaac's death. His burial by Esau and Jacob,

Chapter XXXV. 21-29.

21 And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower of Edar [floekj.

22 And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with
Bilhah his father's concubine : and Israel heard it.^ Now the sons of Jacob were

23 twelve : The sons of Leah ; Reuben, Jacob's first-born, and Simeon, and Levi, and

24 Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun : The sons of Rachel ; Joseph, and Benjamin :
25, 26 And the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid ; Dan, and NaphtaU : And the sons

of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid ; Gad, and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob, wbicb
were born to him in Padan-aram [Mesopotamia].

CHAP. XXXV. 21-29

57.

21 _ And Jacob came unto Isaac his father, unto Mamre, unto the city of Artah (which

28 %s Hebron) where Abraham and Isaac sojourned. And the days of Isaac were an

29 hundred and fourscore years. And Isaac gave up the ghost and died, and was gathered
unto his people, being old and full of days ; and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

f' Ver. 22.— The break ia the MS. here, and the Masoretio note, "that there is a hiatus in the middle of the verse,"
lalto the sense better 1ian the division into verses. It may have been, as Wordsworth suggests, designed to expresa tht
mautteiable teelings of Jacob when he heard of this horrible act of his eldest son.— A. G.]

EXEGETIOAL AND CRITICAL.

Vers. 21-26. — Beyond the tower of Edar. —

Had Rachel's original burial taken place at Rama, we
could not well have supposed that Jacob, who here, as
iBrael, rises above his grief for his loved wife, should
have made his next station at Jerusalem. Moreover,
the region immediately around Jerusalem was proba-
bly not suitable for a nomadic station. We adhere,
however, to the tradition which fixes Rachel's death
north of Bethlehem, and the next station of Jacob,
below Bethlehem, at the tower of Edar. The tower
of the flock is a tower built for the protection of the
flocks, and as their gathering place, in a region pecu-
liarly fitted for pasturage (2 Kings xviii. 8 ; 2 Chron.
xxvi. 10; xxvii. 4 f.). Jerome and the common tradi-
tion locate it south of Bethel, and not far from that
place. From this tower Jacob could have easily and
frequently visited his father Isaac, without prema-
turely mingling his household and possessions with
the household economy at Hebron, which it is possi-
ble may yet have stood in strict relations with Esau.
Such an absence might have favored Reuben's crim-
inal purpose and act. — Reuben went. — Bilhah was
Rachel's handmaid, not Leah's ; nevertheless, Reuben
was guilty of incest ; of a lustful deed of impiety, which
occasioned his loss of the birthright (ch. xlix. 4).
The characteristic weakness of Reuben, which ap-
pears in its praiseworthy aspect in other cases (see
history of Joseph), here exposes him to the force of
temptation. — And Israel heard it. — As if he was
absent. Was he at Hebron, and does Reuben, as
the temporary head of the household, assume special
privileges to himself ? Israel heard it, that he
might reprove it in a suitable way, in his spiritual
maturity, quiet, and dignity. — Now the sons of
Jacob were t'welve. — Jacob's sons must also
become sons of Israel through a divine discipline
and training They are, however, the rich blessing
of the promise, with which he returns to his father,
and are here enumerated by name after their seve-
ral mothers, as If in presenting them to their grand-
father. As a whole, they are said to have been
bom in Padan-aram ; although this was not strictly
true of Benjamin. We are thus prepared already,
and introduced to Isaac's point of view, for whom, it
is true, Jacob brings aU his sons from a strange land.
Thus the exile Jacob returns home to his father
If aao, laden with the richest blessing of the promise.
The dark days of this patriarch are followed by this
joyful reappearance of the exile.

Vers. 27-29. — Unto Mamre (see history of
Abraham, above). — Isaac has thus changed his
resider.se to Hebron during the absence of Jacob.
— An hundred and fourscore years. — With
the conclusion of the life of Isaac, the narrative
bastens to the immediately following events (oh.
xxxvii.). Jacob was born in the sixtieth year of
Isaac's life (ch. xxv. 26), and was thus one hundred
»nd twenty years old w len Isaac died. But when he

was presented to Pharaoh in Egypt, he was oni
hundred and thirty years old (ch. xlvii. 9). Of this
time there were seven fruitful and two unfruitful
years since Joseph's exaltation in Egypt (ch. xlv. 6),
and thirteen years between the selling of Joseph and
his exaltation, for he was sold when seventeen (ch.
xxxvii. 2), and was thirty when he was raised to
honor and power. Hence we must take twenty-
three years from the one hundred and thirty years
of Jacob, to determine his age at the time Joseph
was sold; which ia thus one hundred and seven.
" Isaac, therefore, shared the grief of Jacob over
the loss of his son for thirteen years." In a similar
way, Abraham had witnessed and sympathized with
the long unfruitful marriage of Isaac. But Isaac
could see in these sorrows of Jacob the hand of God,
who will not allow that any one should anticipate
him in a self-willed preference of a favorite son.—
Old and full of days. — He recognized the close of
his life-experiences and trials, and, like Abraham,
departed in peace. — And Esau and Jacob buried
him. — It is a beautiful, genuine historic feature,
that Esau here precedes Jacob, while Isaac is men-
tioned before Ishmael at the burial of Abraham.
Could we draw any inference from this, as to the
external inheritance, the assertion of Keil, that Ja-
cob heired the earthly goods of Isaac, is far too strong
and confident. It is certain, indeed, that Esau re-
ceived a considerable portion, and in external affairs
merely he took a prominent part, to which the hom-
age Jacob rendered him had given him an indirect
claim. A certain degree of separation had already
been made between th e spmtea? and earthly birthright.
Isaac was buried in the cave of Machpelah (ch. xlix. 31).

DOCTKINAi AND BTHICAI;.

1. Jacob's last station at the tower of Edar u
also marked by a new heart-sorrow.

2. Reuben's crime probably occasioned by his
authority over the household during his father's ab-
sence with Isaac at Hebron. The cause of his fo>
feiture of the right, of the first-born (ch. xlix).

3. The number, twelve, of the sons of Jacob, in
its typical significance. Twelve, the number of a lif«
completed, or expanded to its full limits and devel-
opment. Thus in the house of Ishmael and of Esau,
but in a higher sense in the house of Israel. Hence
the twelve sons are the types of the twelve tribes
(ch. xlix. ; Dent, xxxiii.), and the twelve tribes of
the theocracy types of the twelve apostles of Christ,
and these, again, types of the twelve fundamental
forms of the New Testament Church (Rev. xxi. 12 f.).
That the number four is a factor of the number
twelve, is here intimated by the four mothers ; four is
the number of the world, three the number of the sanc-
tuary and of the spirit ; and thus twelve is the num-
ber of a fulness or completeness, consecrated to God.

4. Jacob's return to Isaac with his sons, 'he la*

672

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

ray of sunlight for the aged and blinded patriarch.
This belonged to the complete satisfaction of the old
man's life, after which he could go to his people
" full of days," or satisfied. Thus Jacob's soul was
once more revived, when he saw the wagons sent by
Joseph.

5. The brotherly union of Jacob and Esau at the
buria. of Isaac, a beautiful token of peace and re-
conciliation at his end. [" Esau and Jacob having
shaken hands over the corpse of their father, their
paths diverge to meet no more." Delitzsch. — A. G.]

HOMrLBTICAl AND PRACTICAL.

See Doctrinal paragraphs. Isaac's long and pa-
tient waiting for Jacob's return home, during the
night of his blindness. — Light at the evening-time. —
Isaac and Simeon (Luke ii.) — Esau and Jacob, or
the reconciling, peace-making efficacy of death and

the grave.^STARKE : Ver. 22. (The Jewish Rabbit
make this a small crime, and say Reuben ovenhreTi
the bed, when he saw that, after Rachel's death, il
was not borne into his mother Leah's tent, but int"
that of Bilhah ; because be inferred that Jacob
loved Bilhah more than Leah). — Osiandek : In the
true Church also there arise at times great scandals. —
Gerlach : Comp. 2 Sam. xvi. 22. Gal wee Hand-
buck: Isaac reached the greatest age among the
three patriarchs. — Schroder :■ Bilhah proved unfaith-
ful ; Reuben committed incest. — Jacob's painful si-
lence. ^When he departed, nothing; when he re-
turned, all (Drechsler). — Details as to the number
twelve, also in regard to Jacob.- — [Wordsworth :
The record of these sins in the history is an evidence
of the veracity of the historian. If it had been a
human composition, designed to do honor to the He-
brew nation, assuredly it would have said little of
these flagrant iniquities of Simeon, Levi, Dinah and
Reuben. — A. G.]

NINTH SECTION.

Esav^s Family Record and tJte Horites,

Chapter SXXVI. 1-43.

1, 2 Now these are the generations of Esau [hairy, rough], who is Edom [red]. Esau
took his wives of the daughters of Canaan ; Adah [ornament, grace] the daughter of Elon
[oak-grove, oak, strengtii] the Hittite, and Aliohbamah [tent of the sacred height] the daughter

of Anah [answering] the daughter of Zibeon [Gesenius: colored; I'Urst : wild, robber] the Hivite ;

3 And Bashemath [pleasant fragra ice] Ishmael's daughter, sister of Nebajoth [lofty place].

4 And Adah bare to Esau, Ehphaz [strength of God] ; and Bashenaath bare Eeuel [ joy of

5 God]; And Aholibamah bare Jeush [or Jehus, gatherer], and Jaalam [Filrst: mountain-climber],

and Korah' [smooth]: these are the sons of Esau, wliich were born unto him in the

3 land of Canaan. And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the

persons of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance which he

had got in the land of Canaan ; and went into the country from the face of his brother

7 Jacob. Tor their riches were more than that they might dwell together : and the land'

8 wherein they were strangers could not bear them, because of their cattle. Thus dwelt
Esau in mount Seir [rough, wild mountain-region] : Esau is Edom.

9 And these are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites, in mount Seir :

10 These are the names of Esau's sons; Eliphaz the son of Adah the wife of Esau;

11 Eeuel the son of Bashemath the wife of Esau. And the sons of Eliphaz were, Temar;

[right side, Bouthlander], Omar [Gesenius: eloquent ; Fiirst : mountain-dweller], Zepho [watch], am]

12 Gatam [Gesenius : puny, thin ; Fiirst : burnt, dry valley] and Kenaz [hunter ]. And Timna [restraint]

was concubine to Eliphaz, Esau's son; and she bare to Eliphaz, Amalek': these were

13 the sons of Adah, Esau's wife. And these are the sons of Eeuel; Nnhath [going down,

evening], and Zerah [rising, morning], Shammah [wasting; Fiirst; report, call], and Mizzah

[Gesenius: fear; FiirBt : perhaps joy, rejoicing] : these were the sons of Bashemath, Esau's wife
And these were the sons of Aliolibamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of

Zibeon, Esau's wife : and she bare to Eeau, Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah.

These were dukes [prmccs, heads of families, chiefs] of the SOUS of Esau: the sons of Eli-

phaz, the first-born son of Esau ; duke Teman, duke Omar, duke Zepho, duke Xenaz,

14

15

CHAP. XXXVI. 1-48. 573

16 Duke Korali, duke Gatam, and duke Amalek : these are the dukes that came of
Eliphaa, in the land of Edom : these were the sons [grandsons] of Adah.

17 And these are the sons of Eeuel, Esau's son; duke Nahath, duko Zerah, duke
Shammah, duke Mizzah : these are the dukes that came of Reuel, in the land of Edom ■
these are the sons [grandsons] of Bashemath, Esau's wife.

18 And these are the sons of Aholibamah, Esau's wife ; duke Jeush, duke Jaalam, duk«
Korah : these were the dukes that came of Aholibamah the daughter of Anah, Esau's

19 wife. These are the sons of Esau (who is [prince of] Edom) and these are their dukes

20 These are the sons of Seir the Horite [cave-dweller, troglodyte], who inhabited [primitiva

dweller?] the land; Lotan [= coTering, veiled], and Sliobal [traveller, -wanderer], and Zibeon,

21 and Anah, And Dishon [gazelle], and Ezer [Gesenius: store; Furst: connection], and Dishan'
[sameae Dishon] : these are the dukes of the Horites, the children of Seir in the land ol

22 Edom. And the children of Lotan were Hori [troglodytes], and Heman [oesemus : destmc-

23 tion; Fnret: commotion] : and Lotan's sister was Timna. And the children of Shobal were

these; Alvan [Gesenius: unjust; Furst: lofty], and Manahath [rest], and Ebal [FOrstibaia

24 mountain], Shepho [tare, desert], and Onam [strong, robust]. And these are the children ol
Zibeon ; both Ajah [screamer, hawk], and Anah [singer, answerer] : this Was thai Anah that
found the mules [hot springs] in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father.

25 And the children of Anah were these : Dishon, and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah.

26 And these are the children of Dishon; Heradan [pleasant], and Eshban [Gesenius: insight;

Furst : thoughtful hero], and Ithran [superior = Jethro and Jithion], and Cheran [Sesenius : harp

27 FSrst: companion]. The children of Ezer are these; Bilhan [— Bilhah ; Gesenius: modest

28 Furst : tender], and Zaavan [Furst : unquiet, troubled], and Akan [twisting]. The children of

29 Dishan are these; Uz [sandman, or woodman], and Aran [Gesenius : mightier] . These are

the dukes that came of the Horites ; duke Lotan, duke Shobal, duke Zibeon, duke Anah,

30 Duke Dishon, duke Ezer, duke Dishan : these are the dukes that came of Hori, among
their dukes ' in the land of Seir.

31 And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any

32 king over the children of Israel. And Bela [comp. ch. xiv. a] the son of Beor [Gesenius:
torch, lamp ; FiirBt : shepherd] reigned in Edom : and tlie name of his city was Dinhabah

33 [Gesenius, Fiirst : place of plundi-r (?Fehnigericht) «]. And Bela died, and Jobab [shout, howl, i.e.,

34 desert] the SOU of Zerah of Bozrah [fold, fort] reigned in his stead. And Jobab died, and

35 Husham [=Hushai; rapid, haste] of the land of Temani reigned in his stead. And Husham
died, and Hadad [prince; strong, violent] the son of Bedad [separate, the lonely], (who smote
Midian in the field of Moab), reigned in his stead : and the name of his city was Avith

36 [Gesenius: ruins; Furst: tent-viuage]. And Hadad died, and Samlah [covering] of Masrekah

37 a vineyard] reigned in his stead. And Samlah died, and Saul [aski-d, wished] of Eehoboth

38 wide, room] by the river reigned in bis stead. And Saul died, and Baal-hanan [gracious

39 lord] the son of Achbor [= Achbar, mouse] reigned in his stead. And Baal-hanan the son
of Achbor died, and Hadar [grace, honor] reigned in his stead : and the name of his city
was Pau [Gesenius : bleating ; Fiirst: yawning deep] ; and his wife's name was Mehetabel
[G-od-beneflting], the daughter of Hatred [pushing], the daughter of Mezahab [water of gold].

40 And these are the names of the dukes that came of Esau, according to their families,
after their places, by their names; duke Timnah, duke Alvah [Gesenius : unrighteoumess ;

41 Fiirst: height, exaltation], duke Jetheth [Gesenius ■ nail ; Fiirst : subjugation]. Duke Aholibamah,
duke Elah [Furst: oak strong, and hard], duke Pinon [= Funon ; Gesenius: darkness; Fiirst: amine].

42, 43 Duke Kenaz, duke Teman, duke Mibzar [fortress, strong city]. Duke Magdiel [Furst:

glory of God; Gesenius: prince of God], duke Iram [citizen, city region] ; these le the dukeS of

Edom, according to their habitations, in the land of their possession : he is Esau,' the
father of the Edomites.

[* Ver. 5. — Murphy gives these names the signification of haste, hiding, ice. — A. G.]

[' Ver. 7.— Of their sojoumings. — A. G.]

[* Ver. 12. — From pb^ D? , a nation of head-breakers, spoilers? Lange. Laboring, licking up; Murphy: whict

Mjems the better derivation.— -A. G.]

[* Ver. 21.— Murphy : threshing.— A. G.]

[" Ver. 30. — Which were to them for tribe-princes (and tribe names).— A. G.]

[' Ver, 32. — The Fehmgericht was the secret criminal court in Westphalia, somewhat akin to our vigilance com
nittees.— A. G.]

[^ Ver. 43.— Lit., This is Esau := the father of Edom, the founder of the Edomites, with their kmgs and pnncei
this elopes this Section, and at the same time prepares us for what follows. — A. G.)

574

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

PRELIMINAET EEMAEKS.

A. It is in full accordance with the mode of
statement used in Genesis, that at this point, at
which Esau passes out from connection with the
theocratic history, the history of his family, as be-
longing to the genealogical tree, should be preserved
in the memory of the people of God (see p. 495).
B. The toledoth of the Edomites is recorded in a
Beries of special genealogies : 1. The point of depar-
ture : Esau's wives and children, and his settlement
upon the mountains of Seir (vers. 1-8) ; 2. Eaau's
sons and grandsons viewed as tribe-fathers (vers. 9-
14) ; 3. the tribe-chiefs or princes of the house of
Esuu (vers. 16-19); 4. the genealogy of the abori-
gines of the land, the Horites, with whom the Edom-
ites, as conquerors, are mingled (vers. 20-3u) ; 5.
the liings of the land of Edom (vers. 31-39) ; 6. the
ruling princes, i. e., the heads of provinces, or rather
the seats of chieftains, enduring throughout the
reigns of the kings of Edom (vers. 40—43). — C. It is
clear that these tables do not form any one peculiar
chronological succession. The tables, number ihree of
the Edomitic princes, and four, of the Horite princes,
form a parallel ; in point of time, indeed, the line
of Horite princes must be regarded as the older line.
So, also, table number five of the Itings of Edom, is
parallel with number six of the pro\'iiicial princes
or councillors of Edom. There are, therefore, but
three fundamental divisions: 1. The sons and grand-
sons of Edom ; 2. the old and new princes of Edom ;
3. the kingdom of Edom viewed as to its kings and
as to its provincial rulers (or dukedoms). — In Deut.
ii. 12, 22, the Edomites appear to have destroyed the
Horites, as the aboriginal dwellers in Seir. But this
must be uuderstood in the sense of a warlike subju-
gation, which resulted partly in their absorption,
partly and mainly in placing the original dwellers in
(he land in a state of bondage, and that wretched
condition in which they are probably described in
the book of Job (Job xvi. 11; xvii. 6; xxiv. 7;
XXX. 1 ; see Knobel, p. 277). Knobel refers these
tables, as generally all the completed genealogical
tables in Genesis, to the Elohist. But this only is
established, that the genealogical tables are, in their
very nature, in great part Elohistic.

KXEGETICAL AND CKITICAL.

Esau's wives and children^ aiid Ku settlement upon
the mountains of Seir (vers. 1-8). — Of Esau, that
is Edom (cli. xxv. 30). — In ch. xxvi. 34 the two
first wives of Esau are called Judith, the daughter
of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath, the daughter
of Elon the Hittite. In ch. xxviii. 9 the third wife
bears the name of Mahalatb, the daughter of Ish-
mael. Here the daughter of Elon the Hittite is
culled A'dah, and in the place of Judith, the daugh-
ter of Beeri the Hittite, we have Aholibamah, the
daughter of Anah, the granddaughter of Zibeon the
Hivite. But while the daughter of Elon is named
Bashemath above, here the daughter of Ishmael
bears that name. It is perfectly arbitrary when
Knobel and others identify the Zibeon of ver. 2 with
the Zibeon of ver. 21, and then, instead of the addi-
tion, the Hivite, read the Horite. But Knobel re-
marks correctly : " The different accounts (all of
which he ascribes to the Elohist) agree in this : a.
Tl at Esau had three wives; b. that one of them is

called Bashemath ; c. that the third was a danghtei
of Ishmael and sister to Nebajoth." Keil explain!
the differences upon the assumption that Moses used
genealogical records of Esau's family and descend-
ants, and left them unaltered. The statement, how
ever, presents no irreconcilable contradiction, but is
explained by the custom of the ancient orientals,
which is still in use among the Arabians, by which
men often received surnames from some important
or remarkable event of life (as, e. g. Esau the sur-
name Edom, ch. xxv. 30), which gradually became
proper names, and by which women at their marriage
generally assumed new first names (comp. Hengsten
berg's Beitrdge, iii. pp. 273-302). We remark only
that Judith takes the name AhoHbamah, her father
Beeri (for the conjecture of Hengstenberg, which will
scarcely stand the test, in our judgment, see Keil, p.
232) the name Anah, while the general popular name
Hittites=Canaanites becomes specific in the name
Hivite. But now the names Aholibamah and Anah
appear to be symbolic and religious names. Bashe-
math, the daughter of Elon, now bears the name
Adah, while, on the contr.iry, Mahalath, the daughter
of Ishmael, is now called Bashemath. This may be
explained upon the supposition that Esau, whose
garments were fragrant with sweet odors, distin-
guished Judith [Mahalath ? — A. G.], whom he mar-
ried twenty years later than his other wives, as his
favorite wife by the name Bashemath, the fragrant,
while as a compensation he called bis former Bashe-
math, Adah, or ornament. If Beeri was a priest,
the name Anah (hearing, answering), would be ap-
propriate to him, as also Aholibamah, tent of height,
holy tabernacle, would be to his daughter. For the
different attempts at reconciling these differences,
see Knobel, p. 278. The impossibility of solving
these difficulties is emphasized and supported by a
collection of examples, which certainly shows that
there were different traditions according to different
points of view, in full accord with the living nature
and character of bibhcal relations. [These tables
carry the genealogy of the descendants of Esau
down to the period at which the Pentateuch closes,
since the last of the eight kings, whose united reigna
would probably cover this length of time, of whom
it is not said that he died, was probably still upon
the throne at the time of Moses, and was the king
of Edom to whom Moses applied for leave to pass
through the land. The statement, though very
brief, is arranged vrith the utmost precision. We
have first the introductory statement in regard to
Esau and his wives, and his settlement at Seir ; then
the genealogy of his sons and grandsons bom in
Seir, in distinction from those born in Canaan ; then
of the tribe-princes of Edom ; then by an easy and
natural transition the genealogy of the Horite princes
and tribes who were absorbed by the Edomitic tribes ;
then of the kings of Edom ; and lastly of the places
or chief seats of these tribal princes, after their
families, by their names. It is not surprising that
there should be inquiries suggested here, which can-
not be answered, or that there should be missing
links in the historical statement. The apparent dis-
crepancies, however, involve no contradiction. As
to the wives of Esau, the different accounts may be
reconciled in either of two ways. We may suppose
with some (Murphy, Jacobus) that Judith, during the
long period between her marriage and the removal
of Esau to Seir, had died, without leaving male issue,
and that Aholibamah here recorded is the fourth
wife of Esau in the order of time, ilthougb in tbu

CHAP. XXXVI. 1-43.

57{

tahle classed with the daughter of Elon, because she
was a Canaanitess also. The mere change of names
in the females occasions little difficulty, since it is so
common for persons to have two names, and since
the first name of the female was so frequently
changed at marriage. This seems a natural supposi-
tion, and will meet the necessities of the case. We
may, however, suppose, as Hengstenberg suggests
(see also Kurtz, Keil, Baumgarten), that the names
Beeri and Anah designate the same person. In the
24th verse we meet with an Anah who is thus de-
scribed ; " This was that Anah that found the warm
springs (E. V. mules) in the wilderness, as he fed the
asses of Zibeon his father." The identity in the
name of the father, Zibeon, leads to the identifying
of Anah and Beeri. This is confirmed by the signifi-
cance of the name Beeri, man of the wells, which
would seem to, refer to some such remarkable event
in the desert. He would probably be known by this
name, Beeri, among his associates, but in the gene-
alogy he appears with his own proper name, Anah.
That he is in one place called a Hittite, in another a
Hivite, in another still a Horite, may be easily ex-
plained on the theory that the Hittite defines the race,
the Hivite the specific tribe, and the Horite describes
him with reference to his abode. The theory of
Hengstenberg is certainly ingenious, meets essentially
the difficulties in the case, and may well be held
until a better is suggested. See Hengstenberg's
Beitruffe, vol. iii. pp. 273-302 ; Keil, Kurtz, Baum-
garten, in loc. — A. G.] — And Adah bare. — See the
names of the sons of Esau, 1 Chron. i. 35. [The
difference between the catalogue there and here is
due to the change in the Hebrew from one weak let-
ter to another. — A. G.] — Into the country, from
the face of his brother. — -The conjecture that the
word Seir has been left out after the word land or
country, is supt iuous [and hence unjustifiable. —
A. G.], if we understand the words " away from his
brother" as a quahfying adjective or phrase. He
sought a country in which he should not meet with
his brother.' The final emigration of Esau to Seir
after the death of his father does not exclude the
preliminary migration thither (xxxii. 3) ; neither does
the motive for the earlier removal, the securing of a
wide domain for hunting, and over which he might
rule, exclude the motive for the later, in the fact
that the flocks of the two brothers had grown so
large that they could not dwell togetlier. We may
well conclude, however, from the last statement, that
Esau had at least inherited a large part of the herds
of Isaac, although Keil assumes the contrary.

Second Section. Esau's sons and grandsons as
the ancestors of tribes (vers. 9-14; comp. 1 Chron. i.
36, 37). — To Mount Seir. — The mountain-range
between the Dead Sea and the Ailanitic Gulf The
northern part was called Gebalene, and the southern
Es Sherah (see Keil, p. 233 ; Winer's Real Wiirter-
kueh [Kitto, new edition, Smith, Murphy. — A. G.],
md the Geographies of the Bible). " While the sons
of Aholibamah became directly heads of tribes, it
.was only the grandsons of the other two wives, each
of whom bare only one son, who attained this dis-
tinction. There were thus thirteen heads of tribes,
or, if we exclude Amalek, who was born of the con-
cubine Timnah, twelve, as with the Nahorites, Ish-
Biaelites, and Israelites." Knobel. [It is probable,
»8 Hengstenberg has shown, that this Amalek was
Ihe ancestor of the Amalekites who opposed the
Israelites in their march through the desert ; and
Bat this is what Balaaip alludes to when he says that

Amalek was the first of tho nations, not the o.dest,
but the first who made war with the Israelites aftei
they became the covenant people of God. The ref-
erence to the field of the Amalekites, ch. xiv. 7, is
not in opposition to this, since it is not said in thai
passage that the Amalekites were slain, but that thej
were slain who occupied the country which after-
wards belonged to this tribe. It is not probable that
a people who played so important a part in the his
tory of Israel (see Numb. xiii. 29 ; xiv. 43 ; Judg
vi. 3; vii. 12; xii. 15; 1 Sam. xiv. 48; xv. 2 ff.j
xxvii. 8 ; 2 Sam. viii. 12) should have been without
their genealogy in the book of Genesis. Amalek
probably separated himself early from his brethren,
perhaps from the fact of his birth not being strictly
legitimate, and grew into an independent people, who
seem to have had their main position at Kadesh, in
the mountains south of Judah, but spread themselves
throughout the desert and even into Canaan. See
Hengstenberg : BeitrSge, vol. iii. p. 302 ff. — A. G.]
There were three divisions from the three wives. —
The sons of Sliphaz. — For the ethnographic im-
portance of these names, compare Knobel and the
Bible Dictionaries. Amalek, see above. — These
are the sons of Adah. — Since Timnah was a con-
cubine, it is assumed that Adah had adopted her.

Third Section. 2'he Edotnitic tribe-princes (vera.
15-19). "D^snbx, probably from tjix or □•'bV.n; =
ninsiTO, families, heads of families, is the peculiar
title of Edomitic and Horitic phylarehs, only once,
Zech. ix. 7, xii. 5, applied to Jewish princes or gov-
ernors. Knobel is entirely wrong when he explains
these names geographically." Keil. But they may
have established themselves geographically within
more or less fixed Umits, e. g. Teman (Edom from
Teman to Dedan, Ezek. xxv. 13).

Fourth Section. Genealogy of the Horites (vers.
20-30; comp. 1 Chron. i. 38-42).-— Of Seir.— The
name of the ancestor of the early inhabitants of
Seir is identical with the name of the land, as is true
also with the names Asshur, Aram, Mizraim, Canaan,
in the genealogical table. — The Horites. — inh ,
from "lin , hole, cave, cave-man, troglodyte. — Who
inhabited the land — i. e., the earlier inhabitants
in contrast with the Edomites. The land of the
Edomites is full of caves (Robinson, " Researches,"
vol. ii. p. 551 ff). "The inhabitants of Idumfea
use them for dwellings. Jerome, upon Obadiah, says
they had dwellings and sheepfolds in caves. This was
peculiarly true of the aboriginal Horites, who (Job
XXX. 6) are described by this peculiarity. It is re-
markable that the description of the wretched man-
ner of living and evil courses of the Horites, givcL
in the book of Job, are still accurately true to-da}
of the dwellers in the old Edomitic land." Knobel.
The Horite table first enumerates seven princes, then
their sons, among whom the name Anah occupies a
prominent place (ver. 24), who is said in Luther's
version [also in the English. — A. G.], following the
error of the Talmud, " to have found the mules in
the wilderness." He discovered rather in the desert
D^K'n , warm springs (Vulgate), which may refei
to the warm sulphur springs of Calirrhoe, in Wady
Zerka Maein, or to those in Wady El Ahsa, south
east of the Dead Sea, or to those in Wady Hamad
between Kerek and the Dead Sea. For further de
tails see Knobel and Keil, the hitter of whom rO'
marks that the notice of his feeding the asses maj
indicate that these animals led to the discovery of
the springs, p. 225, note. Besides the sons, ther«

576

GENESIS, OR TFE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

»re two daughters named in this genealogical table,
Thannah and Akolihamah. " Thimnah may per-
haps be the same person with the coni^ubine of Eli-
phaz, ver. 12. Aholibamah is, however, not the
same with the wife of Esau." Keil. There may
nave been, also, more than one person of the name
of Thimnah. For the differences between this cata-
.ogue and that in 1 Chron., comp. Keil, p. 234.
[The.se diversities are mainly those which arise from
the substituting one wealc letter for another. — A. G.]
The princes are still named once more, as they gave
their names to tribes or districts. Knobel attempts
to explain these names as if they were geographical
and not personal, which Koil should not so strongly
have opposed. [Keil shows, however, how vain and
groundless this attempt is, by the fact that the son
of Zibeon discovered the warm springs, which proves
if course that this is a table of the names of per-
sons, and not of tribes or their localities. — A. G.]

Fiftk Section. The kings of the land of Edom
(vers. 31-39 ; comp. 1 Chron. i. 43-50). Out of the
original discordant or opposing Edomite and Horite
princes there sprang one united kingdom, the Edom-
itic element being undoubtedly the predominant.
From the statement here made, it is plain that the
kings were not hereditary kings ; in no case does the
son succeed to the father's throne. Still less are we
to suppose, with Keil, Hengstenberg [also Murphy,
Jacobus, and others. — A. G.], that it was a well-
ordered elective monarcliy, witli chosen kings, since
in that case, at least, some of the sons would have
succeeded their fathers. (Knobel wavers between
the assumption of elections and usurpations.) It is
rather in accordance with the Edomitic character
(see the blessing of Isaac), that a circle of usurpa-
tions should arise out of the turbulent transition
state ; diirk counterparts of the way and manner in
which the judges in Israel wrought together or fol-
lowed one another at the calling of God. Thus Bcla,
of Dinhaba, city of plunder, as devourer (as despotic
Balaam), might well begin the series. And the name
of Jobab, one who with the howling of the desert
breaks forth from his fastness, confirms the mode of
the kingdom as already intimated. Husham seems
to have gained his power and position by surprise,
Hadad by violence, and Samlah by politjcal arts and
fraud. With Saul, therefore, we first meet with one
who was desired and chosen, and the remark that he
was succeeded by Baal-hanan, gracious lord, and he
by Hadar, rich in honor, whose wife bears a truly
pious name, justifies the conjecture that the savage,
uncultivated forms of violence and cunning gradually
gave place to the more noble forms. Of this eighth
king of the Edomites, it is not said here that he died.
The table closes, therefore, with the time of Hadar.
Keil justly assumes that the tribe-princes or phylarchs
(who, indeed, as persons, did not follow each other,
but were cotemporary, and as hereditary dignities
located and fixed themselves geographically) existed
as cotemporaries with the kings (with legard to Ex.
XV. IB, comp. Numb. xx. 14 ff.). "While Moses
treats with the king of Edom with reference to a
Dassage through his land, in the song of Moses it is
he tribe-princes who are filled with fear at the
niraculous passage of the Israelites through the Red
Sea (comp. Exek. xxxii. 29). We may urge further
that the account of the seats of these phylarchs,
vers. 40-43, follows after the catalogue of the
kings." Keil. — Before there reigned any king
over the children of Israel. — It has been mferred
from tlJs statement, that Genesis, or the part of

Genesis lying before us here, was not composed unti
the time of the kings in Israel. Delitzsch repl.ea ta
this, that the narrator might have inserted this claust
from the stand-point of the promise spoken, e. g. oh.
xvii. 1 and ch. xxxv. 11. Then, indeed, we should
have expected another mode of expression. Bui
how obvious it is to suppose that this phrase is an
interpolation by a later writer ! [" The phrase does
not imply that monarchy began in Israel immediately
after those kings ; nor does it imply that monarchy
had begun in Israel at the time of the writer ; as
Isaac's saying ' that my soul may bless thee before 1
die,' does not imply that he was dead at the time of
his saying so. It simply implies that Israel was ex-
pected to have kings, as Isaac was expected to die."
Murphy. The sentence is in its place, and the sun-
position of any interpolation is needless and there-
fore unwarrantable. — A. G.] But, carefully consid-
ered, this table points back to a very remote time of
the Edomitic kingdom. Leaving out of view the
fact, that usurpations follow each other far more
rapidly than hereditary sovereigns, we must ob-
serve that no one of these kings ever appears else
where, or is in any way involved in the Israelitisl
history. Some have, indeed, supposed that Hadad
the son of Bedad, ver. 35, is identical with the Edom
ite king who rebelled against Solomon (1 Kings xL
14), yet the various distinctions of the two differ
altogether (see Keil, p. 236). Hengstenberg, with
much stronger force, concludes, from the fact that he
is said to have smitten Midian in the field of Moab,
that he must have been nearly a contemporary with
Moses, since at the time of Gideon the Midianitea
disappear from the history. — Bela the son of Beor.
— It is merely an accidental coincidence, that Balaam
also, whose name is related to Bela, is a son of Beor,
although even Jewish expositors have here thought

of Balaam (see Knobel, p. 286). — Of Bozrah An

important city of the Edomites (Is. xxxiv. 6 and
other passages). Knobel thinks that the name has
been preserved in the village Busaireh [see Robin-
son ; "Researches," vol. ii. p. 511 ff. — A. G.]. For
Masrekah and Rehoboth, see Knobel. [Keil holds
that the allusion to the river determines the locality
to be on the Euphrates ; probably it is the Errachabi
or Rachabeh on the Euphrates near the mouth of the
Chaboras. — A. G.] We prefer, however, to seek it
at some small nahar, river, in Edom. — Hadar, 1
Chron. i. 50, erroneously Hadad. — Mezahab. —
Regarded by Knobel as mascuhne, by Keil as femi-
nine, but the former is more probable. [Keil makes
Matred the mother of his wife, and Mi'zahab her
mother. Murphy regards both as masculine nouns.
There is no general rule, other than u.sage, to deter
mine the gender of many Hebrew names, and the
usage is not uniform. See Green's "Grammar,"
§ \'i1. — A. G.] Keil supposes that the last-named
king, Hadar, is the same one with whom Moses
treated for a passage through his land. The theory
that the Pentateuch must be entirely referred to Mo-
ses, probably lies at the basis of this supposition.
The critical history of the Bible, however, cannot
depend upon such conjectures. If we take into ao
count the strong desire in the Edomitic race for do
minion, we may well conjecture that the first usurpa-
tion began soon after the death of Esau's grandsona
" If now," Keil remarks, " we place their death
about two hundred and fifty years before the exoduE
of Israel from Egypt, there would be a period of
two hundred and ninety years before the arrival oi
Israel at the borders of Edom (Numb. xx. 14) ; a

CHAP. XXXVL 1-48.

5n

peiiod long enough for the reigna of the eight kings,
even if the kingdom arose first after the death of
the phylarchs mentioned in vers. 15-18." We may
add, further, that the tables may possibly close with
tht beginning of Hadar's reign, and hence, perhaps,
we have a more detailed account of his family. We
should thus only have to divide the two hundred and
ninety years between the seven kings. An average
of forty years is certainly, however, a very long pe-
riod to assign to a circle of such despotic sovereigns.
[If, however, the kings co-existed with the dukes,
and were elective, chosen probably by these dukes
or phylarchs, and began soon after the death of Esau,
we should have a longer average. The length of
human life at that period would justify the assump-
tion of these longer reigns ; if there is good reason
to believe, as there seems to be, that their reigns
were peaceful, and not violent usurpations. All
these calculations, however, depend upon the length
• of the period of the bondage. — A. G.]

Sixth Section. The permanent tribe-princes, or
the seats of their power, in Edom (vers. 40-43 ; comp.
1 Chron. i. 51-54). It is plain that we have here
the geographical position of the original personal
tribe-princes, recorded under the political provincial
tribe-names, i. e., we have the ethnographic and
geographical divisions of the kingdom of Edom ; and
Keil justly rejects the assertion of Bertheau, that
there follows here a second catalogue of the Edomitic
princes, who perhaps, after the death of Hadar,
" restored the old tribal institution and the heredi-
tary aristocriicy." — After their places, according
to their families, by their names. — After the
names, i. e., which they had formed for their
families and places. Hence many, perhaps the
most, of the old names of princes have passed over
into new names of tribes and localities. — 1. Thim-
nah=Amalek (see vers. 12, 16, and 22).— 2. Al-
wah. — Here the Horitic name Alwan, ver. 23, ap-
pears to have forced its way through the Edomite
dominion. — 3. Jetheth. — 4. AhoUbamah. — Per-
haps the district of the sons of Aholibamah, ver. 2.
Keil is inclined to refer it to the Horite Aholibamah,
ver. 26.-5. Elah. — Reminds us of Elon, ver. 2,
and of Eliphaz his grandson and Esau's son, whose
sons, Omar, Zepho, and Gatam (ver. 11), may per-
haps have gone up into the district of Kenaz. — 6.
Pinon. — 7. Kenaz. — Points back to Kenaz, the son
of Eliphaz, ver. 11. — 8. Theman. — This was the
name of the first son of Eliphaz, ver. 11.— 9. Mlb-
lar. — Goes back, perhaps through Bozra, to a tribe-
prince. The signification of Zepho, ver. 11, is analo-
gous.— 10. Magdiel. — Is perhaps connected with
Manahath, ver. 23.-11. Iram.— " nbx is the sea-
pomt Aila. "ibiS is the same with Phunon, a camp-
ing place of the Israelites (Numb, xxxiii. 43 f.),
celebrated for its mines, to which many Christians
were sent by Diocletian, situated between Petra
and Zoar, northeasterly from Wady Musa (Ritter,
liv. p. 125 ff.). IB-Tl, the capital, iJB^nn yiS ,
ver. 34." Keil. Mibzar might be referred to Petra,
Knobel thinks, since it is a stronghold, but that place
is usually called Selah. — He is Esau The conclu-
sion of the narrative is entirely in accordance with
the Hebrew conception of the personal character
and relations of history. Esau is actually " the
father" and not merely the founder of Edom, as
he lives on in his toledoth. This close of the
toleiloth of EsaL points forward to the toledoth of
Jacib.

37

DOCTEINAL AND ETHIOAL.

1. The sacred history hangs up in the ;reas> re-
house of the Old Testament the tables of the tole-
doth of Esau, not merely because he too received a
blessing from God, and had the promise of a blessing
(Keil), but more especially because he now break?
the band of the theocracy, and passes out of view,
just as it had done with the tables of the nations, and all
the succeeding genealogical tables. God, indeed, per.
mits the heathen to go their own way (Acts xiv. 16 ;
Ps. Ixxxi. 13;, but is mindful of all his children (Acts
XV. 14 f. ; xvii. 26), even those who are in the king,
dom of the dead [but in a different sense, surely
— A. G.] (Luke xx. 38 ; 1 Peter iv. 6), and hence
the people of God, too, preserve their memory in
hope.

2. We may suppose that Edom at first preserved
the patriarchal religion, although in a more external
form. Its vicinity to the tribe of Judah, if it made
any proper use of it, wa« a permanent blessing. The
idolatry of Edom is not referred to frequently even in
later history. The only allusions are 1 Kings xi. 1 ;
ix. 8 ; 2 Chron. xxv. 14. From these intimations we
may infer that Edom declined, to a certain extent,
into heathen, religious darkness, but much more in-
to moral depravity (see Ex. xv. 15, and other pas-
sages). The people of Israel are frequently remind-
ed, however, in the earlier history, to spare Esau's
people, and treat them as brethren (Dent. ii. 4, 5 ; xxiii.
7, 8). It may be remarked, by the way, that these
passages show the early age of Deuteronomy, since
Edom stands in other relations at a later period. The
refined theocratic recollection in Edom, avails so far
as to even awaken and cherish its jealousy of Israel.
And in this respect Edom stands in the relation of
an envious, malicious, and false brother of Israel,
and becomes a type of Antichrist (Obadiah). This,
however, does not exclude the promise of salvation
for the historic Edom, in its individual members
(Isai. xi. 14; Jer. xlix. 17 ff.). We do not read of
any special conversion of Edom to Christianity, per
haps (see, however, Mark iii. 8), because the violent
conversion of Edom to the Jewish faith, under John
Hyrcanus, had first occurred, by which Edom was par-
tially merged into the Jews, and partially amalga-
mated with the Bedouin Arabs. To return back to
Jacob, or to fall away to Ishmael, was the only alter-
native open to Edom.

3. In the Herodian slaughter of the children at
Bethlehem, however, the old thought of Esau, to kill
Jiis brother Jacob, becomes actual in the assault upon
the life of Jesus.

4. The history of the Edomites falls at last into
the history of the Herods. For this history, as for
that of Edom, we may refer to the Bible Dictionaries,
the sources of religious history (Josephus, and
others), and books of travels. [Robinson, "Re-
searches," vol. ii. p. 661 ff. — A. G.]

5. The table here is composed of several tables
which portray, vividly and naturally, the origin of
a kingdom: 1. The period of the tribe-chiel's ; 2.
the period of the pecuhar permanent tribe-princes ;
3. the period of the formation of the kingdom, and
its continued existence upon the basis of permanent
tribe principalities or dukedoms.

8. The Bubjugatiop of the Horites (whom we are
not to regard as savages, merely because they dwelt
in caves) by the Edomites, and the fusicn of both
people jnder an Edomitic kingdom, represents to us

678

GENESIS. OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

vividly the process of the fonnation of a people, as
in a precisely shuilar way it has occurred a hundred
times in the history of the world. In sacred history
we may refer here especially to the rise of the Sa-
maritans, and in later history, to the formation of
the Roman people. The Franks overcame the Gaula
as theEdomites the Horites, although under different
moulding relations. This great forming process is now
taking place under our very eyes in North America.
But these historical growths of a people are the sub-
ject of a special divine providence (Acts xvii. 26).

7. We are here reminded again of the prominent
personal view of all the relations of life in the sacred
Scriptures. At the close of the whole evolution of a
people it is said again : This is Esau. He lives still,
as the father, in the entire people ; stamps even the
Horitic element with his own image.

8. The discovery of the warm springs by Anah,
is an example of human discoveries in their accidental
and providential bearings and significance. [Words-
worth says : There is an important moral in these
generations of JEnau, They show that the families of
the carnal race of this world develop themselves
more rapidly than the promised seed. Ishmael and
Esau come sooner to their possession 'han Isaac and
Jacob. The promised seed is of slow g> » th. It is
like the grain of mustard-seed (Matt. xiii. 31). The
fulfilments of all God's promises, of great blessings
to his people, are always long in coming. But the
kingdoms of this world would soon fade, while the
kingdom of heaven will endure for ever (p. 147, 148).
— A.G.]

HOMTLETIOAIi AlTD PEAOTIOAI,.

Meditations upon this chapter must be connected
with the general declarations as to Esau, e. g., with
Isaac's blessing upon him, with the prophetic pas-
sages relating to Esau, with the history of the Herods,
vrith Acts xvii. 26, or with other New Testament
passages. — The fulfilling of the blessing upon Esau.
— Esau's development. — The ancient and modern
Edom.— How Israel even in later days regarded the
fraternal relation of Edom as sacred.

Starke : This narrative of Esau has, doubtless, its
important uses, partly as it shows how richly God
fulfils his promises (ch. xxv. 23 ; xxvii. 39, 40), partly
as it sets before the descendants of Jacob, how far
the boundaries of Esau's descendants reach, and
partly as thence the Israelites are earnestly forbidden
to encroach upon them (Deut. ii. 4, 6), except in rela-
tion to the Amalekites (Ex. xvii. 14). Moreover,,
there were many pious men among the descendants
of Esau, who were in covenant with God. Observe
how the patriarchal sacrificial service contmued for
a long time among the Edomites, until, after the
exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, the church of
the Edomites gradually declined, etc. (Taken in part
from Rambaoh's " Ecclesiastical History.") Ver. 3.
These names lead one to think of Job's friends. (He
then remarks, that some suppose that Job's friend
Eliphaz descended from this one, while others regard
tho Eliphaz of Job as still older.) View of the Edo-
mitM and of the Amalekites. — (Ver. 24. Mules, ac-

cording lo Luther. The Hebrew word occurs bcl
once in the sacred Scriptures, and is, therefore, more
difficult to explain. The Sept. has formed from it a
man's name; the Chaldee renders it "giants ; " the
Samar. Emim, a race of giants ; in the Arabic some
understand a kind of warm bath ; others, a kind ol
healing drug.) — Ver. 33. This Jobab is held by some,
though without any good reason, as the same with Job,
— OsiANDEE : The kingdom of Christ alone endure
and is eternal ; the other kingdoms and sovereign
ties, which are of this world, are subject to fre-
quent changes, and, indeed, decay and perish (Ps.
Ixxxix. 3, 4). Whatever rises rapidly disappears
rapidly also (Ps. xxxvii. 35 f ). Lanqe : Jacob, not
less than Abraham and Isaac, was a type of Christ:
1. According to the promise, the lord over all
Canaan, but he had nothing of his own there but
the parcel of the field which he bought at Shechem.
Thus, Christ also is the Lord of the whole world,
etc. ; 2. Jacob a great shepherd, Christ the chief
shepherd ; 3. Jacob's long service for Rachel and
Leah, Christ in the form of a servant and his ser-
vice ; 4. Jacob gained two herds, Christ the Jew*
ami Gentiles ; 5. Jacob a prophet, priest, and king,
the three offices of Christ ; C. Jacob's • wrestling,
and Christ's agony and struggle; 7. Jacob lame
in his thigh, Christ and tlie prints of the nails and
spear ; 8. Jacob left behind him twelve patriarchs,
Christ the twelve apostles. Gkri.ach : Calvin's re-
marks. We must here remember, that those sep-
arated from God's covenant rise quickly and de-
cay rapidly, like the grass upon the house-tops,
which springs up quickly and soon withers be-
cause it has no depth of earth and roots. Both
of Isaac's sons have the glorious promise that
kings shall come from them ; now they appear first
among the Edomites, and Israel seems to be set
aside. But the course of the history shows how
much better it is first to strike the roots deep in-
to the earth, than to receive immediately a tran-
sitory glory which vanishes away in a moment.
The believer, therefore, while he toils slowly on-
wards, must not envy the rapid and joyful pro-
gress of others, for the permanent prosperity and
blessedness promised to him by the Lord is of
far greater value. — Schroder ; (Ranke :) The Is-
raelites also were to be encouraged in their con-
test, through the conspicuous victory which the
Edomites in earlier times had obtained over the
numerous tribes of Seir. (Baumgarten :) This exter-
nal glory in the very beginning of Esau's history,
stands in striking contrast to the simple relations
in the family of Jacob, but corresponds perfectly
with the whole previous course of our history,
which, from the beginning, assigns worldly power
and riches to the line which lies beyond the cove-
nant and union with God, while it sets forth the
humility and retiring nature in the race chosen by
God. — In later history, the kingdom among the
Edomites appears to have been hereditary (1 Kings
xi. 14). — Ver. 43. (Baumgarten :) We may ex
plain the fact that only eleven names are found
here, while there are fourteen above, upon thi
supposition that some of the seats of power em
braced more than one princely fimil;.

CHAP. XXXVIL 1-36. 57^

THIRD PERIOD.

The Genesis of the People of Israel in Egypt from the Twelve Branches of Israel
or the History of Joseph and his Brethren. Joseph the Patriarch of the Faith
dispensation through Humiliation and Exaltation. — Ch. XXXVII. 1 — L.

FIRST SECTION.

Jatob^s incorm4p.rate fondness for Joseph, JoseplCs dreams. His brothers' envy. Joseph sold

into Egypt.

Chapter XXXVII. 1-36.

1 And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of

2 Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph being seventeen years old, waa
feeding the flock with his brethren ; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with
the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives : and Joseph brought unto his father their evil

3 report.' Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son
of his old age''; and he made him a coat of many colors' [a beautiful robe, oh. xxvii. 15],

4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they

5 hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream,

6 and he told it to his brethren : and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto

7 them. Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed : For, behold, we were
binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright ; and,

8 behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And hia
brethren said unto him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have
dominion over us ? and they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.

9 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold, I have
dreamed a dream more ; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made

10 obeisance unto me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren ; and his father

rebuked him, and said unto him. What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I

and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the

U earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed [kept, preserved] the say-

12, 13 ing. And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said

unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and .Twill send thee

14 unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. And he said to him. Go, I pray thee,
see whether it be -well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word

15 again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. And a
certain man found him, and, behold, he vjas wandering in the field : and the man asked

16 him, saying. What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray

17 thee, where they feed their flocks. And the man said, They are departed hence; for T
heard them say. Let us go to Dothan [the two wellB]. And Joseph went after h:8

18 brethren, and found them in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, even before

19 he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And tliey said one

20 to another. Behold, this dreamer [man of dreanm] cometh. Come now, therefore, and lei
as slay him, and cast him into some pit ; and we will say. Some evil beast liath de-

21 \roured him : and we wiU see what will become of his dreams. And Eeuben board it

580

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

and he delivered him [sought to deliver] out of their hands ; and he said, Let us E >t kill him,

22 And Keuben said unto them. Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the
wilderness, and lay no hand upon him ; that he might rid him out of their hands, to

23 deliver him to his father again. And it came to pass, wnen Joseph was come unto hi?
brethren, that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that vjas

24 on him. And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was

25 no water in it. And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and
looKed, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites [acaraTan] came from tiilead, with their
camels bearing spices [tragakanth-gum], and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down tc

26 Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is i« if we slay our brother,

27 and conceal his blood ? Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our
hand be upon him ; foi He is our brother, and our flesh. And his brethren were content.

28 Then there passed by Midianites, merchantmen ; and they drew and lifted up Joseph
out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaehtes for twenty pieces of silver : and they

29 brought Joseph unto Egypt. And Keuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph

30 was not in the pit : and he rent his clothes. And he returned unto his brethren, and

31 said, The child is not; and I, whither sliall I go? And they took Joseph's coat, and

32 killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood. And they sent the coat of
many colors and they brought it to their father; and said, Ttiis have we found ; know

33 now whether it be thy son's coat or no. And h*. knew it, and said, It is my son's coat

34 an evil beast hath devoured him ; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces. And Jacob
rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.

35 And all his sons, and all his daughters, rose up to comfort him ; but he refused to be
comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave [sbeoi] * unto my son mourn-

36 ing. Thus his father wept for him. And the Midianites sold him into Egypt, unto

Potiphar [Septuagint: nereijip^s, belongingtothesuil], an of&cer of Pharaoh's [king; Leprius: sun],

and captain of the guard.

' ^ Ver. 2. — nr^ DDS'n . LXX., 4i6yQv Trovtipov ; Yulgate, more strongly, accusavit fratres suos apud patrem crimine

pessimo. From *^"1 , an onomatope {^ctabaJj — dab— dabble), denoting a ligUt, oft-repeated sound (tap-tap), or motion, like

oi ^
the Arabic i^j^^ leniter incessit, re.pLavit. In either way the noun n2^ would come to mean a rumor whispered, or

creeping round. It does not mean that Joseph made accusations against them, as the Vulgate has it, but that, in boyish
simplicity, he repeated what he had heard about them. The root 3^*1 occurs only Cant. vii. 10, where Gesenius gives It
the sense oi lightly flowing, which hardly seems consistent with the radical idea of repetition. The light motion of the
lips, like one muttering, or faintly attempting to speak in sleep, as our translators have given it, is more in accordance
with the rature of the root.— T. L.]

[2 Ver. 3. — C^Sp] l^ . Rendered, son of his old age, ■n)Ai;7eT09. But, as Maimonides well remarks, this could net
have been the case with Joseph in a degree much exceeding the relation to the father of Issachar and Zebulon. Ho
thinks, therefore, that he was so called, not because he was late bom, but because he stayed at home, and thus became his
fe-ther's principal stay and support — " as is the custom of old men to retain one s<m, in this manner, whether the youngest
or not — '.^DIpTb r^ w"* *1-"3 — that is, be to him -jajporpoi^oj or yrj/Do^ocrjcds, as the Greeks called it." In this view the
plural form would be intensive, denoting extreme old age, to which the other places where the form occurs would well
agree. Gen. xxi. 2, 7 ; xliv. 20. After Joseph, lienjamin pei-formed this duty. The Targum of Onkelos seems to have had
something ofthis kind in view, when it renders it nb □"^Dn "1", hiswiseson — his earful son, who provided for him. — T.L,]

[3 Ver. 3. — C^QD rSflS, coat of many colors, — rather, coai of pieces. The context shows that it was something
beautiful and luxurious ; the other passage where it occurs, 2 Sam. xiii. 18, shows that it may denote a garment foi
either sex, and the plural form indicates variety of construction or material. The primary sense of the root, ODD ,
is diminution, not diffusion, as Geseniua says (see H&D). This is inferred from the use of DSX for something small, as
the end or extremity of anything, and the parallelism of the verb, Ps. xii. 2,— a garment distiilguiBhed for small epoU,
stripes, or fringes — 1. L.]

\* Ver. 35. — On the etymology of bixiT see Excursus, p. 585 sqq. — T. L.]

GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

1. It is to be noted her^ in the first place, that the
history of Joseph is amplified beyond that of any
«f the patriarchs hitherto. This is explained by the
contact wliich Joseph's transportation gives rise to
between the Hebrew spirit and the Egyptian culture
and literature. A trace of this may be found in
the history of Abraham ; for after Abraham had been
in Egypt, his history becomes more full. Vth the
memnrabilia of Joseph connects itself th i ocount

of Moses, who was educated in all the different
branches of Egyptian learning, whilst this again
points to Samuel and the schools of the prophets.

2. Knobel regards Joseph's history as having grown
out of the ori^al Elohistic text connected with s
later revision (p. 288). He supposes, however, in
this case, two halves, wnich, taken separately, have
no significance. That Joseph was sold into Egypt, ac-
cording to the supposed original text, can only be
explained rom the fact mentioned in the supposed
additions, that he had incurred the hatred of tit

CHAP. XXXVII. 1-36.

58

brethren by reason of his aspiring dreams. Reu-
ben's proposition to cast Joseph into the pit, and
« bict aimed at ids presei-vation, was not added until
ifterwards, it is said. Even Joseph's later declara-
tion: 1 was stolen from the country of the Hebrews,
18 regarded as making a difference. Dehtzsch, too,
adopts a combination of different elements, without,
however, recognizing the contradictious raised by
Knobel (p. 517). He presents, also, as a problem
difficult of solution, the usage of the divine names in
this last period of Genesis. In ch. xxxviL no name
of God occurs, but in ch. xxxviii. it is Jehovah that
slays Judah's sons, as also, in ch. xxxix., it is Jeho-
vah that blesses Joseph in Potiphar's house, and in
person ; as recognized by Potiphar himself. Only
in ver. 9 we find Elohim, — the name Jehovah not
being here admissible. From ch. xl. onward, the
name Jehova'i disappears. It occurs but once be-
tween ch. xl. and 1., as in eh. xlix. 18, when Jacob
uses it: "I have waited for thy salvation, Jehovah."
For different interpretations of this by Keil, Drechs-
ler, Hengstenberg, Baumgarten, and Delitzsch, see
Delitzsch, p. 516. The three last agree in this, that
the author of Genesis, in the oft-repeated Elohim,
wished here to mark more emphatically, by way of
contrast, the later appearance of the Jehovah-
period, Exod. iii. 6. This would, indeed, be a very
artificial way of writing books. The riddle must
find its solution in actaaf relations. The simple ex-
planation is, that in the history of a Joseph, which
stands entirely upon an Elohistio foundation, this
name Elohim predominantly occurs. Joseph is the
Solomon of the patriarchal times.

3. The generations of Jacob connect themselves
irith those of Esau. Delitzsch justly remarks, p.
611, that the representation which follows (ch.
ixxvii. to ch. 1,), was intended to be, not a mere his-
tory of Joseph, but a history of Jacob in his sons.
Otherwise Judah's history, ch. xxxviii., would appear
as an interpolation. The twelve sons of Jacob con-
stitute Israel's new seed. The latter fact, of coarse,
has the stronger emphasis. The generations of
Jacob are the history and successioDS of his poster-
ity— that is, his living on in his posterity, just as
Adam's tholedoth. Gen. v. 1, represent the history of
Adam, not personally, but historically, in his descend-
ants.

4. Joseph's history is considered in a triple rela-
tion ; aa the history of the genesis of the Israelitish
people in Egypt ; as an example of a special provi-
dence, such as often brings good out of evil, as ex-
emplified in the book of Job ; and as a type of the
fundamental law of God in guiding the elect from
suffering to joy, fj-om humiliation to exaltation — a
law already indicated in the Ufe of Noah, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, but which, henceforth, develops it-
self more and more (especially in the history of
David), to terminate, at last, in the life of Jesus, as
presenting the very sublimity of the antithesis. Hence
the appearance, in our history, of individual types
representing the New-Testament history of Jesus,
such as the jealousy and hatred of Joseph's brethren,
the fact of his being sold, the fulfilment of Joseph's
prophetic dreams in the very efforts intended to pre-
rent his exaltation, the turning of his brothers' wick-
ed plot to the salvation of many, even of themselves,
and of the house of Jacob, the spiritual sentence
pronounced on the treachery of the brethren, the
rictory of pardoning love, Judah's suretyship for
Benjamin, his emulating Joseph in a spirit of re-
leeming resignation, Jacob's joyful reviving on hear-

ing of the life and glory of his favorite son, whoa
he had believed to be dead.

Concerning Israel's genesis in Egypt, Delitzsch
remarks : " According to a law of divine providences,
to be found not only in the Old Testament, but also
in the New (?), not the land of the promise, but a
foreign country, is the place where the Church is
born, and comes to maturity. This foreign country,
to the Old-Testament Church, is the land of Egypt.
To go before his people, to prepare a place for them,
is Joseph's high vocation. Sold into Egypt, he opens
the way thither to the house of Jacob, and the same
country where he matures to manhood, where he suf-
fers in prison, and attains to glory, becomes, to hia
fiimily, the land where it comes to the maturity of a
nation, — the land of its servitude, and of its re-
demption. Thus far Joseph's history is the overture
of Jacob's history — a type of the way of the Church ;
not of Jehovah only, but of Christ in his progress
from humiliation to exaltation, from subjection to
freedom, from sufferings to glory." See Matt. ii. 15 ;
Hosi^a xi. 1. Israel's riches of election and endow-
ment are to be developed by contact with different
heathen nations, and especially with Egypt. Just aa
Christianity, the completed revelation of the now
covenant, developed itself formally for the world, by
its reciprocal intercourse with a Graeco-Romanio
culture, thus was it also with the faith of the old
coveniint in its reciprocal intercourse with the old
Egyptian world-culture, as shown especially in the
history of Joseph, Moses, and Solomon who became
the son-in-law of one of the Pharaohs. More prom-
inently does this appear, again, in the histoiy of Alex-
andrian Judaism ; in which, however, the interchange
of influence with Egypt becomes, at the same time,
one with that of the whole t>rient, and of Greece.

The key of Joseph's history, as a history of prov-
idence, is clearly found in the declaration made by
him ch. xlv. 5-8, and ch. 1. 20. The full explanation,
however, of its significance, is found in the history
of Christ as funiisliiiig its perfect fulfilment. Pcp'
mission of evil, counteraction and modification
of evil, frustration of its tendency, its conver-
sion into good, victory over evil, destruction of evil,
and reconciliation of the evil themselves, — these are
the forces of a movement here represented in its
most concrete and most powerful relations. The
evil is conspiracy, treachery, and a murderous plot
agiiinat their innocent brother. The conversion of
it is of the noblest kind. The plot to destroy Jo-
seph is the occasion of his greatest glorification.
But as God's sentence against the trembling con-
scious sinner is changed into grace, so also the tri-
umph of pardoning love overcoming hatred becomes
conspicuous as a glorious omen in Joseph's fife.

" Inasmuch," sijs Delitzsch, " as Israel's history
is a typical history of Christ, and Christ's history the
typical history of the Church, so is Joseph a type of
Christ himself What he suffered from his brethren,
and which God's decree turned to his own and hia
nation's salvation, is a type of Christ's sufferings_,
caused by his people, but which God's decree turneq
to the salvation of the world, including, finally, the
salvation of Israel itself" Says Pascal (Pensees, il
9, 2) : " Jesus Christ is typified in Joseph, the be-
loved of his father, sent by his father to his brethren,
the innocent one sold by his brethren for twenty pie-
ces of silver, and then becoming their Lord, tlieii
Saviour, the saviour of those who were aliens to
Israel, the saviour of the world, — all which would
not have been if thev had not cheiished the desigi

582

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK '.F MOSES.

o£ destroying him — if they had not sold and rejected
him. Joseph, the innocent one, in prison with two
malefactors — Jesus on the cross between two thieves ;
Joseph predicts favoi-ably to the one, but death to
the other ; Jesus saves the one, whilst he . leaves the
other in condemnation. Thus has the Church ever
regarded Joseph's history." Already is this inti-
mated in the Gospels. What Pascal here says, and
IS is also held by the fathers, e. g.. Prosper Aqui-
tanus, rfp Promissionibns et Praediciionibus Dei, is
but a brief statement of the pious thoughts of all
believers, iu the contemplation of the history. It is
this whichi imparts to the wonderful typical light here
presented its irresistible charm.

When, however, Joseph is made the exclusive
centre of our history, and the patriarchal type of
Christ (KuaTz, "History of the Old Testament," i.
p. 343), Keil presents, in opposition, some most im-
portant considerations. It is, indeed, no ground of
difference (as presented by him), that Joseph became
formally naturalized in Egypt; for Christ, too, was
delivered to the heathen, and died out of the camp.
Nor does it make any important difference that Jo-
seph received no special revelations of God at the
court of Pharaoh, as Daniel did at the court of
Nebuchadnezzar ; tlie gift of interpreting dreams he
also, like Daniel, referred back to God. Of greater
importance is the remark that Joseph is nowhere, in
the Scriptures themselves, presented as a type of
Clirist ; yet we must distinguish between verbal
references and real relations, such as might be indi-
cated in Zach. xi. 12, and in Chiisfs declaration that
one of his disciples should betray him. There is,
however, a verbal reference in Stephen's speech.
Acts vii. 9. There is no niistiiking the fact that the
Messianic traces in our narrative are shared both
by Joseph and Judah. Judah appears great and no-
ble throughout the history of Joseph ; the instance,
however, in which he is wilhng to sacrifice iiimself
to an unlimited servitude for Benjamin, makes him
of equal dignity with Joseph. So in Aljraham's sac-
rifice, the Messianic typical is distributed between
him and Isaac. Joseph's glory is preeminently of a
prophetic kind ; the weight of a- priestly voluntary
self-sacrifice inclines more to the side of Judah.
Benjamin, too, has his Messianic ray ; for it is espe-
cially on his account that the brethren may appear
before Joseph in a reconciling liglit. On Hili.er's
" Typological Contemplation of Joseph," see Keil,
p. 242. Meinertzhagen, in his "Lectures on the
Christology of the Old Testament" (p. 204), treats
of the typical significance of /oseph with great ful-
ness. It is also to be noted that ever afterwards
Benjamin appears theooratically and geographically
connected with Judah.

5. The disposition of Joseph's history, and the
tettlement of the IsraeUtes in Egypt, as well as its
^elation to the Hyksos of whom Josepuus speaks
(contra Apion, i. 14), in an extract from Manetho's
history, presents a question of great historical inter-
est (see DELiTzacn, p. 518). The extract concerning
the Hyksos has a mythical look. Still darker are
other things which Josephus gives us from Manetho
and Cliffiremon {contra Ap., i. 26, 32). Different
views : 1) The Hyksos and the Israelites are iden-
tical ; so Manetho, Josephus, Hugo Grotius, Hof-
mann, Knobel (p. 301), and, in a modified form,
Soyfiarth, Uhlemann. 2) The Hyksos are distinct
from the Israelites ; they were another Shemitic
tribe — Arabians, or Phcenicians ; so Cunaeus, Scal-
iger, etc. This view, says DeUtzsch, is now Ihe pre-

vailing one. So also Ewald, Lepsius, Saalacb iit,
but with different combinations. On these see De.
LiTzscH, p, 521. 3) The Hyksos were Scythians;
so Champollion, Rossellini. The first view is op-
posed by the fact that the Israelites founded no
dynasties in Egypt, as did the Hyksos ; nor did they
exist there under shepherd-kings, as the name Hyksoa
has been interpreted. Against the second view De-
litzach insists that the people of Egypt, into whosj
servitude Israel fell, appear as a people foreign to
them, and by no means as one connected with them.
The Shemitic idea, however, is so extended, that
we cannot always suppose a theocratic element along
with it. The most we can say is, that the Hyksos,
who, no doubt, were a roving band of conquerors,
came from Syria, or the countries lying north and
east beyond Palestine. In the Egyptian tradition,
their memory seems to have been so mingled with
that of the Israelites, thit it would seem almost im-
possible to separate the historical element from such
a mixture. Since, however, the Israelitish history
seems more obscured by that of the Hyksos than
contradicted, it may be regarded as more probable
that the latter came latest. The pressure of the
Israelites upon the Canaanites, from the east, may
have driven them in part to the south ; and the
weakening of Egypt by the destruction of Pharaoh
and his army, forty years before, might have favored
a conquest. The chronological adjustment, however,
must be left to itself For a fuller treatment of
this subject, see E. Bohmer, " The First Book of the
Thora" (HaUe, 1862); appendix, p. 205, etc. Accord-
ing to Lepsius, the appearance of the Hyksos in
Egypt preceded the history of Joseph. At all events,
this dim tradition bears testimony to the Israelitish
history in many particulars (e. g., that they founded
Jerusalem in Judea). On the full confirmation of
Joseph's history by Greek historians and by Egyp-
tian monuments, compare Delitzsoh, p. 524, etc.;
Hengstenbeeg, " The Pentateuch and Egypt," Ber-
lin, 1841.

6. The history of Israel's settlement in Egypt ex-
tends through the sections that follow : 1) The corrup-
tion in Jacob's house, the dispersion of his sons, the
loss of Joseph (ch. xxxviii.-xxxix.). 2) Joseph's
elevation, and the reconciliation and gathering of hia
brethren (ch. xl.-l.). 3) Israel's transplantation to
Egypt (ch. xlvi.-xlvii. 26). 4) The keeping of the
divine promise, and the longing of Israel to return
home to Canaan (ch. xlvii. 27-ch. 1.).

EXEGETICAL AIJD CEITICAIi.

Contents : The conspiracy of Jacob's sons against
their brother Joseph, considered in its awful dark-
ness, or the deep commotion and apparent destruc-
tion of Jacob's house : 1. The occasion (vers. 1-11);
2. the opportunity, and the plot of murder (vers.
12-20); 3. Reuben's attempt to rescue ; 4. Judah'a
effort to save, unknowingly crossing that of Reuben
(vers. 26-27) ; 6. the crime, the beginning of mourn-
ing, the hiding of guilt (vers. 28-32); 6. Jacob's
deep grief, and Joseph apparently lost (vers. 33-36),

1. The occasion (vers. 1-11). — In the land of

Oanaan It seems to have been made already hia

permanent home, but soon to assume a different ap
pearance. — The generations (see above). — Joseph
being seventeen years old. — A statement verj
important in respect both to the present oc(iurrcnc»
and the future history. In ch. xli. 46, he is men

CHAP. XXXVII, 1-

fts;.

tioned as thirty yeara old. His sufflferings, therefore,
lasted about thirteen years. At this age of seventeen
he became a shepherd with his brethren. Jacob
did not send his favorite sou too early to the herds ;
vet, though the favorite, he was to begin to serve be-
low the rest, as a shepherd-boy. At this age, how-
ever, Josepli had great naVveness and simplicity. He
therefore imprudently tells his dreams, lilie au inno-
cent child. On the other hand, however, he was
very sedate ; he was not enticed, therefore, by the
evil example of some of his brethren, but considered
it his duty to inform his father. — And the lad was
triththe sons of Bilheth. — For the sons of Bilhah
Rachel's servant stood nearer to him, while those of
Leah were most opposed. He brought to his father
nsn DPj"! nx, translated by Keil, evil reports con-
cerning them. A direct statement of their offences
would doubtless have been differently expressed.
They were an offence to those living in the vicinity.
This determined him to inform his father, but it does
not exclude a conviction of his own. It is inadmis-
sible to refer this to definite sins (as, e. g., some
have thought of unnatural sins). That the sons of
the concubines surpassed the others in rude conduct,
is easily understood. Joseph's moral earnestness is,
doubtless, the first stumbling-block to his brethren,
whilst it strengthens his father in his good opinion.
The beautiful robe was the second offence. It is
called G^BS P?r3, "an outer garment of ends,"
which extends, like a gown, to the hands and the
ancles. The Septuagint, which Luther's translation
follows, renders it " a coat of many colors." Comp.
2 Sam. xiii. 18. Th§ common tunic extended only
to the knees, and was without arms. Already this
preference, whfch seemed to indicate that Jacob in-
tended to give him the right of the first-born, aroused
the hatred of his brethren. One who hates cannot
greet heartily the one v/ho is hated, nor talk with
him frankly and peaceably. In addition to this, Jo-
seph, by his dreams and presages (though not yet a
prudent interpreter), was pouring oil upon the flames.
At all events, the n:n (lo), as repeated in his narra-
tion, shows that he had a presentiment of something
great. Both dreams are expressive of his future ele-
vation. In Egypt he becomes the fortunate sheaf-
binder whose sheaf " stood up " du.ing the famine.
The second dream confirms the first, whilst present-
ing the further thought : even the sun and moon —
that is, accordmg to Jacob's interpretation, even his
father and his mother — were to bow before him. Ra-
chel died some time before this. On this account
the word mother has been referred to Bilhah, or to
Benjamin as representing Rachel, or else to Leah.
The brethren now hated him the more, not merely
as recognizing in his drenms the suggestions of am-
bition, but with a mingled feeling, in which there was
not wanting a presentiment of his possible exalta-
tion— as their declaration, ver. 20, betrays. In Ja-
cob's rebuke we perceive also mingled feelings.
There is dissent from Joseph's apparently pretentious
prospects, a fatherly regard toward the mortified
brethren, yet, withal, a deeper presentiment, that
caused him to keep these words of Joseph in his
heart, as Mary did those of the shepherds. As the
naivete of the shepherd-boy was evidence of the
truthfulness of these dreams, so the result testifies
to the higher origin of a divine communication, con-
ditioned, indeed, by the hopefully presageful life of
Joseph. These dreams were probably intended to
luatain Joseph during his thirteen years of wretch-

edness, and, at the same time, to prepare him to b«
an interpreter. The Zodiac, as here brought in bj
Knobel, has no significance, nor the custom of placing
a number of sheaves together.

2. ITie opportunity and th". plot of murder (vera

12-20). — In Shechem There is no ground foi

supposing another Shechem, as some have done, on
account of what had formerly occurred there. It ia
more hkely that Jacob's sons courageously returned
to the occupation of the parcel of land formerly ac-
quired by them. This very circumstance, however,
may have so excited the anxiety of the cautious
parent that he sent Joseph after them. That Joseph
could have lost his way at Shechem is easily ex-
plained, since he was so young when his father lived
there. — In Dothan. — The Septuagint has Aubaela,
Judith iv. 6 ; vii. 3 ; viii. 3 ; Aoj^aV. 2 Kings vi. 13,
Dothan. It was a place above Samaiia, towards the
plain of Jezreel, according to Josephus and Hierony-
mus. " Thus it was found by Robinson and Smith
in their journey of 1852, and also by Van de Velde,
in the southeast part of the plain of Jabud, west of
Genin. It is a beautiful green dell, always called
Dothan, at whose south foot a fountain rises." De-
litzsch. Through the plain of Tell-Dothan a high-
way passes from the northwest to Ramleh and Egypt.

— 'They conspired against him That Reuben

and Judah were not concerned in this, is plain from
what follows. — This dreamer cometh. — Spoken
contemptuously — master of dreams, dream-man.
The word nifcfl does not express contempt of itself,
as is seen from ch. xxiv. 65, the only other place in
which it occurs. It denotes something unexpected
and remarkable. — Into some pit. — Cisterns (see
Winer : wells). — And we shall see. — They
thought by their fratricide surely to frustrate his ex-
altation— a. proof that his dreams alarmed them ; but
by this very deed, as controlled by God's providence,
they bring it about.

3. Reuben'' s artful aitetnpt at saving (vers. 21-
24). The text states directly that Reuben made his
proposition in order to save Joseph. Knobel, by a
frivolous criticism, would foist a contradiction upon
the text, namely, that Reuben made the proposition
in order to let him perish in the pit ; since a blood-
less destruction of life seems to have been regarded
as less criminal than a direct killing. But, then, the
Reviser must have imparted to Reuben's proposition
a different interpretation, by .means of an addition.
Reuben, it is true, had to express himself in such a
way that the brothers might infer his intention to let
him perish in the pit ; but this was the only way to
gain their consent. — They stripped Joseph out
of his coat. — The object of their jealousy and their

wrath. — And the pit ■was empty So that he did

not perish. His cries for mercy they remembered
many years afterwards (ch. xli. 21).

4. Judah's bold attempt to save him (vers. 25-27).

And they sat down. — Through this apparent

insensibility their inward agony is betrayed; it ap-
pears in their agitated looking out, so that they espy
the Ishmaelites already at a great distance. — And
behold, a company of Ishmaelites. — A caravan,
nmS (Job vi. 19). " This caravan (as Robinson's
description shows) had crossed the Jordan at Beisan,
and followed the highway that led from Beisan 'and
Zerin to Ramleh and Egypt, entering the plain of
Dothan west of Genin," Delitzsoh. In vers. 25,
27, and 28, the merchants are called IshmaeUtes,
whilst in the first part of ver. 28 they are styled

584

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Midianites, and in ver. 36 Medanites. Knobel, of
course, regards them as diffeient traditions (p. 29x).
Ver 28, liowever, would seem to tell us that the Ish-
maelites were the proprietors of the caravan, which
was made up, for the most part, of Midianitish peo-
ple. In a similar manner, probably, as Esau made
a number of the Horites subject to him, so had the
Ishmaelites also brought under them a number of
the Midianites. One hundred and fifty years, the
time that had elapsed since Ishmael's departure from
Abraham, would give a sufficient increase ibr this
(see Keil, p. 244). As merchants, they were trans-
porting costly products of their country to Egypt.
G>im-tragacanth is found in Syria; the balm of
Gilead was especially renowned, and was sold to
Phoenicia and Egypt ; ladanum (myrrh), or the fra-
grant rose of the cistua, is found in Arabia and Syria,
as well as in Palestine (see Schubert, iii. p. 114 and
174). Concerning the cisterns, or the artificially
prepared reservoirs of rain-water, see the Diction-
aries and geographical works. They might be full
of water, or have mire at the bottom, or be entirely
dry. They were frequently used as prisons (see Jer.
xxxviii. 6; xl. 15). Schroder: "On his way to
Damascus, Robinson found Khan Jubb Jilsuf (a kind
of inn), the khan of Joseph's pit, so called after a
well connected with it, and which for a long time,
both among Christians and Mohammedans, was re-
garded as tlie cistern into which Joseph was thrown."
— And Judah said. — " Then Judah began to use
the language of a hypocritical self-interest," says De-
litzsch. This, however, seems to be not at all justified
by Judah's after-history. It must be presupposed
that Judah was unacquainted with Reuben's inten-
tion. The brethren were so much excited that Ju-
dah alone could not have hoped to rescue Joseph
from thei?- hand. The ferocity, especially, of Simeon
and Levi, is known to us from former history. Ju-
dah, therefore, could thmk no otherwise than that
Joseph must die from hunger in the pit. As in op-
position to this, therefore, and not as a counteraction
of Reuben's attempt at deliverance, is his proposal
to be judged. He hved still, though a slave. There
w as a possibility of his becoming free. He might
make his escape by the caravan routes that passed
south through his home. Reuben, in his tenderness,
had made a subtle attempt to save him. In the
bolder policy of Judah we see that subtle attempt
crossed by one more daring. No doubt both had
some ill-feeling towards Joseph, and were, therefore,
not capuble of a mutual and open understanding.
That both, however, preserved a better conscience
than the rest, is evident from the later history. The
unity of our story is not disturbed by Knobel's re-
mark, " that a further tradition is given, Euseb.
Prwp. Evang., ix. 23, to the effect that, in order to
escape the snares of his brethren, Joseph besought
Arabians, who were near, to take him along with
them to Egypt ; which they did ; so that, in this
way, are the patriarchs still more exculpated."
What Joseph says of himself afterwards, that he
nai stolen out of the land of the Hebrews (ch. xl.
16), does not contradict our narration. Was he to
■ell to the Egyptians the crime of his brethren ?

6. Vers. 28-32. The crime, the beginning of
nonrnv g, and the concealment of Ike guilt. —
Twenty pieces of silver. — Comp. ch. xx. 16.
Twenty shekels of silver was the compensation that
Moses appointed for a boy from five to twenty years
old (Lev. xxvii. 5), whilst the average price of a
slave Has thirty shekels (Exod. xxi. 32). — And

Reuben returned unto the pit. — His absencj
may easily be accounted for : it was impossible fo/
him to eat with his brethren in his then state of
mmd ; and he probably resorted to solitude to think
out a plan of deliverance — And he rent his
clothes. — The later custom (Matt. xxri. 65) origin-
ally sprung from vivid emotions of sorrow, — the
rending as an expression of inward distraction. Af-
terwards came this rending of garments upon the
others (ch. xliv. 13). — And I, -whither shall Igql
— Not only as the first-born was he especially re-
sponsible for the younger brother, but his tender
feeUngs for him, and for the unhappy father, made
him the bearer of the agony of the guilty confede-
racy ; and this to such a degree that he knew not
what to do. — And they took Joseph's coat. —
One transgression gives birth to another. With the
consciousness that tried to conceal their guilt, there
mingles the old grudge concerning the coat of many
colors, which here turns itself even against the fa-
ther. Doubtle-'S, in some degree, they thought them-
selves justified in the thought that the father had
;;iven them cause of irritation by providing such a
coat for Joseph. Reuben and Judah are, moreover,
burdened by tlie ban of silence.

6. Jacob's deep grief, and JosepVn appnrent loss
(vers. 33-36). — It is my son's coat. — Their decep.
tioii succeeded. In his agony he does not discover
the fraud ; the sight of the blood-d3'ed garment led
him to conclude : Surely an evil beast hath torn Jo-
seph, and devoured him. — Sackcloth The sign of

the deepest mourning (see Winer : Trauer-sack ).

— And mourned for his sou Retaining also his

garment of mourning. — And- all his sons.— The
criminals a'i comforters ! — And all his daughters.
— From this there arises the probability that Jacob
had other daughters than Dinah, though the dauo-h-
ter.i-in-law may be so called. — For I ivill go down.
— The "S is elliptical, implying, nothing can comfort

me. for, etc. — Mourning unto my son There is,

doubtless, something more here than grief merely
for the loss; there is also self-reproach for having
exposed the child to such danger. — Into the grave
(sheol). — In this mournful mood of Jacob does this
word sheol first occur. It was not the world beyond
the grave considered as the gathering to the fathers,
but the dark night of death and mourning. 'There
are various derivations of this word. One that easily
suggests itself is that which marks it from bsir , to
demand — that place which inexorably demands all
men back (Prov. xxx. 15; Is. v. 14; Heb. ii. 6).
[See Excursus below, especially p. 586 sq. — T. L.]
Ver. 36. The word 0''1D , according to its original
significance, denotes an eunuch ; its later and more
general interpretation is co7ir;ier. — Captain of the
guard. — Literally a slayer, that is, an executioner
(see 2 Kings xxv. 8; Jer. xxxix. 9). For p.irticulars,
see Delitzsoh, p. 631. On the chronology as con-
nected with the remark that Joseph was sold when
he was seventeen years old, see also Delitzsch, p.
532. Joseph's history here suffers an interruption
by the insertion of an incident in the life of Judah.
Ch. xxxviii. Delitzsch ascribes this to literary art
on the part of the author, but of that we may doubt.
It is, of itself, just the time that we should expect to
learn something more about Judah.

[Note on Genesis^ xxxtii. 35. The Primititi
Conception of Sheol. — This 's the first place ic
which the word occurs, and it ',s very important W

CHAP. XXXVn. 1-8B,

588

trace, as far as we can, the earliest conception, or
rather emotion, out of which it arose. "I will go
down to my son mourning to Sheol," — towards Sheol,
or, on the way to Sheol, — the reference being to the
decline of Ufe terminating in that unknown state,
place, or condition of being, so called. One thing
is clear : it was not a state of not-being, if we may
use so paradoxical an expression. Jacob was going
to his sou i he was still his sou ; there is yet a tie
between him and his father; he is still spoken of
as a personality ; he is still regarded as having a
being somehow, and somewhere. Compare 2 Sam.
xii. 23, Tibx ~in i:N , "/ am going to Aim, but
he shall not return to me." The him and the me in
this case, like the / and the my son in Genesis, are
alike personal. In the earliest language, where all
is hearty, such use of the pronoun could have been
no unmeaning figure. The being of the one who
has disappeared is no less real than that of the one
who remains still seen, still found* to use the Shem-
itjc term for existence, or out-being, as a known and
visible state (see note, p. 273). The LXX have ren-
dered it here 6is°A5ou, into Hades; the Vulgate, ad
jUium meum in infemuTn. It was not to his son in
his grave, for Joseph had no grave. His body was
supposed to be lying somewhere in the desert, or
torn in pieces, or carried off, by the wild beasts (see
ver. 33). To resolve it all into figurative expressions
for the grave would be simply carrying our meaning-
less modem rhetoric into ancient forms of speech
employed, in their first use, not for the reflex paint-
ing, but- for the very utterance of emotional concep-
tions. However indefinite they may be, they are too
mournfully real to admit of any such explanations.
Looking at it steadily from this primitive standpoint,
we are compelled to say, that an undoubting convic-
tion of personal extinction at death, leaving nothing
but a dismembered, decomposing body, now belong-
ing to no one, would never have given rise to such
language. The mere conception of the grave, as a
place of burial, is too narrow for it. It, alone, would
have destroyed the idea in its germ, rather than have
given origin and expansion to it. The fact, too, that
they had a well-known word for the grave, as a con-
fined place of deposit for the body (n2i? ritriK., a
possession, or property, of a grave, see Gen. xxiii. 9),
shows that this other name, and this other concep-
tion, were not dependent upon it, nor derived from it.
The older lexicographers and commentators gen-
erally derived the word bl'siU (Sheol) from bxiT
(Sha-al), to ask, inquire, etc. This is a very easy
derivation, so far as ibrm is concerned ; and why is
it not correct ? In any way the sense deduced will
seem near, or far-fetched, according to our precon-
ceptions in respect to that earliest view of extinct or
continued being. Gesenius rejects it, maintaining
that bistii is for bisBJ , and means cavity ; hence a
Bubterranean region, etc. He refers to bsili , hollow
of the hand, or fist. Is. xl. 12 ; 1 Kings xx. 10 ; Ezek.
siil 19 ; and bsia;, the name for fox or jackal^ who
iigB holes in the earth, — this being all that can be
found of any other use of the supposed root from

* (Compare the Hebrew SS^OS , as used Ps. xlvl. 1, from
*7hicli comes the frequent rabbinical use of tlie term for ex-
Meace as that which is somehow present, Comp. also the

A.rab. t^ft^a and C.)'Ob^a«^f = ra oiTa, entia. Lit.,
thitigs to be/ound. — T. L.]

which comes this most ancient word, so full of som«
most solemn significance. There is a reference, also
to the German holle, or the general term of the
northern nations (Gothic, Scandinavian, Saxon), de
noting hole, or cavity; though this is the very ques
tion, whether the northern conception is not a sec
ondary one, connected with that later thought of
penal confinement which was never separable from
the Saxon hell, — a sense-limitation, in fact, of the
more indefinite aid more spiritual notion primarily
presented by thf Greek Hades, and which furnishes
the true parallel to the early Hebrew Sheol. Fiirsl
has the same view as Gesenius. To make bisiIJ and
bisilj equivalents, etymologically, there is supposed
to be an interchange of !< and V , a thing quite com-
mon in the later Syriac, but rare in the Hebrew,
especially the earlier writings, and which would ba
cited as a mark recentioris Hebraismi, if the ration-
alistic argument, at any time, required it. The S
has ever kept its place most tenaciously in the
Arabic, as shown by Robinson in the nnmeroug
proper names of places in which it remains un
changed to this day. So it was, doubtless, in the
most early Shemitic, though in the Syriac it became
afterwards much weakened through the antipathetic
Greek and Roman influence upon that language, and
so, frequently passed into the more easily pronounced
S . It is improbable that this should have taken
place in the most ancient stage of the language, or
at the time of the first occurrence of this word in
the biblical writings. Gesenius would give to bXw'
too, the supposititious primary sense of digging, to
make it the ground of the secondary idea of search
or inquiry ; but this is not the primary Or predonai-
nant conception of bxUJ ; it is always that of inter-
rogation, like the Greek epioraw, or of demand, like
aheo}, ever implying speech, instead of the positive
irf of search, such as is denoted by the Hebrew
"ipn , to explore. Subsequent lexicographers and
commentators have generally followed Gesenius, who
seems to pride himself upon this di.scovery (see
Robinson : " Lex. N. Test." on the word Hades).
Of the older mode of derivation he says : "I'rior de
eiymo conjectura vix m,eworatu digna est.''^ By some
it would be regarded as betraying a deficiency in
Hebrew learning to think of supporting an etymology
so contemptuously rejected. And yet it has claims
that should not be hghtly given up, especially as they
are so intimately connected with the important in-
quiry in respect to the firsr conception of those who
first used the word. Was this, primarily, a thought
of locality, however wide or narrow it may have
been, or did the space-notion, which undoubtedly
prevailed afterwards, come from an earlier thought,
or state of soul rather, more closely allied to feeling
than to any positive idea ? This conception of lo-
cality in the earth came in very early ; it grew natu-
rally from something before it ; but was it first of
all ? Lowth, Herder, etc., are, doubtless, correct in
the representations they give of the Hebrew Sheol,
as an imagined subterranean residence of the dead,
and this is confirmed by later expressions we find in
the Psalms and elsewhere, such as " going down to
the pit" (compare 113 "'"l'}''^ and similar language,
Ps. xxviii. ) ; xxx. 4; Ixxxviii. 6; Is. xiv. 19;
xxxviii. 10, etc.) ; yet still there is the best of rea-
sons for believing that what may be called the
emotional or ejaculatory conception was earlier thai

586

GENESIS, OR THE FIKST BOOK OF MOSES.

this, and that the local was tbeybrm it took when it
passed from an emotion to a speculative thought.
From what source, then, in this earlier stage, could
the name more naturally have come than from the
primitive significance of that word bxUJ, which, in

the Arabic JLi»/ , and everywhere in the Shemitic
family, has this one old sense of appealing interro-
gation,— first, simple inquiry, secondly, the idea of
demand? The eiror of the older etymologists, then,
consisted, not in making it from bsc, but in con-
necting it with this secondary idea, and so referring
it to Sheol itself as demanding, instead of the
mourning, sighing survivors asking after the dead.
They supposed it was called Sheol from its rapacity,
or unsatiableness, ever claiming its victims, — a
thought, indeed, common in the earl'j language of
mourning, but having too much of tropical artifice
to be the very earliest. It belongs to that later stage
in which language is employed, retroactively, to
awaken or intensify emotion, instead of being its
gushing, irrepressible utterance. In support of this
view, the text constantly cited, as the standard one,
was Prov. xxx. 16, "iin n-\w y'l ni'aa Kb - - bi.sai,

Sheol that is never satisfied, thu. yiever says, enough.
See the old commentary of Martin Geier on the book
of Proverbs. Corresponding to this is the manner
in which Homer speaks of Hades, and its vast popu-
lation :

KAuTa eflvea veKptav.

So the dramatic poets represent it as rapacious,
carrying off its victims like a ferocious animal (see
the "iledea" of Eubipides, 1108), inexorable,
I'B^e'is, pitiless, ever demanding, but hearing no
prayer in return. Hence it bad settled into tlie clas-
sical phrase rnpax Orcus (see Catullus, ii. 28, 29).
But this, whatever form might be given to it, was
not the first thought that would arise in the mind
respecting the state of the departed. Instead of
such an objective attribute of Hades, or Sheol, as a
place demiinding to be filled, it was rather the sub-
jective feeling of inquiring wonder at the phenome-
non of death, at the thought of the one who had
disappeared, and of that inexplicable state into whicli
even the imagination failed to follow him. Shadowy
as all such language is, it is only the stronger evi-
dence of that feehng of continued being which holds
on so firmly through it all, as though in spite of the
positive appearances of sense testifying to the de-
parture, or the negative testimony arising from the
failure of the eye to pierce the darkness (whence the
Greek Hades, the unseen), or of the ear to gather
any report from the silence into which the dead had
gone. See remarks in the note before referred to,
p. 273, on the idea of death as a state, a state of
being, the antithesis, not of being, but of the active
life " beneath the sun." Now the idea of extinction,
of absolute not-being, of a total lose of individual
personality, would have excluded all questioning ; it
would never have made such words as Hades, or
Sheol, according to either conception, whether of
inquiry or of locality, whi-ther as denoting a state or
a ] '«;e, whether as demanding or as interrogated,
whether as addressed to the unseen, or to the voice-
less and unheard. The man was gone, but where ?
According to a most ancient and touching custom,
they thrice most solemnly invoked his name, but no
answer came hack. Their belief in his continued
oeing was shown by the voice that went after liim,
though no responding voice was returned to the living

ear. bi^»aS (the infinitive used as a noun), to a^k
to inquire anxiously ; he had gone to the land thui
denoted, that "undiscovered country from whos«
bourne no traveller returned." The key-text here ia
Job xiv. 10 : "Man dies, and wastes away; he givetb
up the ghost ("Txn sn'^,yighwah ha-adam, mac
sighs, or gasps for breath), and where is he ? " 'i'St!',
weayyo, 0, where is he? See Zach. i. 6 : Tlie fa'hera I
D!l"n*K , where are they ? Compare also Job vU.
21, and other places of a sunilar kind, all showing
how natural is the connection between the wailing,
questioning weayyo, and the word Sheol bo iminedi-
ately suggested by it.

The disappearance of Enoch from the earth was
stranger than that of the ordinary death, but gave
rise to the same feeling of inquiry, only in a more
intensive degree. " He was not found," uux evp'(r«eTo,
says the LXX, and this gives the real meaning of
the Hebrew 1S:^!< , not denoting non-existence, for
that would be directly contrary to what follows, but
that he was nowhere to be found on earth.

Thus regarded, it is easy to see how the idea of
some locality would soon attach itself to the primi-
tive emotional conception, and in time become so
predominant that the older germ of thought, that
was in the etymology, would almost wholly disap.
pear. Still the spirit of the word, its geist or ghost,
to use the more emphatic German or Saxon, long
haunts it after the conception has changed so as to
receive into it more of the local and definite.
Trench has shown how tenacious is this root-sense
of old words, preserving them, like some guardian
genius, from misusage and misapplication, ages after
it has ceased to be directly conceptual, or to be
known at all, except to the antiquarian philologist.
Thus, although the cavernous or subterranean idea
had become prominent in the Psalms and elsewhere,
this old spirit of the word still hovers about it in all
such passages ; we still seem to hear the sighing
weayyo ; there yet lingers in the ear tlie plaintive
sheolah, denoting the intense looking into the world
unknown, the anxious listening to which no answer-
ing voice is returned.

That Sheol, in its primary sense, did not mean
the grave, and in fact had no etymological associa
tion with it, is shown by the fact, already mentioned,
that there was a distinct word for the latter, of still
earlier occurrence in the Scriptures, common in all
the Shemitic languages, and presenting the definite
primary conception of digging, or excavation ("'ip,
kbr, krb, -~3, DnS, grb, grub, grav). There was
no room here for expansion uito the greater thought.
The Egyptian embalming, too, to one who attentively
considers it, will appear still less favorable. It waj
a dry and rigid memorial of death, far less suggestive
of continued being, souiehow and somewhere, than
the flowing of the body into nature through decom-
position in the grave, or its dispersion by fire into
the prime elements of its organization. In the sup-
posed case, however, of Joseph's torn and dismem-
bered corpse, theie was nothing from any of these
sources to aid the conception. Yet Jacob held on U
it : I will go mourning to my son, '':3 bs, not bs
or bit for by , on account of my son, as some would
take it.* Had Joseph been lying by the side of hii

* [In proof that b5< may have the sense of bsf , Rosen-
muller refers to 1 Kings xiv. 5 ; and Bashi to 2 Sam. xyl 1
1 Sam. iv. 21. Buttbese do not bearout theinferenco. Tlu

CHAP. XXXVII. 1-3

581

mother in the field near Bethlehem Ephratah, or
with Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah,
in the cave of Machpelah, or in some Egyptian sar-
cophagus, embalmed with costliest spices and
wrapped in aromatic linen, the idea of his unbrolren
personality would have been no more vivid, Joseph
himself (his very ip»e) would have been no nearer,
or more real, to the mourning father, than as he
thought of his body lying mangled in the wilderness,
or borne by rapacious birds to the supposed four
comers of the earth. I will go to my son mourning,
theolah (nijKtt) , with n of direction), Sheol-ward, —
on the way to the unknown land.

This view of Sheol is strongly corroborated by
the parallel etymology, and the parallel connection
of ideas we find in the origin and use of the Greek
Eades. Some would seek its primary meaning else-
where, but it is clearly Greek, and no derivation is
more obvious than the one given long ago, and which
would make this word "AiSrjs (Homeric 'AfS?;!, with
• the mild aspirate) from a privative and ISe'iv to see.
We have the very word as an adjective, with this
meaning of invisible or unseen, Hesiod : " Shield of
Hercules," 477. It denotes, then, the unseen world,
carrying the idea of disappearance, and yet of con-
tinued being in some state unknown. The analogy
between it and the Hebrew word is perfect. So is
the parallelism, all the more striking, we may say,
from the fact that in the two languages the appeal is
to two different senses. In the one, it is the eye
peering into the dark ; in the other, it is the ear in-
tently listening to the silence. Both give rise to the
same question : Where is he ? whither has he gone ?
and both seem to imply with equal emphasis that
the one wnaeen and unheard yet really is. Some-
times a derivative from the same root, and of the
same combination, is joined with Hades to make the
meaning intensive, as in the "Ajax " of Sophocles,
607:

•vbv OLTTOTpOTrov atSriXov *AlSav —
The awful, unseen Hades.

From this use has come the adjective afSios, rendered
eternal, but having this meaning from the association
of ideas (the Hadean, the everlasting), since it is not
etymologically connected with altiv (see Jude 6,
SidiuHi di'Siois, where the two conceptions seem to
unite). In truth, there is a close connection between
these two sets of words ('AiSris and altif, D5is and
biKT), one ever suggesting the other, — " the things
that are seen are temporal (belong to time), the things
that are unseen are eternal." Hence we have in
Greek the same idiom, in respect to Hades, that we
have in Hebrew in relation to 01am (DSiS), the
counterpart of aidv. Thus, in the former language
we have the expressions, oT/cos"Ai5ou — S6ixos"A.iSuii,
etc., corresponding exactly to the Hebrew obis n^3,
the house of eternity, poorly rendered his long home,
Eccles. xii. 6. Compare the oliciav aiwytoy, the

sense of direction, so clear everywhere else in the hundreds
cf cases where this preposition ?X occurs, is not lost even
in these. " Gone is the glory of Israel " (the glory that was).
It is broken. Impassioned language, and we may suppose an
elli|isis; she said thi£ (looking) to the taking of the ark, etc.
So, in the chief case cited, it is most vividly rendered by
taking it elliptically — tc the house of Saul, 2 Sam. xxi. 1 —
Ihat is, " look not to me for the cause," says the oracle, but
•* to Saul and his bloody house." At the utmost, these very
tew doubtful cases cannot invalidate the clear sense that the
lommou rei^^aring makes here. -T. L.]

"house eternal," 2 Cor. v. 1. Compare also Xenq.
phon's Agesilaus, at the close, where it is said of th«
Spartan king, t^i/ atSiov oIkijoiv Karriydyfro, " h«
was brought back, like one who had been away, to
his eternal home." See, too, a very remarkabU
passage, DionoEUs Sioulus, lib. i. ch. 61, respecting
the belief of the most ancient Egyptians : " The
habitations of the living they call inns, or lodging-
places, KuTaAicren, since we dwell in them so short
a time, but those of the dead they style ot/cou! Ai'Sious,
everlasting abodes, as residing in them forever, tU
(m-eipov oLiiiva." See also Paeeau : J)e Join Notitiis,
etc., on the early Arabian belief, p. 27.

Why should not Jacob have had the idea as well
as these most ancient Egyptians ? That his thought
was more indeiinite, that it had less of circumstance
and locality, less imagery every way, than the Greek
and Egyptian fani'v gave it, only proves its higher
purity as a divine hope, a sublime act of faith, rather
than a poetical picturing, or a speculative dogma.
The less it assumed to know, or even to imagine,
showed its stronger trust in the unseen world as an
assured reality, but dependent solely for its clearer
revelation on the unseen God. The faith was all the
stronger, the less the aid it received from the sense
or the imagination. It was grounded on the surer
rock of the " everlasting covenant '' made with the
fathers, though in it not a word was said directly of
a future life. " The days of the years of my pil
grimage," says Jacob. He was " a sojourner upon
earth as his fathers before him." The language hag
no meaning except as pointing to a home, an af'Sioy
oiKTjatv, an eternal habitation; whether in Sheol, or
through Sheol, was not known. It was enough that
it was a return unto God, "his people's dweUing-
place (lab '|iSO, see Ps. xc. 1) in all generations."
It was, in some way, a " living unto him," however
they might disappear from earth and time ; for " he
is not the God of the dead." His covenant was an
assurance of the continued being of those with whom
it was made. '' Because he lived they should live
also." "Art thou not from everlasting, Jehovah,
my God, my Holy Oae ? we shall not (wholly) die."
" Thou wilt lay us %p in Sheol ; thou wilt call and
we will answer ; thou wilt have regard to the work
of thy hands." The pure doctrine of a personal
God, and a belief in human extinction, have never
since been found conjoined. Can we believe it of
the lofty theism of the patriarchal ages ?

Hades, like Sheol, had its two conceptual stages,
first of state, and afterwards of locality. To the
Greek word, however, there was added a third idea.
It came to denote, also, a power ; and so was used
for the supposed king of the dead, 'AiStji, "Ais,
'AlSaiviii, — Sj/of euepuf (Iliad, XX. 61) ; and thij
personification appears again in the later Scripture,
1 Cor. XV. 65, 0 Hades, where is thy victory ? an('
in Rev. vi. 8, xx. 13, 14, where Hades becomes lim-
■ted to Gehenna, and its general power, as keeper ol
souls, is abolished. — T. L.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.

1, Jacob's fondness for the younger son forms th«
other extreme to Isaac's predilection for thi
first-born. He had, it is true, better reasons than
Isaac ; for Joseph is not only the son of his beloved
Rachel, but also the Nazarite (the consecrated oi Sep.
arate one) among his brethren, — a fact to which ha
testifies upon his death-bed (see GeiL xlix. 22), Bui

588

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

then he beg an to see clearly that Judah surpassed
Joseph in what pertained to the future. The struggle
between his predilection and his love of justice ap-
pears in more than one instance. Joseph must en-
ter service as a shepherd's boy ; nevertheless, his
father provides for him a showy garment, and keeps
him at home longer than the others. He ventures
his favorite upon a distant and dangerous mission,
and this is a reason why he refuses to be comforted
at his loss. He rebuiies him for his apparently
presumptuous dream, but feels compelled to keep the
presaging omens in his vaticinating heart.

2. The Scri])turesmake no palUation of the sins of
the twelve patriarchs — the fathers of the very people
to whom they are sent. This shows their super-
earthly origin.

3. By his dreams Joseph gets into misery, and by
their interpretations he is dehvered from it. The
first fact would give him occasion to think closely on
the ground-laws that regulate the symbolic language
of dreams ; and both he, and the New-Testament Jo-
seph, are witnesses to the fact that there is a signifi-
cance in them. Elsewhere have we shown the cir-
cumstances favorable to this that were possessed by
both.

4. The simplicity with which Joseph relates his
dreams, reminds us of Isaac's naive question on the
way to Mount Moriah : but where is the lamb ? It
stands in beautiful contrast with that moral earnest-
ness which had already, in early age, made him self-
reliant in presence of his brethren.

5. Here, too, in the history of Joseph's brethren,
is there an example showing how envy passes over
to animosity, animosity to fixed hatred, and hatred to
a scheme of murder, just as in the history of Cain,
and in that of Christ. The allegorical significance
of our history, as typical of that of Christ, appears in
the most diversified traits.

6. As the murderous scheme was prevented by
Reuben's plan of deliverance, and modified by Judah's
proposal, 80, ij the life of our Lord, the scheme of
the Sanhedrin was changed more than once by ar-
resting circumstances. Thus nrovidence turned the
destructive plots to a benefic^^t end. It was the
chief tendency of these schemes to promote the high-
est glory of the hated one, whose glory tliey aimed to
destroy.

7. Concerning the way in which these plans of
Reuben and Judah cross each other, see the Exeget-
ieal and Critical. We have no right to suppose that
Reuben behaved as he did in this case in order to
appease his father for the wrong done in the case of
Bilhah. The weakness, which, according to oh. xlix.
4, was the great reproach of his character, had also
its good side. Equally false is the supposition that
Judah maliciously frustrated Reuben's good inten-
tions. Both remind us of Joseph of Arimathea and
Nioodemus, who did not consent to the sentence of
the Sanhedrin ; but they were less inclined to the
right, and their half-measures remind us of Pilate's
attempt to save, though they had not, like him, the
power in their hands ; since being implicated by their
foimer animocity towards Joseph, they could only
weakly oppose their angry brethren.

8. The " coat of many colors " dipped in blood,
reminds ua of the deception that Jacob, in Esau's
raiment, practised upon his father. Yet it must not
be overlooked, that Jacob became reconciled at
Peniel. Had he been sanctified, indeed, as well as
recotciled, he would not, after such bitter experience,
havf rtpeated his father's error of an arbitrary prefer-

ence of one son to another. And, in this respect, h«
even now atoned for a sin which had been alretdj
pardoned.

9. Jacob's mourning shows how deeply his peace
was shaken. The self-examination occasioned in
pious souls, in consequence of the loss or suileringi
of dear ones, especially of children, becomes a griev-
ous self-condemnation. From this there arises a
longing after death. But here, too, there must be an
unconditional surrender to God's grace. We sea
here, also, how " the congregation of the fathers "
beyond the grave becomes a Sheol to the pre-Chris-
tian consciousness through the feeling it gives of
death, of his power, of the effect of moiirnmg as ex-
tending even to the other world. Luther has fre-
quently translated Sheol by Hell (we find it also thus
in Apost. Symb.) ; but a careful distinction should be
made between Sheol and Gehenna.

10. These Ishmaehtish-Midianitish merchantmen
are the first Ishmaelites with whom we become ac-
quainted. They remind us of the caravan of Mo-
hammed, that most renowned of all Ishmaelitish mer-
chants. They testify to the outward increase and spi-
ritual decrease of the descendants of Ishmael. They
are witnesses to a heart-rending scene, but coolly pay
their twenty pieces of silver, reminding us of the
thirty paid by Judas, then go their way with the poor
lad, who passes his home without hope of deliverance,
and is for a long time, like Moses, David, and Christ,
reckoned among the lost.

11. Jacob's house shaken, burdened with a curse,
given over, apparently, to destruction, and yet won-
derfully .saved by God's grace and human placability
(see ch. 1.).

12. Joseph's character. Presageful of the future,
like a prophet ; simple as a child ; the extraordinari-
ly prudent son of the prudent Rachel and the prudent
Jacob, yet noble-minded, and so generous that he be-
comes a type of New -Testament love for enemies, —
God-fearing in a distant land, and yet so liberal in
liis universalism that he can reconcile himself to
Egyptian culture, holding himself free, even to bit-
terness, in respect to home remembrances (see the
name he gave his son Manasseh {make to forget, obli-
vioni tradeiu), and yet, at last, homesick after Ca-
naan,— renowned for chastity, and yet not without
ambition, fuU of high-minded and proud anticipations,
and yet prepared to endure all humiliations by which
Jehovah might aim to purify him. Calumniated by
many, by others hastily canonized as a saint. A
man of spirit and a man of action in the highest
sense.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.

The whole chapter. Joseph sold. The sins of
men and the providence of God. The character of
our narrative. The chain of circumstances The
significance often of things apparently small. I. Of
Jacob's weakness (in the case of the coat) ; 2. of
Joseph's dreams ; 3. of his thoughtlessness ; 4. of
Reuben's absence ; 6. of the appearing of the Ish-
maelites.— Man proposes, God disposes. — " My
thoughts are not your thoughts," etc. The, sublimity
of the divine decrees as compared with human
schemes.

Section First. (Vers. 1-12.) Stakke : Although
Jacob had his reasons for specially loving Joseph,
yet he did not act prudently in allowing it to become
noticed. Parents should guard against it. Ambbosb

CHAP XXXVII. 1-36.

5HJ

Twiujai liberos eqitalis gratia guoa junxU cBqualis
natura. Envy is a diabolical vice (Wisd. Sol. ii. 24).*
— Hall : Suffering is the road to honor. — Thk same :
When we are loved by our Heavenly Father, and
weep over our sins, we will be hated by our brethren
in the flesh (I Peter iv. 4). — Bibl. Tvb, ; Do not un-
necessarily tell your enemy what may be for your ad-
vantage,— Calwer Handbiich: Ver. 2. No mali-
cious information was it, but coming from an inno-
cent free-heartedness and a dutiful abhorrence of
evil. — Lisco, on the contrary : A child-like and inju-
dicious tale-telling. — Gerlach : As a spoiled chUd,
he accuses his brethren to his father. [The boundary
between the malicious and the dutiful here may be
drawn with difficulty ; yet it is to be observed, that
Joseph told the father what was already spoken of by
the people, that is, when it had already become an iU-
fame.] — Schroder : Luther says,that Joseph narrat-
ed his dreams '* like a child," not from malice, but
in simplicity and innocence. — Richter: Mark it;
young Joseph saw in his dreams only his exaltation,
not the humiliation that preceded it. — Heim (" Bible
Studies ") : The difference between the two dreams.

* {iBovta Se StajSdAou Bdvarov eicr^X^ev eiS rhv K6a-tiov,
through envy of the devil death entered into the world. There
iB something very peculiar about this sin of envy, fully just-
ifying the epithet diabolical. In the first place, it is pre-
eminently spiritual. It is a pure soul-sin, having least
connection with the material or animal nature, and for
which there is the least palliation in appetite, or in any ex-
trinsic temptation. Its seat and origin is wholly supercar-
Dal, except as the term, carnal is taken, as it sometimes is by
the Apostle, for all that is evil in humanity. A man may
be most intellectual, most free from every vulgar appetite
of the flesh ; he may be a philosopher, he may dwell specu-
latively in the region of the abstract and the ideal, and yet
his soul be full of this corroding naalice, which the author
of the book of Proverbs, describing it in its effect rather
than its origin, calls "rottenness in the bones" (Prov. xiv.
30), presenting it as the opposite of that '• sound heart
which is the me of the flesh." In the second place, it is the
most purely evil. Almost every other passion, even ac-
knowledged to be s'ntul, has in it somewhat of good, or ap-
pearance of good. Revenge assume;* to have, at its founda-
tion, some sense of wrong, that allies it to justice. !N"em.esis
claims relationship to Themis Anger makes a similar plea,
and, with some show of reason, lays part, at least, of the
blame upon the nervous irritability. These, and other hu-
man passions, trace a connection, in their spiritual geneal-
ogy, between themselves and pure affections that mit^ht
have belonged to man's psychical ot sensitive nature before
the fell. But envy, or hatred of a man for the good that is
in him, or in any way pertains to him, is evil unalloyed.
To use the imagery of John Bunyan, its descent is simply
D'.abolonian, without any cross or mixture with anything
that might allege a title to citizenship in Mansoul before it
revolted from king Shaddai, Neither can it be laid, where
we are so fund of charging our sins, upon the poor body. It
wonld seem to have no natural growth from Mansoul's ma-
terial corporation, ruined as it is. It is the breathof the
old serpent. It is pure devil, as it is, also, purely spiritual.
It needs no body, no concupisceni organization, no appe-
tites or fleshly motions, no nerves even, for the exercise of
its devilish energies. It is a soul-poison, yet acting fear-
fully upon the body itself, bringing more death int(» it than
seemingly stronger and m,ore tumultuous passions th;it have
their nearer seat in the fleshly nature. " It is rottenness in
the bones." "We may compare this proverb of Solomon
with a terrific description of envy by itCscHTLUs, Agamem.,
S3S:

Tov evTVxovVTO. triiv ^96vta jSAeTreti',
SvaifipuiV jaer 'I0'2 KapSiav irpoa^/teros,
av^os SnT\OL^ei Tw TreTrajw/Aevw vdcroi' ■
Tots T* auTO? avTov TTTifJ-atTiv ^apvveTai,
KoX TOP dvpatOf oAgoc eiaopSlv — crWi/et.

Envy at others' good is evemiore
Malignant poison sitting on the soul ;
A double woe to him infected with it.
Of inward pain the heavy load he bears,
At sight of joy wiihout^ he ever mourns.

What inspired the Greek poets in such truthful description
af the most intense evils of the soul % All bad passions are
lain^ul, but envy has a double barb to sting itself.— T. L.]

In the first there couli be only ten sheaves besidei
Joseph's, since Benjamin was not present, andjosepl
said to his brethren, Ymir sheavee. In the second,
however, he beholds definitely eleven stars, there
fore himself as the twelfth included.

Section Second. (Vers. 12-20.) Starke : Ver
15. Joseph enters upon his journey in the simplicit;
of his heart, expecting no evil ; and thus God lett
him run into the net against which he could have
easily warned him. God's ways, however, are se
cret. Whom he wishes to exalt he first tries, puri-
fies, tempts, and humbles. [The Eabbins and one of
the Targums tell us that this man, who directed Jo.
seph in the field, was the angel Gabriel in the form
of a man.] — Hall : God's decree precedes and
is fulfilled, whilst we have no thought about it,
yea, even fight against it. Though a Christian
does not always prosper, though difficulties be-
set his way, he must not be confounded, but
ever continue firm and steadfast in his calling. Ver
18. Here Moses shows what kind of ancestors thi
Jews had (comp. Acts vii. 9, etc.). Thug they fell
from one sin into another. Perhaps Simeon was the
ringleader; since he afterwards was bound as
hostage for his brethren. — Schroder : Joseph goes
in search of his brethren, and finds sworn enemies,
bloodthirsty murderers. — Heim (" Bible Studies ") ;
Shechem is about twenty-five leagues from Hebron.
Joseph's mission to this remote and dangerous coun-
try is a proof, at the same time, that Jacob did not
treat him with too much indulgence, and that he did
not keep him home from any feelings of tenderness.
Joseph's willing obedience, too, and his going alone,
an inexperienced youth, upon such a dangerous jour-
ney, is a proof that he was accustomed to obey cheer-
fully— a habit not acquired in an effeminate bringing,
up.

Section TTiird (vers. 21-24'). Starke: So goes
the world. Pious people ponder the welfare of the
godless, whilst the latter are conspiring for their de-
struction (1 Sam. xix. 5). God can raise up, even
among enemies, helpers of the persecuted. " Woe to
those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and
sin, as it were with a cart-rope " (Isa. v. 18).

Section Fourth (vers. 25-27). Starke : Luther :
They take their seats as though they had well dona
their work. Cc^seience is secure ; sin is asleep ; yet
God sees all. — Schroder: [Unfavorable judgment
of Judah.] IjCTHEr : 0, Judah, thou art not yet
purified. In Calwer Handbuch Judah is even com-
paredto Judas, who sold the Lord. But it is alle-
gorising merely, when we are determined in our judg-
ment by mere outward resemblances. See tho Exe-
getical and Critical. Judah's proposition arose from
the alternative : He must either starve to death in
the pir, or he must be sold as a slave.

Section Fifth (vers. 28-82). Staeke : No matter
what hindrances Joseph's brethren might put in tlie
way of the dreams' fulfilment, against their will were
they made to promote it (Ps. Iv. 10). — Bibl. Tub. :
Thus, there is yet a spark of good in nature. If
only man would not suppress this small light, he
would be preserved from the greatest sins. — The
SAME : Joseph is a type of Christ in his exaltation,
in his humiUation, and especially in his being sold
for thirty [twenty] pieces of silver. Ver. 29. Jose-
phus thinks that Reuben came by night so as not to
be detected. [One of the Targums adds, that Reu-
ben, on account of the incest committed, had been
fasting among the mountains, and, in order to find
grace before his father, had intended to bring Josepi

690

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

again to him.] Ver. 82. Thus Joseph's brothers
add sin to ijin.

Section Sixth (vers. 38-36). Starke : This was
a punishment of God. Jacob had deceived his fa-
ther Isaac by putting around his neck and hands the
skin of a kid ; he is himself now deceived by Jo-
seph's coat dipped in the blood of a kid. — Hall ;
One sin is made to cover anotlier; godless men, it is
true, ever try to conceal their malignity, but it comes
to light at last, and is punished. — OsiANnER : Seldom
does misfortune com« alone. It is but a short time
since Jacob was deprived of Rachel ; now he has lost
Joseph. In such a concealment of guilt they pass
twenty-two years. And his father wept for him.
[Ltjther : This was Isaac, Joseph's grandfather, who
Ered still twelve years after this event.] He himself
(Jacob) had several things to reproach him in his

conscience : Why did he let the boy go alone on
such a journey ? Why did he send him into a coun
try abounding in wild beasts ?- Sibl. Wirt. : Iz
grief we are inclined to overdo. — 0&. ander : Piova
parents often blame themselves when things go bad-
ly with their children, even when there is the least
ground for it. — Calwek Handbuch After the crime
comes the lie ; after the lie, a hypocritical comforting
of the father. — ScHEonEE ; Luthee : During all this
time, the brethren were uuable to pray to God with
a good conscience.- — Observe, each one of the thre*
patriarchs was to sacrifice his dearest son.

To the whole chapter. Tacbe : The selling of
Joseph by his brethren : 1. From what sources this
horrible deed arose; 2. how the divine mouth re-
mains silent, whilst the divine hand so much the
more strongly holds ; 3. the types that lie concealed.

SECOND SECTION.

JudaKs temporary separation {probably in sadness on account of the deed). Hit sons. Thamar.

Chapter XXXVIII. 1-30.

1 And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down from his brethren, and

2 turned in to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah [noble, free]. And Judah
saw there the daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah [cry for help] ; and

3 he took her, and went in unto her. And she conceived, and bare a son ; and he called

4 his name Er [is. watcher]. And she conceived again, and bare a son ; and she called hia

5 name Onan [htrength, strong one]. And she yet again conceived, and bare a son; and
called his name Shelah [peace, quietness, shiioh?] ; and he was at Chezib [delusion], when she

6 bare him. And Judah took a wife for Er his first-born, whose name was Thamar [palm].

7 And Er, Judah's first-born, was wicked in the sight of the Lord ; and the Lord slew him.

8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise uji

9 seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his [of his own name] :
and it came to pass, that when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on

1 0 the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did

1 1 displeased the Lord ; wherefore he slew him also. Then said Judah to Thamar his daugh-
ter-in-law, Eemain a widow in thy father's house, till Shelah my son be grown ; (for he
said, Lest peradventure he die also, as his brethren did) ; And Thamar went and dwelt

12 in her father's house. And in process of time the daughter of Shuah, Judah's wife, died ;
and Judah was comforted, and went up to his sheep-shearers to Timnath [possession],

13 he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. And it was told Thamar, saying, Behold, thy

14 father-in-law goeth up to Timnath, to shear his sheep. And she put her widow's gar-
ments ofi' from her, and covered her with- a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open
place [literaUy, gate of two eyes] ' which is by the way to Timnath: for she saw that Shelah

15 was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife. When Judah saw her, he thought

16 her to he an harlot; because she had covered her face. And he turned unto her by the
way, and said. Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee ; (for he knew not that she
was his daughter-in-law) ; and she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest come

17 in ujito me ? And he said, I will send thee a kid from the flock ; and she said, Wilt thou

18 give me a pledge, till thou send itf And he said, What pledge shall I give thee?
And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thy hand. And he

19 gave it her, and came in unto her ; and she conceived by him. And she arose, and
went away, and laid by her vail from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood

CHAP. SXXVin. 1-30.

591

20 And Judah sent the kid by the hand of his friend the Adullamite, t receive his pledge

21 from the woman's hand : but he found her not. Then he asked the men of tliat place!
saying, Where is the harlot that was openly by the way -side ? And they said There

22 was no harlot in t\i\s place. And he returned to Judah, and said, I cannot find her;

23 and also other men of the place said, that there was no harlot in this place. And
Judah said. Let her take it to her, lest we be shamed ; behold, I sent this kid, and

24 thou hast not found her. And it came to pass about three months after, that it wa«
told to Judah, saying, Thamar thy daughter-in-law hath played the harlot; and also,
behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let hei

25 be burnt. When she was brought forth, she sent to her father-in-law, saying. By the
man whose these are, am I with child ; and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are

26 these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff. And Judah acknowledged them, and said,
She hath been more righteous than I- because that I gave her not to Shelah my son;

27 and he knew her again no more. And it came to pass in the time of her travail, that

28 behold twins were in her womb. And it came to pass when she travailed, that the one
put out hi.1 hand ; and the midwife took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, say-

29 ing, This came out first. And it came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that, behold
his brother came out; and she said, How hast thou broken forth? this breach be upon

30 thee; therefore his name was called Pharez [breach]. And afterward came out hia
brother, that had the scarlet thread upon his hand ; and his name was called Zarah
[going forth, sun-risiiigj.

(' Ver. 14.— n'^3"'S nPBa . Eendered, in our translation, on qpenplace; margin, door of eyes, more literally, wltti
reference to Prov. vii. 12. The LXX. have taken it as a proper name, Tats mJAats Atmr, which has led some to regard
it as the same with Eiiam mentioned Joshua xv. 34, and refeiTed to by Hieronymus as situated in the tribe of Judah, and
called, in his day, Belh-enim. See EosenmuUer. The dual form here Is expressive of something peculiar in the place. It
means two eyes, or two fountains, probably the former, denoting two openings, that is, two ways, a place where she wafi

lertain to be seen. This corresponds to the Vulgate rendering, in bivio iiinfris. So the Syriac, |^,^9o] A *. V'a*-^ •
iiabsErpenianus the same, iSj Jaj\ (^.^lOjljO . The idea of thare being a city there, at that time, or of her taking'

*er place by the gate of a city, is absurd- Aben Ezra says it was a place so called because there were two fountains there.
This was an early use of the Hebrew '^'^V , the eye, arising from the beautiful conception that springs, or fountains, were
lyes to the earth, as the herbs, in some places, are called ni"liS , lights coming from the earth.— T. L.1

GENEEAL PEELrMINAEy EEMAEKS.

The story here narrated is not, as Knobel sup-
poses, an insertion in Joseph's history, but a par-
allel to it, considered from the one common point
of view as the story of the sons of Israel. Accord-
ing to the previous chapter, Joseph (that is, Ephraim)
appeared to be lost; here Judah, afterwards the
head tribe, appears also to be lost. But as in the
history of the apparently lost Joseph there lay con-
cealed the marlis of a future greatness, so must we
iook for similar signs in the history of Judah's ap-
parent ruin. Parallel to Joseph's spiritual ingen-
uousness, patience, hopeful trust in the future,
appears Judah's strong and daring self-dependence,
fulness of life, sensuality combined with strong ab-
stinence, besides the sense of justice which leads
him to acknowledge his guilt. Examine it more
closely, and we cannot fail to trace a strong feature
of theocratic faith. It is a gronndless conjecture of
Knobel, that the object of this narrative was to show
ihe origin of the levirate law among the Jews, that
requir^ the brother of a husband who died without
issue to take the widow to wife, and that the first-
born of this connection should stand in the toledoth,
or genealogical lists, in the name of the deceased,
Deut. XXV. 0 ; Matt. xxii. 2.3 ; Ruth iv. See Winek
on " Levirate Marriage." The law in question is
of a later date, and needed no such illustration.
Ihe custom here mentioned, however, might have
Uisied before this time (see Delitzsoh, p. 634).

But why could not the idea have originated even m
Judah's mind ? Besides this, Knobel presents chro-
nological diflSculties. They consist in this, namely,
that in the period from Joseph's abduction to Jacob's
migration into Egypt — about twenty-three yeara —
Judah had become not only a father, but a grand
father by his son Pharez (according to ch. xlvi. 16)
Now Judah was about three years older than Josepli,
and, consequently, not much above twenty at his ma^
riage, provided he had intended it at the time when
Joseph wa'i carried off. On account of this difficulty,
and of one that follows, A\igustine supposes that
Judah's removal from the parental home occurred
several years previous. But this is contradicted
by the fact of his presence at the sale of Joseph
(see Keil, p. 246); whilst the remark of Delitzsch,
that " such early marriages were not customary in
the patriarchal family," is of no importance at all,
besides its leaving us in doubt whether it was made
in respect to Judah's own marriage, or the early
marriage of his nephews. " Jacob," he says, "had
already attained to the age of seventy-seven years,"
etc. In reply to this, it may be said, that early mar-
riages are evidently ascribed to other sons of Jacob
(ch. xlvi), though these children, it is probable, were
for the most part born in Egypt. Between the pa-
triarchs and the sons of Israel there comes a decisive
turning-point : earlier marriages — earlier deaths
(see ch. 1. 20). Nevertheless, the twenty-three years
here are not sufficient to allow of Pbirez having
two sons already at their close. Even the pofsibilitj

592

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

that Pharez and Zarah were born before tbe migra-
tion to Egypt, is obtained only from the supposition
that Judah must have married his sons very early.
Supposing that they were seventeen or eighteen years
old, the reason for so early a marriage may have
been Judah's knowledge of Er's disposition. He
may have intended to prevent evil by his marriage,
but he did not attain his object. The marriage of
Onan that resulted from this was but a consequence
of the first ; and, in fact, Onan's sin seems to indi-
cate a youthful baseness. Judah, however, might
have made both journeys to Egypt whilst his own
family was still existing. With respect to Judah's
grandchildren, it is an assumption of Hengstenberg
(Aulhentie, p. 354), that they were born in Egypt,
and that they are considered to have come to Egypt,
as in their fathers, together with Jacob (Dei.itzsch,
p. 5S8). According to Keil, the aim of our narrative
is to show the three principal tribes of the future
dynasties in Israel, and the danger there was that
the sons of Jacob, through Canaanitish marriages,
might forget the historic call of their nation as the
medium of redemption, and so perish in the sins of
t)anaan, had not God kept them from it by leading
them into Egypt. It must be remarked, however,
that, in this period, it was with difficulty that such
marriages with Canaanitish women could be avoided,
since the connection with their relations in Mesopota-
mia had ceased. Undoubtedly the beginning of
corruption in Judali's family, was caused by a Ca-
naanitish mode of hfe, and tliereby the race was
threatened with death in its first development; but
we see, also, how a vigorous Ufe struggles with, and
struggles out of, a deadly peril.

EXEGETICAl AND CRITICAL.

1. Jndah^s separation^ his marriage, and his sons
(vers. 1-5). — AndJudah ■went down. — He parted
from his brethren at the time they sold Joseph. It
was not, a9»in the case of Esau, the unbridled im-
pulse of a rude and robust nature that prompted him
prematurely to leave his paternal home, though he
showed thereby his strong self-reliance. On account
of liis frank disposition, Judah could not long par-
ticipate in oifering, as his brethren did, false conso-
lations to his aged lather (ch. xxxvii. 35). It weighs
upon him that he cannot tell the true nature of the
case without betraying his brethren ; and it is this
that drives him off, just as his grudge against those
who had involved him in their guilt separates him
from their company. Besides, a tatter sadness may
have come upon him on account of his own purpose,
though meant for good. Thus he tties to find peace
B solitude, just as a noble-minded eremite or separa-
ist, leaves a church that has fallen into cormption.
Like his antitype, the N ew-Testament Judas, but in
a nobler spirit, does he try to find peace, as he did,
after having sold his Lord. In a similar manner
did the tribe of Judah afterwards keep its ground
against the ten tribes in their decline and ruin. The
question now arises, whether Judah went down from
the Hebron heights in a westerly direction towards
the Mediterranean Sea, to the plain of Sarepta, as
Delitzsch and Knobel suppose, or eastward toward the
Dead Sea, where, according to tradition, the cave of
Adullam lay (1 Sam. xaU. 1), in which David con-
cealed himself from Saul. Chezib (ver. 5) was sit-
uated east from Hebron, if it be identical with Ziph
of the desert of Ziph. Tunnath, according to Jose-

phus, XV. 67, was situated upon the heights of Jndah
and could be vi.>-ited as well from the low country ii
the east, as from that of the north. If, according to
Eusebius and Hieronymus, Adullam lay ten R<;r>iaii
miles, or four leagues, east of Eleutheropolia {Beil-
dschibrin), this statement again takes us to the
mountains of Judea. It is, therefore, doubtful
Still it is worthy of note that David, like his ances-
tor, once sought refuge in the solitude of Adullam.
— And turned in to, etc. — " a*;; and he pitched
namely, nbns, his tent, ch. xxvi. 25, close by (ns_
a man, belonging to the small kingdom of Adul-
lam (Josh. xii. 15) in the plain of Judah
(Josh. XV. 35)." Delitzsch. This settlement indi-
cates friendly relations with Hirah. No wonder that
Hirah gradually yields himself, as a servant, to the
wiser Judah. Here Judah marries a Canaanite
woman. This should be noted in respect to Judah,
who became afterwards the principal tribe, as also in
respect to Simeon (ch. xlvi. 10), because \t would be
least expected of him, zealous as he was for the Is-
riielitish purity in the murder of the Shechemites.
Without taking into view the unrestrained position
of Jacob's sons, this step in Judah might be ex-
plained from a transient fit of despair respecting Is-
rael's future. In the names of his three sons, how-
ever, there is an intimation of return to a more
hopeful state of mind. — Br, Onan, Shelah (see 1
Chron. ii. 3). — The place of Shelah's birth is mentioned,
because there remained of him descendants who wouhl
have an interest in knowing their native district.

2. The marriage of the sons with Thamar. It
may," at least, be said of Thamar, that she is not ex-
pressly called Canaanitish. If we could suppose a
westerly Adullam, she might have been of Philisthie
descent. By the early marriage of his sons, Judab
seems to have intended to prevent in them a germ-
inating corruption. That he finds Thnmar quahfied
for such a state, that beside her Er appears as a
criminal, whose sudden death is regarded as a divine
judgment (then Onan Hkewise), and all this, taken
in connection with the fact that, alter the death of
both sons, she hoped for the growing-up of the third,
Shelah, seems to point her out as a woman of ex-
traordinary character. — Till Shelah my son be
grown. — According to Knobel (Delitzsch and Keil),
Judah regarded Thamar as an unlucky wife (comp.
Tobit iii. 7), and was, therefore, unwiUing to give
to her the third son, but kept putting her off by
promises, thus causing her to remain a widow. This,
however, is inconsistent with Judah's character, and
is not sustained by the text. It is plainly stated that
Judah postponed Shelah's marriage to Thamar he-
caused he feared that he might die also. It was not
superstition, then, according to the analogy of later
times, but an anxiety founded on the belief that the
misfortune of both his sons might have been con-
nected with the fact of their too early marriage,
that made the reason for the postponement of his
promise. — In her father's house. — Thither widows
withdrew (Lev. xxii. 13).

3. JudaKs crime with Thamar (vers. 12-16).—
And (when) J».dah was comforted. — After th«
expiration of the time of mourning, he went to the fes-
tival of sheep-shearing at Timniith upon the moun.
tains, in company with Hirah. — And it was told
Thamar — The bold thought which now flashed
across the mind of Thamar is so monstrously enig-
matical, that it takes itself out of the range of all
ordinary criticism. Mere lust lould not manifest

CHAP. XXXVIII. 1-30.

59?

Itself in such a way. It might have been a grieved
feeling of right. She seemed to herself, by Judah's
command and her own submission to it, condemned
to eternal barrenness and mourning widowhood. To
break these barriers was her intention. A thirst,
however, for right and life, was not her only motive
for assuming the appearance of a harlot, the reproach
of legal incest (for the intimation of Er's baseness
and of Onan's conduct leaves it a question whether
it was so in reality), and the danger of destruction.
Like the harlot Kahab, she seems to have had a knowl-
edge of the promises made to Israel. Slie even ap-
pears to cling, with a kind of fanatical enthusiasm, to
the prospect of becoming a female ancestor in Israel.
See the Introduction, p. 81. Ambrosius: "Hon
temporalem \mum lihidinis reguisivit, sed successionem
gradas conctipivit." According to Keil, Judali came
tn her on his return. Since the sheep-shearing festi-
vals were of a jovial kind, this assumption might
serve for an explanation and palliation of Judah's
sin ; still it cannot be definitely determined from the
text. — And sat in an open place. — Lange trans-
lates : And sat in tTie gate of Ennayim (Enam, in the
low country of Judah, Josh. xv. 34). — Which is by
the way to Timnath. — " She puts off from her the
common garments of a widow, which were destitute
of all ornaments (Judith x. 3 ; xvi. 8), covers herself
Vfith a veil, so as not to be recognized (comp. Job
xxiv. 15), and wraps herself in the manner customary
with harlots." Knobel. "Thamar," says the same,
' wishes to appear as a kedescha " (a priestess of
Astarte, the goddess of love). This, however, could
hardly have been her intention, as appearing before
Judah. The proper distinction may be thus made :
According to ver. IS, he thought her to be a zona
(njIT), but in ver. 21 the question is asked, accord-
ing to the custom of the country : Where is the
kedescha? (ruClirfl). As a son of Jacob he might
have erred with a zona, but could not have had in-
tercourse with a kedescha, as a devotee of the god-
dess of love. Still the offence is great ; though there
is to be considered, on the one side, the custom of
the tunes, together with Judah's individual tempera-
ment, and the excitement caused by the sheep-shear-
ing, whilst, on the other, there is to be kept in mind the
enigmatical appearance of the transaction, behind
which moral forces, and a veiled destiny, are at work.
This giving of the seal-ring, the cord, and the staff,
shows that Judah has fallen within the circle of a
magical influence, and that it is not fleshly lust alone
that draws him. These pledges were the badges of
his dignity. "Every Babylonian, says Herodotus,
carries a seal-ring, and a staff, on the top of which "
there is some carved work, like an apple or a rose.
The same custom prevailed in Canaan, as we see
here in the case of Judah." Delitzsch. To this day
do the town Arabians wear a seal-ring fastened by a
cord around the neck (Robinson: "Palestine," i.
p. 58). " The he-goat appears also as a present from
a man to his wife (Judg. 3cv. 1)." Knobel. — Lest
we be Hiiamed. — These words characterize the
moral state of the country and the times. In his
eager search for the woman and the pledges (which
probably were of far more value than the kid), Ju-
dah shows himself by no means so much afraid of
moral condemnation, as of mocking ridicule.

4. Thamar and her sons (vers. 27-30). — And
let her be burnt. — By this sentence the energetic
Judah reminds us again of David, the great hero of
Ids family. With a rash and angry sense of justice

38

he passes sentence without any thought that he ia
condemning himself, just as David did when con
fronted by Nathan, 2 Sam. xii. B. There are ever iis
this line two strong nature? contending with each
other. " In his patriarchal authority, he commanded
her to be brought forth to be burned. Thamar w
regarded as betrothed, and was, therefore, to bt
punished as a bride convicted of unchastity. Bu(
in this case the Mosaic law imposes only the penalty
of being stoned to death (Deut. xxii. 20), whilst
burning to death was inflicted only upon the daugh
ter of a priest, and upon carnal intercourse both with
mother and daughter (Lev. xxi. 19; xx. 14). Judah's
sentence, therefore, is more severe than that of the
future law." Keil. The severity of the decision ap-
pears tolerable only upon the supposition that ha
really intended to give to Thamar his son Shelah
besides, it testifies to an arbitrary power exercised
in a strange country, and which can only be ex-
plained from his confidence in his own strength and
standing. How fairly, however, does Thamar bring
him to his senses by sending him his pledges. The
dehcate yet decisive message elicits an open confes-
sion. But his sense of justice is expressed not only
in the immediate annulling of the decision, but also
in his future conduct towards Thamar. The twin-
birth of Rebecca is once more reflected. We see
how important the question of the first-born stiU re-
mains to the Israehtish mother and midwife. In the
case of twins there appears more manifestly the
marks of a striving for the birth-right. Pharez, how-
ever, did not obtain the birth-right, as Jacob sought
it, by holding on the heel, but by a violent breach.
In this he was to represent Judah's lion-like manner
within the milder nature of Jacob. According to
Knobel, the midwife is supposed to have said to
Pharez : A breach upon thee, i. e., a breach happen
to thee ; and this is said to have been fulfilled when
the Israelitish tribes tore themselves away from the
house of David, as a punishment, because the Da-
vidian family of the Pharezites had violently got the
supremacy over its brethren.

DOCTEINAL AJfD ETHICAL.

1. Judah's beginnings as compared with those o(
Joseph. — A strong sensual nature ; great advances,
great offences — strong passions, great self-condemna-
tion, denials, struggles, and breaches.

2. Judah as Eremite, or Separatist, in the noblest
sense ; the dangers of an isolated position.

3. Hirah, from a valuable comrade, becoming an
officious assistant, — a witness to Judah's superiority.

4. The sons of Judah. The failure of his well-
intended experiment to marry his sons early.

5. Onan's sin, a deadly wickedness, an exampl'
to be held in abhorrence, as condemnatory, not onl>
of secret sins of self-pollution, but also of all similar
offences in sexual relations, and even in marriage it-
self. Unchastity in general is a homicidal waste of
the generative powers, a demonic bestiality, an out-
rage to ancestors, to posterity, and to one's own life.
It is a crime against the image of God, and a degra-
dation below the animal. Onan's offence, moreover,
as committed in marriage, was a most unnati;i«l
wickedness, and a grievous wrong. The sin named
after him is destructive as a pestilence that walkelh
in darkness, destroying directly the body and soul o^
the young But common fornication is likewisn •j^
uimatural nolation of the person, a mur-Vr or iw i

694

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK. OF MOSES.

B011I8, and a desecration of the body as the temple of
God. There are those in our Christian communities
who are exceedingly gross in this respect ; a proof
of the most defective development of what may be
called, the consciousness of personality, and of perso-
nal dignity.

6. The Levirate law. Its meaning and object.
The theocratic moral idea of the levirate law is as-
cribed in the Calwer Handbuch to the desire of imper-
ishableness. Geklaoh remarks : " An endeavor to
preserv e families, even in their separate lines, and to
retain the thereby inherited property, pervades the
laws of the Israelites, — a feeling that doubtless came
down from the patriarchs. The father still lived on
in the son ; the whole family descending from him
was, in a certain sense, himself ; and, through this,
the place among the people was to be preserved.
From the remotest antiquity, somuch depended upon
the preservation of tradition, upon the inheritance
of rehgion, education, and custom, that these things
were never regarded as the business of individuals,
but of families and nations. When afterward the
house of Jacob became a people, this duty of the le-
virate law necessarily made trouble, and the brother-
in-law was no longer forced to it ; but even then he
was pubHcly contemned for his refusal (Deut. xxv. 5 ;
Ruth iv. 7 ; oomp. Matt. xxii. 23)." The first mo-
tive for the patriarchal custom, or for Judah's idea,
conies, doubtless, from a struggle of faith in the pro-
mise with death. As the promise is to the seed ot
Abraham, so death seems to mar the promise when
he carries away some of Jacob's sons, especially the
firsc-bom, before they have had offspring. Life thus
enters into strife with death, whilst the remaining
brothers fill up the blank. The second motive, how-
ever, is connected with the fact, that the life of the
deceased is to be reflected in the future existence of
their names in this world. Israel's sons are a church
of the undying. There is a third motive ; it is to in-
troduce the idea of spiritual descent. The son of
the surviving brother answers for the legitimate son
of the dead, and thus the way is prepared for the
great extension of the adoptive relationship, accord-
ing to which Jesus is called the son of Joseph, and
mention is made of the brothers of Jesus. The
institution, however, being typical, it could not be
carried through consistently in opposition to the
riglit of personality. A particular coercive marriage
would have been at war with the idea of the law itself.
1. Thamar's sin, and Thamar's faith.

8. The Hierodulai. Female servants of Astarte,
Aschera, or Mvlytta (see Delitzsch, p. 636). The
he-goat sacred to Astarte.

9. Judah's self-condemnation and confession.
10. Judah's (Thamar's) twins; Isaac's (Rebecca's)

twins.

HOMILETICAJy AKD PEACTIOAX.

See Theological and Ethical. It is only with great
caution, and in a wise and devout spirit, that this nar-
rative should be made the ground of homiletical dis-
courses.— Judah's soUtude. — The apparent extinction
of the tribe. — God's judgments on the sins of unchas-
tity. — The danger arising from feasts (such as that of
the p^»ep-shea[ing — The keeping of promises.— Self-
condcoination. — The fall and the recovery in our nar-
rative.— Apparent extinction, and yet a new hfe,
through God's grace, in Judah's uprightness and sin-
ooritv,

First. Vers. 1-5. Starke : Hall : God'a
election is only by grace, for otherwise Judah nevci
would have been chosen as an ancestor of Chriet.—
Bibl. Wirt. . Pious parents can experience no great,
er cross than to have vile and godless children (Sirach
xvi. 1). — Gerlach : This marriage of Judah is not
censured, since it was impossible that all "'e sons of
Jacob should take wives from their kindred in Meso-
potamia.— Schroder : Ver. 5. Chezib , meaning de
LnsioN, on account of the delusions connected wit'
this place.— The false hope of Judah — afterwards of
Thamar. — Then again of Judah.

Section Second. Vers. 6-11. Starke : This
Than}ar, very generally regarded as a Canaanite,
though by some of the Jews very improbably called
a daughter of Melchizedek, has received a place in
the Toledoth of Christ (Matt. i. 3), to show that he in
also the hope of the heathen. [The Jews might, in
two ways, have suggested to them this strange hy-
pothesis of Thamar's being the daughter of Melchize-
dek ; 1. Through ancestral pride ; 2. From conclu-
sions derived from the law. They reasoned thus : If
Judah intended to bum Thamar, she must have been
the daughter of a priest. If she was the daughter of
a priest, then probably the daughter of Melchizedek.]
— Hall : Remarkably wicked sinners God reserves to
himselffor his own vengeance. — Ver. 11. Judah spake
deceitfully to his daughter-in-law. Judah may also
have thought that his sons' early marriages hastened
their death, especially if they were only fourteen
years of age (?) ; and it may be that on this account
he did not wish his son Shelah to marry so young. —
Hall : Fulfilment of promises is the duty of every up-
right man, nor can either fear or loss absolve him. —
Schroder : The seed has the promise of salvation —
the promise on which the fathers grew. The levirate
law was but a peculiar aspect, as it were, of that
universal care for offspring which formed the Old-
Testament response to God's covenant faithfulness.
Onan's sin a murder. It is as if the curse of Canaan
descended upon these sons from a Canaanitish wo-
man.—Schwenke : The sin of Onan, unnatural, de-
structive of God's holy ordinance, is even yet so dis-
pleasing to the Lord that it gives birth to bodily and
spiritual death. — Heim (" Bible Studies ") ; 1 Cor. vi.
11. Why is it that the Holy Ghost meniions first in
this chapter the sin of Onan, and then points us so
carefully to the Saviour of the world as descending
from the incest-stained Judah and Thamar ? Here
only may we find salvation, forgiveness, the taking
away of all guilt, and the curse that rests upon it.

Section Third. Vers. 12-16. Hall: Immodesty
in dress and conduct betrays evil desires. — Cramer :
Widower and widow are to live lives of chastity.
That Thamar desired Shelah to be given to her was
not unreasonable ; but her course in thus avenging
herself is by no means approved, though some of
the Christian fathers (Chrysostom, Ambrose, Theo-
doret) praise her on this very account, and ascribe
her design to a peculiar desire to become the mother
of the Messiah. — Ver. 24. It is not agreed whether
he spoke these words as judge or accuser. He was.
here among a strange people ; but as he has never
subjected himself to them, he would be judge in his
own aiiairs. — Calvin : Severe as Judah had been
against Thamar, he judges now indulgently in his own
case. — Lisco has a remarkable view, namely, thai
Judah himself, after the death of his wife, was under
obligation to marry Thamar, if he was not wilhng te
give her to his son. The same >iew is entertaincc!
by Gerlach, undoubtedly from a misunderstanding of

CHAP. XXXIX. 1-23.

59S

ihe later levirate law. — Schroder : Harlots only, ia
"ontrast with virtuous and domestic women, frequent
the streets and markets, lurking at every corner-
stone (Prov. vii. 12; Jer. iii. 2; Isaiah xvi. 25-31 ;
Jos. ii. 15).

Section Fourth. Vers. 27-30. Starke : Ver 80.
In Christ's birth-register, too, great sinners are found.
—[Osiander: These two children signified two
people, namely, the Jews and the Gentiles. For the
Jews, though seeming to be the first to enter eternal
life, have become the last ; whilst those of the Gen-
tiles who heard the gospel of Christ have gone before

them and become the :first (according to Val. Her
berger.)] — Schroder : Zarah, according to soma
means brightness, as a name given to him on accouni
of the scarlet color of the thread upon his hand. Ac-
cording to others, it means the sun-rising, as indica
tive of his appearing first. — Luther : Why did God
and the Holy Ghost permit these shameful things to b«
written? Answer ; that no one should be proud of
his own righteousness and wisdom, — and, again, that
no one should despair on account of his sins, etc. It
may be to remind us that by natural right. Gentiles,
too, are the mother, brothers, sisters of our Lord.

THIRD SECTION.

Joteph in Potiphar's house and in prism,. His sufferings on account of his virtue, and hi»

apparent destrtwtion.

Chapter

C 1-23.

1 And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh,
captain of the guard [life-guardsmen, exeoationers], an Egyptian, bought him of the hands

2 of the Ishmaehtes, which had brought him down thither. And the Lord was with
Joseph, and he was a prosperous man ; and he was in the house of liis master the

3 Egyptian. And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made

4 all that he did to prosper in his hand. And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he
served him ; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into

5 his hand. And it carae to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his
house, and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's
sake ; and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house and in the

6 field. And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand ; and he knew not aught he had
save the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was a goodly person, and well-favored

7 [seech.xxix. 1?]. And it came to pass, after these things, that his master's wife cast her

8 eyes upon Joseph ; and she said, Lie with me. But he refused, and said unto hif
master's wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he

9 hath committed all that he hath to my hand ; Thsre is none greater in this house than
I ; neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee, because thou art his wife ;

10 how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? And it came to pass
as she spake to Joseph, day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or

11 to be with her. And it came to pass about this time, that Joseph went into the hou.se

12 to do his business ; and there was none of the men of the house there within. And she
caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me : and he left his garment in her hand,

13 and fled, and got him out [of the house]. And it came to pass, when she saw that he had

14 left his garment in her hand, and was fled forth. That she called unto the men of hei
house, and spake unto them, saying, See, he hath brought in an Hebrew unto us to

15 mock us; he came in unto me to He with me, and I cried with a loud voice: And it
came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his gar-

16 ment with me and fled, and got him out. And she laid up his garment by hei, until

17 his lord came home. And she -spake unto him according to these words, saying. The

18 Hebrew servant, which thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me • Anc
it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice, and cried, that he left his garmeuc with mc,

19 and fled out. And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, which
she spake unto him, saying. After this manner did thy servant to me: that liis wrath

20 was kindled. And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison [strongiioid] '
a place where the king's prisoners [state-prisoners] were bound : and he was there in tht

21 irison But the Tjord was with Joaenh. and shewed him mercv and e-a.ve him fayoi

596

GENESIS, OK THE FIEST BOOK OF MOSES.

22 in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed tr
Joseph's hand all the prisoners that were in the prison ; and whatsoever they did there, he

23 was the doer of it. The keeper of the prison looked not to anything that was under his
hand, because the Lord was with him, and that which he did, the Lord made it io prospf

\} Ver. 20. — liisn In^3 . Literally, the round house, 8o called from its shape, which was different from the commos
Egyptian architecture — thus constructed, perhaps, as giving greater strength. Aben Ezra expresses the opinion that th«
word is Egyptian ; but it occnrs in Hebrew, as in Cant. vii. 3 ("IPID), where it evidently has the sense of roundn^s, and
is so rendered in the ancient versions. This is confirmed by its near relationship to the more common "IHO , to gormtnd^
from which the Syriac has its word | -*• .. w for tower or castle. Although Joseph, for policy, used an interpreter when
ipeaking with his brethren, yet there must have been, at this time, a great affinity between the Shemitic and the old
Egyptian tongue. Very many of the woi'ds must have been the same in both languages. The T.yy have rendered it.
iv oxupw^oTt, in the stronghold ; Vulg., simply in carcerem, — T. L.]

GETTEEAX PEELlMINARr EEMAUKS.

1. The three chapters, xxxii.-xlii., form a dis-
tinct section by themselves. Joseph in Egypt — in
his misery and in his exaltation ; first, himself ap-
parently lost, afterwards a saviour of the world. Ch.
xl. presents the transition from bis humiliation to his
exaltation.

2. In the section from ch. xxxix.-xlii., Knobel re-
oognires the elements of the original text, mingled
with the additions of the Jehovist. It is a matter of
fact, that the elohistic relations predominate, but in
decisive points Jehovah appears as the ruler of Jo-
seph's destiny.

3. If the preceding chapter might be regarded as
^ counterpart to ch. xxxvii., then the present chap-
ter forms again a counterpart to the one before it.
Both chapters agree in referring especially to sexual
relations. Id the former, Onan's sin, whoredom, and
incest, are spoken of; in the one before us, it is the
temptation to adultery. In the former, however,
Judah, on account of sexual sins, seems greatly in-
volved in guilt, though it is to be considered that he
intended to restrain the uuchastity of his sons, that
he upholds the levirate law, that he judges severely
of the supposed adultery of one betrothed, and that he
purposely and decidedly shuns incest. Nevertheless,
ne himself does not resist the allurement to unchas-
tity, whilst Joseph persistenthy resists the temptation
to adultery, and shines brilliantly as an ancient ex-
ample of chastity. His first trial, when he was sold,
wag his suffering innocently in respect to crime, and
yet not without some fault arising from his inconsid-
erateness. His second and more grievous trial was
his suifering on account of his virtue and fear of
God, and, therefore, especially typical was it in the
history of the kingdom of God.

4. Our narrative may be divided into three parts :
1) Joseph's good conduct and prosperity in Potiphar'a
house (vers.1-6); 2) Joseph's temptation, constancy,
and sufferings (vers. 6-20); 3) Joseph's well-being in
prison (vers. 21-23).

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.

1. JonepKi good behavior and prosperity in
Potiphar'n house (vers. 1-6). — And Potiphar
bought him (see ch. xxxvii. 36). — As captain of the
"executioners," he commanded the guard of the
palace, or Pharaoh's body-guard, who were to exe-
cute his deatli-sentencea, and was named accordingly.
Concerning this ofSce among other ancient nations,
see Knodel, p. 303. The name eunuch also denotes

a courtier in general ; but Knobel, without any
ground, would regard Potiphar as really such ; though
these were frequently married. — Axid the Lord
■was 'writh Joseph. — Here the name Jehovah
certainly corresponds with the facts. Joseph was
not only saved, but it is Jehovah who saves him for
the purposes of his kingdom. His master soon
recognizes in him the talent with which he under-
takes and executes everything entrusted to him. As
by Jacob's entrance into Laban's house, so by Jo-
seph's entrance into Potiphar's, there comes a new
prosperity, which strikes Potiphar as something re-
markable. He ascribes it to Joseph as a blessing
upon his piety, and to his God Jehovah, and raises
Joseph to the position of his overseer. In this ofSce
he had, doubtless, the management of an extensive
land-economy ; for in this respect there was, for the
military order, a rich provision. It was a good
training for the management of the trust he aftei^
wards received in respect to all Egypt. Upon thia
new infiuence of Joseph there follows a greater pros-
perity, and therefore Potiphar commits to him his
whole house. — Save the bread ■which he did
eat. — Schroder : " There appears here that charac-
teristic oriental indolence, on account of which a
slave who has command of himself may easily attiin
to an honorable post of influence." Save the bread,
etc. " This," according to Bohlen, " is an expression
of the highest confidence ; but the ceremonial Egyp-
tian does not easily commit to a stranger anything
that pertains to his food." Besides, the Egyptians
had their own laws concerning food, and did not eat
with Hebrews.

2. JosepKa temptations, consolatimis, and suffer-
ings (vers. 6-20).— And Joseph -was a goodly
man — His beauty occasioned his temptations. — His
master's ■wife cast her eyes upon him. — His
temptations are long continued, beginning with lust-
ful persuasions, and ending in a bold attack. Jo-
seph, on the other hand, tries to awaken her con-
science ; he places the proposed sin in every possi-
ble light ; it would be a disgraceful abuse of the con-
fidence reposed in him by his master ; it would be
an outrage upon his rights as a husband; it would
be adultery, a great crime in the sight of God.
Again, he shuns every opportunity the woman would
give him, and finally takes to flight on a pressing
occasion which she employs, notwithstanding he is
now to expect her deadly revenge. Knobel : " The
ancients describe Egypt as the home of unchastity
(Martial, iv. 42, 4 : nequitias tellus scit dare nulla
magis), and speak of the great prevalence of mar-
riage infidelity (Herod, ii. Ill; DiOD. Sic. i 59)
as well as of their great sensuality generally Foi

CHAP. XXXIX. 1-23.

591

sxunple, the hiatory of Cleopatra, Diod. ch. 81. 15."
For similar statements respecting the later and mod-
em Egypt, see Kkil, p. 251, note. — To lie by her.
— An euphemistic expression. — That she called
unto the men. — Lust changes into hatred. She
Intends to revenge herself for his refusal. Besides, it
's for her own safety ; for though Joseph himself
might not betray her, she might be betrayed by his
garment that he had left behind. Her lying story is
characteristic in every feature. Scornfully she calls
her husband he ("he hath brought in," etc. ), and
thereby betrays her hatred. Joseph she designates
as " an Hebrew," i. e., one of the nomadic people,
who was unclean according to Egyptian views (ch.
xliii. 32 ; xlvi. 34). Both expressions show her
anger. She reproaches her husband with having im-
perilled her virtue, but makes a show of it, by call-
ing the pretended seductions of Joseph a wanton
mockery, as though by her outcry she would put
herself forth as the guardian of the virtue of the
females of her house. — Unto me to mock me. —
Her extreme cunning and impudence are proved by
the fact that she makes use of Joseph's garment as
the corpus delicti, and that in pretty plain terms she
almost reproaches Potiphar with having purposely
endangered her ^chastity. — ^That his 'nrrath vras
kindled, — It is to be noticed that it is not exactly
said, against Joseph. He puts him into the tower,
the state-prison, surrounded by a wall, and in which
the prisoners of the king, or the state criminals, were
kept. Ver. 10. Delitzsch and Keil regard this pun-
ishment as mild ; since, according to Diod. Sic. i.
28, the Egyptian laws of marriage were severe. It
must be remembered, however, that Potiphar decreed
ihis penalty without any trial of the accused, and
that his confinement seems to have been unlimited.
At the same time, there is something in the opinion,
expressed by many, that he himself did not fully
believe his wife's assertion, and intended again, in
iime, to reinstate Joseph. It may, therefore, have
seemed to him most proper to pursue this course, in
order to avoid the disgrace of his house, without
sacrificing entirely this hitherto faithful servant. The
prosperous position that Joseph soon held in the
prisoii seems to intimate that Potiphar was punishing
him gently for appearance sake.

3. Joseph^s well-betTig in thepri^on (vers. 21-23).
— Favor in the sight of the keeper. — This was
a subordinate officer of Potiphar; and "thus van-
ishes the difficulty presented by Tuoh and Knobel,
that Joseph is said to have had two masters, and that
mention is made of two captains of the body-guard."
Delitzsch. The overseer of the prison also recognizes
Joseph's worth, and makes him a sort of sub-officer ;
though he does not, by that, cease to be a prisoner.

DOCTRINAL AST) ETHICAL.

1. Geklach : The important step in the develop-
ment of the divine plan is now to be made : the
iionse of Jacob was to remove from the land of the
promise into a foreign country, as had been an-
nounced to Abraham many years before (ch. xv. 13).
Jacob's numerous family could no longer remain
unong the Canaanite'=, without di.<!persion, loss of
unity and independence, and troublesome coniiicts
ififh ihe inhabitants of the country. " Further on
It is said : They were to become a people in the most
cultivated country then known, and yet most distinct-
ly lieparated from the inhabitants."

2. Jehovah was with Josenh. The covenant God

victoriously carries forward hia decrees througli a.
the need, sufferings, and ignominy of his people
Joseph, so to say, is now the support of the futuM
development of the Old-Testament theocracy: and
on the thread of his severely threatened life, as oni
above whose head hangs the sword of the heathen
executioner, there is suspended, as far as the human
eye can see, the destiny both of Israel and the world.
God's omnipotence may, and can, make its purposes
dependent from such threads as Joseph in prison,
Moses in the ark, David in the cave of AduUam.
Providence is sure of the accomplishment of its
object.

3. Joseph suffering innocently, yet confiding in
God: a. aslave, yet still a free man ; b. unfortunate,
yet still a child of fortune : c. abandoned, yet still
standing firm in the severest temptations; d. forlorn,
yet still in the presence of God ; c. an object of im-
pending wrath, yet still preserved alive ; /. a state-
prisoner, and yet himself a prison-keeper ; g. every
way subdued, yet ever again superior to his condi-
tion. In this phase of his life, Joseph is akin tf
Paul (2 Cor. vi.), with whom he has this in common,
that, through the persecutions of his brethren, he is
forced to carry the light of God's kingdom into the
heathen world, — a fact, it is true, that first appears,
in the life of Joseph, in a typical form.

4. Joseph, as an example of chastity, stands here
in the brightest light when compared with the con-
duct of Judah in the previous chapter. Prom this
we see that the divine election of the Messianic tribe
was not dependent upon the virtues of the Israelitish
patriarchs. We should be mistaken, however, in
concluding from this a groundless arbitrariness in
the divine government. In the strong fulness of
Judah's nature there lies more that is undevelopeu
for the future, than in the immature spirituality and
self-reliance of Joseph. It is a seal of the truth of
Holy Scripture that it admits such seeming paradoxes
as no mythology could have invented, as well as a
seal of its grandeur that it could so boldly present
such a patriarchal parallel to a people proud of its
ancestry, whose principal tribe was Judah, and in
which Judah and Kphraim were filled with jealousy
toward each other.

6. Joseph's victory shows how a man, and espe-
cially a young man, is to overcome temptation. Th«
first requirement is : walk as in the all-seeing pres-
ence of God ; the second : fight with the weapons
of the word in the light of duty (taking tne offen-
sive, which the spirit of conversion assumes accord-
ing to the measure of its strength) ; the third ; avoid
the occasions of sin ; the fourth : firmness before all
things, and, if it must be, flight with the loss of the
dress, of the good name, and even of life itself.

6. The curse of adultery and its actual sentence
in Joseph's speech and conduct.

1. The accusation of the woman a, picture of
cabal, reflecting itself in all times, even the most
modern. The first example of gross calumniation
in the Sacred Scripture, coming from an adulterous
woman, presenting a picture, the very opposite of
Joseph's virtue, as exhibiting the most impudent and
revengeful traits of vindictive lying. Thus, also,
was Christ calumniated, in a way that might be called
the consummation of all calumny, the master-piecs
of the prince of accusers.

8. Potiphar's wrath and mildness are indications
that he had a presentiment of what the truth really
was. It is also an example showing how the pridt
of the great easily inclines them to sacrifice to th(

598

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MISES.

honor of tLeir house the right and happiness of their
depen ionts.

HOMILBTIOAL AND PBACTIOAL.

See Doctrinal and Ethical. Joseph's destiny ac-
cording to the divine providence : 1. His misfortune
in his fortune. As formerly the preference of his
father, his variegated coat, and the splendid dreams,
prepared for him misfortunes, so now his important
function in Potiphar's house, and his goodly person.
2. His fortune in his misfortune. He was to go to
Egypt, assume the condition of a slave, enter prison,
and all this in order to become a prophetic man, an
interpreter of dreams, an overseer of estates, lord
of Egypt, a deliveier of many from hunger, a cause
of repentance to his brethren, and of salvation to
the house of Jacob. — Tadbe : The promise of suf-
fering, and the blessing of godliness : 1. Its use :
"godliness is profitable unto all things ; " 2. its suf-
ferings : " all that will live godly shall suffer persecu-
lion , " 3, its blessing in its exercise : " exercise thy-
self unto godliness."

Section First. (Vers. 1-6). Starke : There is no
better companion on a journey than God. Blessed
are they who never forget to take this society with
them wherever they go. — Bibl. Tub. . God's blessing
and grace are with the pious everywhere, even in
their severest trials. — Cramer: Where God is present
with his grace, there he will be soon known through
his word, and other tokens of his presence. — Osian-
DER : Pious servants should be made happy in their
service ; they should be loved as children, and ele-
vated to higher employments. — Lange : A beautiful
bodily form, and a disposition fundamentally enriched,
both by grace and nature ! how fitly do they corres-
pond.—Schroder : In Egypt Jacob's family had a
rich support during the famine ; there could it grow
up to a great and united people ; there it found the
best school of human culture; there was the seat
of the greatest worldly power, and, therefore, the
best occasion in which to introduce those severe suf-
ferings that were to awaken in Israel a longing after
redemption, and a spirit of voluntary consecration to
God (Hengstenberg). — God's being with Joseph, how-
ever, is not a presence of special revelations, as with
the patriarchs, but a presence of blessing and suc-
cess ill all things (Baumgarten). — Joseph happy,
though a servant. — Among the implements of agri-
culture delineated on the Egyptian tombs, there is
often to be seen an overseer keeping the accounts
of the harvest. In a tomb at Kum el Ahmar there
is to be seen the office of a household steward, with
\\\ its appurtenances.

Section Second. (Vers. 7-20). Starke : Luther :
Thus far Satan had tempted Joseph on his left side,
L e., by manifold and severe adversities ; now he
tempts him on the right, by sensuality. This temp-
tation is moat severe and dangerous, especially to a
young man For Joseph lived now among the hea-
then, where such sins were frequent, and could,
therefore, more easily excite a disposition in any way
inclined to sensual pleasure. The more healthy one
is in body, the more violent is this sickness of the
eoul (Sir. xiv. 14). The more dangerous temptations
are, or the more difficult to be overcome, so much
the more plausible and agreeable are they. Nothing
is more alluring than the eyes. " And if thine eye
affend thee, pluck it out." — Ver. 9. MuscuLos; In
all cases he who sins, sins agamst God, — even then

when he is wronging his fellow-men. But he mo"l
especially sins against God who injures the forsaken,
the misei able, the '' little ones," and those who are
deficient in understanding. For God will protect
them, since they cannot be wronged without tha
grossest wickedness. — AuGtrsTiNE : Imitentur ado
tescentes Joseph sanctum^ pulchrwm, corpore^ pulchri-
orein mente. — Lange : Since by nature shame is im-
planted in women to a higher degree than in men
(in addition to the fact, that in consenting and trans-
gression she is exposed to more danger and shame),
so much the more disgraceful is it when she so de-
generates as not only to lay snares secretly for tha
other sex, but also impudently to importune them. —
The same : The fear of God is the best means of
grace for avoiding sin and shame. — Hall : A pious
heart would rather remain humbled in the dust than
rise by sinful means. — Ver. 12. He preferred to
leave his garment behind him, rather than a good
conscience. — Lange: In a temptation to adultery
and fornication, flight becomes the most pressing ne-
cessity.— Ver. 18. Cramer: The devil will be true
to his nature ; for as he is an unclean spirit, so also
is he a liar. — Hall: Wickedness is ever artful in
getting up false charges against the virtues and good
works of others (Acts xvi. 20). We must be patient
toward the diabolical slanders of the impious ; for
God finally comes and judges them. — Beware of the
act itself; against the he there may be found a
remedy. — Vers. 19, 20. He who believes easily ia
easily deceived. Magistrates should neither be par-
tial, hasty, nor too passionate.

Schroder: ^^ Joseph was a goQcUy person." With
literal reference to ch. xxix. 17, Joseph was the re-
flected image of his mother. They in whose hearts
the Holy Spirit dwells, .are wont to have a counte-
nance frank, upright, and joyful (Luther). — The love
of Potiphar's wife was far more dangerous to Joseph
than the hatred of his brothers (Rambach). — Now a
far worse servitude threatens him, namely, that of sin
(Krummacher). — Joseph had a chaste heart, and,
therefore, a modest tongue (Val. Herberger). Un-
chaste expressions a mark of unchaste thoughts. On
the monuments may be seen Egyptian women who
are so drunk with wine that they cannot stand. Of
a restriction of wives, as customary afterwards in the
East, and even in Greece, we find no trace. — Joseph
lets bis mantle go, but holds on to a good conscience.
Joseph is again stripped of his garment, and again
does it serve for the deception of others.— Sensual
love changes suddenly into hatred (2 Sam. xiii. 15).
— Calwer Handbuch : Such flight is more honorablt
than the most heroic deeds.

Section Tiiird. (Vers. 21-23). Starke : Osian-
DER : To a pious man there cannot happen a severer
misfortunj than the reputation of guilt, and of de-
served punishment therefor, when he is innocent
(Rom. viii. 28). — Cramer : God sympathises with
those who suffer innocently (James i. 3). God
bringeth his elect down to the grave, but bringeth
them up again (1 Sam. ii. 6). Whom God would re-
vive, can no one stifle. Whom God favors, no mis-
fortune can harm.

Schroder : Those who believe in God must
suffer on account of virtue, truth, and goodness;
not on account of sin and shame (Luther). Exalt-
ation in humiliation, a sceptre in a prison, seiTaut
and Lord — even as Christ. — God's eyes behold
the prison, the fetters, and the most shameful death,
as he beholds the fair and shining sun. In Joseph's
condition nothing is to be seen but death, the losj

CHAP. XL. 1-23. 591

of his fair fame, and of all his virtues. Now oomea
Christ with his eyes of grace, and throws light into
the grave. Joseph is to become a Lord, though he
had seemingly entered into the prison of hell (Luther).
Joseph's way is now for a time in the darkness, but
this is the very way through which God often leads
his people. Thus Moses, David, Paul, Luther ; so

lived the Son of God to his tliirtieth year in Nazareth
Nothing is more opposed to God than that impa
tience of the power of nature which would violentl;
usurp his holy government. — Stolbero justly com
mends " the inimitable simplicity of Joseph's history
narrated in the most vivid manner, and bearing oi
its face the most unmistakable seal of truth."

FOURTH SECTION.

J'^eph as interpreter of the dreams of his feUow-prisorwrs.

Chapter XL. 1-23.

1 And it came to pass after these things that the butler of the king of Egypt, and hii

2 baker, had offended their lord the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was wroth against
two of his officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the

3 bakers. And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into

4 the prison, the place where Joseph was bound. And the captain of the guard
charged Joseph with them; and he served them; and they continued a season

5 in ward And they dreamed a dream, each man his dream m one night, each man
according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of

6 Egypt which were bound m prison. And Joseph came in unto them in the morning,

7 and looked upon them, and, behold, they were sad. And he asked Pharaoh s officers
that were with him in the ward of his lord's house, saying. Wherefore look ye so sadly

8 to day ? And they said unto him. We have dreamed a dream, and there is no inter-
preter of it And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God ? tell

9 me them I pray yoa. And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him,

10 In my dream, behold, a vine was before me. And in the vme were three branches :
and it was as thouo-h 'it budded, and her blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof

11 brought forth ripe grapes : And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand : and I took the grapes

12 and pressed ' them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh s hand. And
Joseph said unto him. This is the interpretation of it: The three branches are three

13 days- Yet within three days shall Pharaoh hft up thme head, and restore thee unto
thy place ; and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh's cup into his hand after the former manner

U when thou wast his butler. But think on me when it shall be well with thee and
shew kindness, I pray thee, unto me; and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring

15 me out of this house : For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews;

16 and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon. When
the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also wa,

17 in my dream, and behold, I had three white baskets on iny head ; And m the uppermost
basket there was of all manner of bakemeats for Pharaoh; and the birds did eat them

18 ou of the basket upon my head. And Joseph answered and said. This ». the mter-
9 nretation thereof- The three baskets are three days : Yet withm three days shall

CaohliftTthy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree- and the birds

20 fhaU eat thy flesh from off thee. And it came to pass the ih.r&A^j wl^ch was
Pharaoh's bhthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants; and he lifted up the

21 S of the chief butler, and of the chief baker among his servants. And he restored
' t chfefbntlerunto h^^ butlership again ; and he gave ^^e -P -J. Pharaoh s hand

22, 23 But he hanged = the chief baker; as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet did not
the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him.

[• Ver U.-3nia«n. Ipr^sed. The word occurs only here, yet its meaning is sufficiently obviou. from the «^^^
«dLl tke ^gSii^Uaif «nO . It 1. OBomatopic, representing the em.s>on of the ,u.ce. It . alhed to nntt
„_. Weand ^tr^^^^^^^^^^^ , ,,,_ The prepo.«o„ b,

I opposed to that, ^'d shows that it denotes crucifixion. -T. L.)

rtOO

GENESIS, OR THE HRST BOOK OF MOSES.

PRELIMINABT EEMAEKS.

The contents of this chapter may be denoted,
the silent preparation for the great turning in Jo-
seph's destiny. In itself considered, however, our
narrative shows us how the religious capacity of suf-
fering for the Lord's sake develops itself, like a
germ, in the people of God. Joseph's spiritual life
shines resplendent in his prison. 'There may be dis-
tinguished the following sections : 1. The imprison-
ment of the two court-ofBcers, and Joseph's charge
over them (vers. 1-4) ; 2. their dejectedness, and
Joseph's sympathy (vers. 5-8) ; 3. the dream of the
chief butler, and its interpretation (vers. 9-15) ; 4.
the dream of the chief baker, and its interpretation
(vers. 16-19) ; 6. the fulfilment of both dreams.

KKEaETICAL AND OBITICAIi.

1. Vers. 1-4. The imprisonment of the two
court-officers^ and Joseph's charge over them. — The
chief of the butlers and the chief of the ba-
kers.— According to ver. 2 they are the chiefs in
their respective departments of service. The ori-
ental kings, as those of the Persians (Xenoph., Hel-
lenica, viii. i. 38), had a multitude of butlers, bakers,
and couks. The office of chief butler was very hon-
orable with the kings of Persia (Herod., iii. 34 ;
Xenoph., Cyroped. i. 3, 8). It was once filled by
Nehemiaii (Neh. i. 11 ; ii. 1). — In the house of the
captain of the guard — i. e., in the house of Poti-
phar. The house of the captain of the guard was
connected with the state-prison, and denotes here the
prison itself — Charged Joseph with them. —
Here Potiphar again mingles himself with Joseph's
fortune (and that by way of mitigating it) in the
recognition of his talents. By this distinguished
charge, he shows favor, at the same time, to Joseph
and to his fallen colleagues.

2. Vers. 5-8. Their dejectedness and Joseph^s
sympathy. — According to the interpretation. —
Both had dreamed — each one a different dream —
each one a significant dream, according to the antici-
pated occurrence upon which it was founded, and
also according to its interpretation. Joseph's con-
versation with the sad and dejected prisoners, proves
his sagacity as well as his kindly sympathy. It
shows, too, how misfortune equalizes ranlf, and
makes the great dependent on the sympathy of those
who are lower in position. — And there is no in-
terpreter of it. — An expression showing that
the interpretation of dreams was much in vogue,
and that it was one of the wants of persons of rank
to have their dreams interpreted.' — Do not inter-
pretations belong to God ? — He admits that there
are significant dreams, and that God could bestow
on men the gift of interpretation when they are re-
ferred back to him. He rejects, indirectly, the hea-
then art of interpreting dreams, whilst, at the same
time, giving them to understand that it was, perhaps,
imparted to himself. First, however, he is to hear
their dreams. Knobel is inexact when he speaks in
general terms of " the ancient view concerning
dreams." Doubtless the field of revelation admits
dreams as sent by God, hut these coincide with
dreams in general just as little as the prophetic mode
of interpreting them coincided with that of the hea-
tlien, though, a^eording to Egyptian views, all pro-

phetic art "^mes from the gods (Herod, ii. 88)
KnobeL

S. Vers. 9-16. T/ie dream of the chief butlet
and its interpretation. — In my dream, behold z
vine. — A lively description of a lively dream. The
first picture is the vine, and the rapid development
of its branches to the maturity of the grapes. On
the vine in Egypt, see Knobel, p. 307. In the sec-
ond picture, the chief butler beholds himself in the
service of Pharaoh, preparing and presenting to him
the juice of the grapes. " The vine was referred to
Osiris, and was already well known in Egypt. See
Ps. Ixxviii. 47 ; cv. 33 ; Numb. xx. 6. The state-
ment, Herod., ii. 77, is, therefore, tp be taken with
limitations. Nor is it true that in the time of Psam-
meticus fresh m\ist only was drank, while fermented
wine was prohibited. Knobel has shown that Plu-
tarch, De Iside, vi. 6, says just the contrary. The
people drank wine unrestrained ; the kings, be^nse
they were priests, only so much as was allowed by
the sacred books ; but from the time of Psammeti-
cus even this restriction was abolished. The old
monuments show great variety of wine-utensils,
wine-presses at work, topers tired of drinking, even
intoxicated women." Delitzsch. "Wine had been
prohibited before the time of Mohammed (Shaeas-
TANi, ii. p. 346). The grapes he allowed (Koran, xvi.
11, 69). They evaded his prohibition by pressing
the grapes and drinking the juice of the berries
(ScHHLTZ, Leifungen, v. p. 286). Such juice of
grapes the Egyptian king drank also iu Joseph's
time. He was a ruler of the Hyksos (?), who were
an Arabian tribe." Knobel. The same: The dream-
interpreter Artemidorus classes the vine with plants
that grow rapidly, and regards dreams concerning it
as having a quick fulfilment. Joseph's interpretar
tion. — Three branches, three days. — Since Pha-
raoh's birth-day was at hand, and was known, per-
haps, as a day of pardon, this presentiment may, tc
some degree, have been affected by it. — Lift up
thine head. — To replace, again, in prosperity and
honor, especially to bring out of prison (P Kings
XXV. 27). — And show kindness, I pray thee,
unto me. — Joseph is so sure of his interpretation
that he employs the opportunity to plead for his own
right and liberty, — I was stolen. — An expression
of innocence. They took him away from his father,
but how it was done, his feelings do not allow him to
relate; enough that he came to Egypt neither as a
criminal, nor as a slave, rightly sold. With the same
caution he speaks about his imprisonment without
exposing the honse of Potiphar.

4. Vers. 16-19. The dream nf the chief of the
bakers^ and its interpretation. The striking resem-
blance of his dream to the one previously interpreted,
caused the baker to overlook its ominous difference ;
he, therefore, hopes also for a favorable interpreta-
tion. The interpreter, however, shows his discern-
ment in recognizing the birds that did not eat the
bakemeats out of the basket upon his head, as the
main point. He differs also from the heathen inter-
preteis in announcing the unfavorable meaning plain-
ly and distinctly. Knobel: "In Egypt men were
accustomed to carry on their heads, women upon
their shoulders. In modern Egypt women bear bur-
dens upon their heads." " Even at this day in Egypt
kites and hawks seize upon articles of food carried
upon the head." The criminal to be put to death
was fastened to a stake, to increase thereby the se-
verity of the punishment (Dent. xxi. 22 ; Josh, x
26 ; 2 Sam. iv. 12). This custom was also prevalent

CHAP. XL. 1-23.

601

imong other nations, especially the Persians and
Carthaginians.

5. Vers. 20-23. The fulfilment of both these
dreams. The kings of antiquity were accustomed to
celebrate their birth-days. "According to Herodo-
tus, this was the only day on which the kings of the
Persians anointed themselves, and gave presents to
their subjects. In like manner the Hebrew kings,
on joyous occasions, exercised mercy (1 Sam. xi.
IS)." Knobel. Joseph is forgotten by the butler,
apparently for ever ; God, however, has provided for
his exaltation, not only through the destiny denoted
Ui the dreams, but also by the clearing up of the
truthfulness of the interpreter.

DOCTRINAL AKD ETHICAL.

1. The manner in which the divine providence qui-
etly and secretly makes the most insignificant things,
apparently, the occasion and the cause of wonderful
changes, appears very visible in our narrative. It
would appear simply fortuitous that Pharaoh should
have thrown into prison his two officers on account,
perhaps, of some very trifling offence ; still more ac-
cidental would it appear that Joseph should have
had charge of them, and that both should have had
alarming dreams, and finally, how extraordinarily
fortuitous that Joseph, on entering, should have ob-
served their depression in their countenances I But
all this apparent chance was made a prerequisite, in
the course of God's providence, for Joseph's exalta-
tion, and Israel's redemption. " The Lord finds a
thousand ways where reason sees not even one."

2. The occurrences of the heathen world, the
affairs of courts, their crimes, cabals, intrigues, are
all under the divine control. A country in which the
wisdom of the world seems to have emancipated it-
self from all regard to the government of a divine
providence, is just the one whose administration
shows the most failure, and most frequently expe-
riences an ironical disappointment of its plans.

3. Prisons, too, with their dark chambers, dun-
geons, sorrows, secrets, are under the control of God.
At all times have they enclosed not only criminals,
but the innocent, — oftentimes the best and most
pious of men. Christ says : I was in prison, and ye
came unto me ; and he speaks thus, not of faithful
martyrs only ; even among the guilty there is a spark
of Christ's kinsmanship, — i. e., belonging to him.

4. How mightily misfortune takes away the distinc-
tion of rank. Joseph has not only the heart's gift
of sympathy for the unhappy, but also that open-
hearted self-consciousness that fits him to associate
with the great. Even when a child did he run be-
fore his mother in meeting Esau.

5. The night-life with its wakefulness, as with its
dreams, enters into the web of the divine providence
jsee Book of Esther, Daniel, Matt. ii. xxvii. 19 ; Acts
ivi. 9 ; Ps. cxxxii. 4). Dreams are generally so un-
meaning that they should never cause men to err in
obedience to the faith, in duty, or in the exercise of
a judicious understanding. Their most general sig-
nificance, however, consists in their being a reflection
of the feelings, remembrances, and anticipations of
the day life, as also in the fact, that all perceptions
of the body give themselves back in the mirror of
the nightly consciousness, as imaged speech or pic-
ture. The spirit of God may, therefore, employ
dreams as a medium of revelation. He can send
dream? and bestow the gift of interpretation. But,

in themselves, the most significant dreams of reve
lation never form ethical decisions, though they maj
be signs and monitors of the same. Their highei
significance, however, is sealed by their great ant
world-historic consequences for the kingdo± of God.

6. Joseph very definitely distinguished betweer
his own and the heathen mode of interpreting
dreams ; and this he owes to his Israelitish con-
sciousness as opposed to the heathen. The divin«
certainty of his interpretation is seen in the fact, that,
notwithstanding the greatest similarity in both
dreams, he immediately recognizes the point of dis-
similarity, and dares to make the fearful announce-
ment in the assurance that the issue of the affair
would be in correspondence. The apparent severity
of such frankness could not make him falter in the
feeling of what was due to truth. To narrate how he
may have sought to mitigate it, by expressions of
sympathy, lay not within the scope of this narration.

'7. The joyous feasts of the great are sources both
of life and death.

8. A man in prosperity soon forgets the com-
panions of his former misery, just as the chief butler
forgot Joseph. God's memory never fails, and it is,
at the same time, the chief quickener of the memories
of men. God keeps his own time. The ray of hope
that shone for the prisoner at the release of the chief
butler went out again for two years. When all hope
seemed to have vanished, then divine help comea in
wonderfully.

HOMILETIOAL AND PEACTICAL.

See Doct. and Eth. Joseph's disciplinary trials.
His preparation for his great calling of saviour and
ruler: a. by sufferings; b. by works of his vocation.
— -Traces of God in the prison: 1. Divine light; 2.
holy love ; 8. divine monitions ; 4. hope of deliver-
ance.— -God's government in its great issues: 1. Of
the smallest things ; 2. of the proudest events ; 3.
of the most fallible judgments of men ; 4. of the
darkest prisons ; 5. of the nightly life ; 6. of hopes
and fears in human need.

Mrst Section. Vers. 1-4. Starke : Ver. 1. In
what the offence consisted is not announced. The
Rabbins, who pretend to know all things about which
the Scriptures are silent, say that the butler had per-
mitted a fly to drop into the king's cup, and that a
grain of sand was found in the bread of the baker.
The conjecture of Rabbi Jonathan has more proba-
bility ; he thinks that both had conspired to poison
the king. Joseph was thirteen years in a state of
humiliation, and the last three (?) in a prison.
Schroder : Information concerning the Egyptian
wine culture and representations of it upon the monu-
ments (according to Champollion and others, p. 576),
— also concerning the modes of baking, which was
quite an advanced art among the Egyptians. The
Egyptians had for their banquets many different
kinds of pastry. — The offices of chief butler and
chief baker were in high honor, and sometimes thai
of field-marshal was connected with them. — In thC'
East the prisons are not public buildings erected for
this sole purpose, but a part of the house in which
the prison officer resided.

Second Section. Vers. 5-8. Starke : Cramer ;
There are different kinds of dreams : divine dreams
(ch. xxviii. 12; xli. 17; Daniel ii. 28); diabolical
dreams (Deut. xiii. 2 ; Jeremiah xxiii. 16 ; xxvii. 9) ■
natural dreams (Eccles. v. 2). We must, therefore,

602

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

distiuguish between dreams, and not regard them all
alike (Sirach xxxiv. 1). The godless and the pious
may get into the same troubles, and have similar suf-
ferings ; yet they cannot look upon them with the
like dispositions and emotions. Schroder : They
may have been dreams suggested by their official po-
tttion. Both of them may have gone to sleep with
the number three upon their minds because of the
thought that Pharaoh was to celebrate his birth-day
within three days. No wonder that their imagination
overflowed from the abundance of their hearts ; and
who can tell how much their consciences were con-
cerned in these dreams. The culture and the char-
acter of the Egyptians was every way mystical, or
rather symbohcal ; the less they are able to account
for an occurrence the more divine it seemed. Night
they considered as source of all things, and as a
being to which they paid divine honors. The whole
ancieiit history of this wonderful people has a noc-
turnal aspect about it. One might call it the land
of dreams, of presentiments, enigmas. Joseph's des-
tiny in respect to this country begins in dreams, and
is completed by them (Krummacher). It is not every
one that can read the writing of the human counte-
nance ; this power is given to love only (Baumgarten).
He preached in prison as Christ did (Richter).

Third Section. Vers. 9-15. Sfarkk : Ver. 14.
The Jews charge that Joseph in thin request demand-
ed pay for his interpretation, and allege that, on this
account, he had to remain in prison two years longer.
There is, however, no ground for such an imputation ;
but though he had tl]e assurance of the divine pres-
ence, and that God would deliver him from the
prison, he had, nevertheless, a natural longing for
liberty. Besides, he did not ask anything unfair of
the butler (1 Cor. vii. 21). — Cramer: Ordinary
means are from God, and he who despises them
tempts God. — The same : We may assert our inno-
cency, and seek deliverance, yet still we must not,
on that account, speak ill of those who have injured
us ( Matt. V. 44).

Schroder : The dream of the chief butler, no
doubt, leans upon the business of his life and office,
but, on the other hand, it also has the imaginative
Impression of " the poet concealed within every
man," as Schubert calls it. — Calwek Handhuch :
Ver. 15. A mild judgment upon the act of his breth-
ren, whom he would not unnecessarily reproach.

Fourth Section. Vers. 16-19. Starke: JBibl.
Wirt. : Whenever the word of God is to be expound-
ed, it should be done in the way the Holy Spirit pre-
sents it, and according to the word itself, no matter

whether the hearers are disturbed, alarmed, or coin
forted. — Schroder : (Calvin :) Many desire the wore
of God because they promise themselves simply en
joyment in the hearing of it. — Calwek Ilandlmch ;
In Hebrew, " to lift up the head," is a play upon
words. It means to restore to honor and dignity, or
to hang upon the gallows, or decapitation (taking
off the head), or crucifixion (hfting up upon ths
cross).

Fifth Section. Vers. 20-23. Starke: Bibl.
Wirt : Godless men in adversity, when they receive
help from the pious, make the fairest of promises,
but when prosperity returns they forget them all.
Be not, therefore, too confiding. High station
changes the manners, and usually makes men arro-
gant.— Lange : How easily is a favor forgotten, and
how seductive the courtier life ! — Schroder : These
are times when men, through the prestige of birth,
or by money, or human favor, may reach the summit
of honor and wealth, without any previous schooling
of adversity ; still such men are not truly great,
whatever may be the greatness of their title and their
revenues. They are not the instruments that God
employs in the accomplishment of his great purposes.
Thus to Joseph, who was to become Lord of Egypt,
the house and prison of Potiphar, in both of wliich
he bore rule on a lesser scale, were to be his prepara-
tory school. The wisdom he was to exercise in great-
er things begins here to show itself in miniature.
Such a heart-purifying discipline is needed by all
who would see God, and who would be clothed with
authority for the world's benefit. Without this
there is no truly righteous administration. It never
comes from passsionate overhastiness, sensual sloth,
needless fear, selfish purposes, or unreasoning obsti-
nacy. On the contrary, Joseph was purified, in
prison, by the word of God ; so was Moses in Midian,
David in exile, Daniel in Babylon. Thus became
they fit instruments in the hand of God (Roos).
Therefore is it that the pious Joseph was crucified,
dead, and buried, and descended into hell. Now
comes the Lord to deliver him, honor him, make him
great (Luther). — Heim (Bible Studies) : It was Jo-
seph's single ray of hope in the prison — that which
lighted him to freedom — that he could commend
himself to the intercession of the chief butler. When
this went out, according to every probable view,
there seemed nothing else for him than to pine away
his whole life in prison ; and yet the fulfilment of the
dreams of the court officers might have strengthened
him in the hope of the fulfilment of his own dreama
in his native home.

FIFTH SECTION".

Joseph the interpreter of PharaoKs dreams.

Chapter XLI. l-oY.

1 And it came to pass, at the end of two full years [lit., days], that Pharaoh dreamed ;

2 and, behold, he stood by the river. And, behold, there came up out of the river sever
well-favoured kine, and fat-fleshed; and they fed in a meadow' [bubmslieB, the giase on th»

3 bank of the river]. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill-

4 favoured and lean-fl jshed, and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. A ad

CHAP. XLI. 1-57. 603

the ill-favoured and lean-flv«hed kine did eat up tlie seven well-favouied and fat kino. Sc

5 Pliaraoh awoke. And lie slept and dreamed the second time ; and, behold, seven sars

6 of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good. And, behold, seven thin ears, and

7 blasted with the east wind, sprung up [in single stacis] after them. And the seven thm
ears devoured the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was

8 a dream. And it came to pass in the morning, that his spirit was troubled ; and he
sent and called for all the magicians ' [scribes : skiued in Heroglyphics] of Egypt, and all the
wise men [magicians] thereof; and Pharaoh told them his dreams; but there was none

9 that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh.

10 saying, I do remember my faults this day. Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and

11 put me in ward in the captain of the guard's house, both me and the chief baker; And
we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he ; we dreamed each man according to the

12 interpretation of his dream. And there was there with us a young man, an Hebrew,
servant to the captain of the guard ; and we told him, and he interpreted to us oui

13 dreams ; to each man according to his dream he did interpret. And it came to pass, as
he interpreted to us, so it was ; me he restored unto mine office, and him he hanged

14 Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily o"at of the dungeor
[pit] ; and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh

15 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can
interpret it; and I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to inter-

16 pret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me:" God shall give

17 Pharaoh an answer of peace. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, In my dream, behold,

18 I stood upon the bank of the river; And, behold, there came up out of the river seven

19 kine, fat-lleshed, and well-favoured; and they fed in a meadow; And, behold, seven
other kine came up after them, poor, and very ill-favoured and lean-fleshed, such as I

20 never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness; And the lean and the ill-favoured kine

21 did eat up the first seven fat kine; And when they had eaten them up, it could not be
known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill-favoured, as at the beginning.

22 So I awoke. And I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up in one stalk, full

23 and good ; And, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind,

24 sprung up after them ; And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears. And I told thia

25 unto the magicians ; but there was none that could declare it to me. And Joseph said
unto Pharaoh, The drea,m of Pharaoh is one ; God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is

26 about to do. The seven good kine are seven years ; and the seven good ears are seven

27 years; the dream is one. And the seven thin and ill-favoured kine, that came up after
them, are seven years ; and the seven empty ears, blasted with the east wind shall be

28 seven years of famine. This is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh; what

29 God is about to do, he sheweth unto Pharaoh. Behold, there come seven years of

30 great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt ; And there shall arise after them seven
years of famine ; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the

31 famine shall consume the land; And the plenty shall not be known in the land, by

32 reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous. And for that the dream
was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and

33 God will shortly bring it to pass. Now, therefore, let Pharaoh look out a man discreet

34 and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him

35 appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the
seven plenteous years. And let them gather [lay in store] all the food of those good
years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food

36 ia the cities. And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of
famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the

37 famine. And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his

38 servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a

39 man in whom the Spirit of God is? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as

40 God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art; Thou
shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled ;

i I only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I

il have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his

hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine Imen, and put

604

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

43 a gold chain upon his neck; And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he

had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee; * and he made him ruler over all the

i 4 land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall

45 no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh called Joseph's

name Zaphnath-paaneah ' [gave him the title of Savior of the world ; preserver of life, &c.] ; and he
gave him to wife Asenath [consecrated to Neith (the Egyptian Minerva)], the daughter of Poti
pherah [same as Potiphar ; near to the sun], priest of On [light; sun ; Heliopolis]. And Joseph

46 went out over all the land of Egypt. And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood
before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh,

47 and went throughout all the land of Egypt. And in the seven plenteous years the

48 earth brought forth by handfuls [armful upon armful]. And he gathered up all the food
of the seven 3'ears, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities ;

49 the food of the field which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And
Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; foi

50 it was without number. And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of
famine came ; which Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On, bare unto him.

51 And Joseph called the name of the first-born Manasseh [the one that causes to forget ; viz.,
Jehovah] ; For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house

5'2 And the name of the second called he Ephraim [rarst: fruits ; Deiitzsch : double fruitfulness]

53 For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. And the seven

54 years of plenteousness that was in the land of Egypt were ended [njibsn^]. And the
seven years of dearth began [ns^fenni] to come, according as Joseph had said ; and the

55 dearth was in all lands ; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when [also]
all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread ; and Pharaoh
said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do. And the

56 famine was over all the face of the earth ; And Joseph opened all the store-houses, and

57 sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land ef Egypt. And all
countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so
sore in all lands.

' * Ver. 2. — inx . A pure Egyptian word, say most of the commentators and lexicographers ; and yet no reason can
be given why it is not, at the same time, Shemitic. Its occurrence, Job viii. 11. is as good proof of the latter supposition,
as Gen. xli. 2 is of the former. The thing signified, a reedy pasture^ was more common in Egypt than in Judea or Arabia,
and, therefore, it became better known m the early Egyptian tongue. The same may be said of "'N'^ . — T. L.]

l^ Ver. 8. — "^iSliin . Here is a word used of a thing most peculiarly Egyptian, and yet there can hardly he a doubt
of its root being Shemitic. It is from tlT n , stylus, a writing or gi-aving instrument. They were the sacred scribes. See
Geseniub, and BoCHAar, Hieroz. ii. p. 468. Comp. V^n . — T. L.]

[■ Ver. 16. — ^"l^bs : Beside me, or same ov£ else than me. The LXX have rendered it, avev toO 6eov ovk an-OKpt^jJcreTai
ro aoirijptov ^apaio, *' as though they had read tl^T'' Xb ," says Eosenmiiller. But there is no need of this to explain the
interpretation. The LXX have given the general sense correctly, since there is a negative or excluding force in ^T:^P3.
Not me — no one but God can answer to Pharaoh's satisfaction. The famous Hebraico- Samaritan Codex has the negative
'particle, and there could not be a better proof of its having followed the LXX ; keeping its apparent error without its
general correctness in this passage. — T. L.]

[* Ver. 43.— Tp^X . It is not easy to see why there should have been so much pains to make out this to he a puw
Egyptian word, or to deny its Shemitic origin. Some make it from GYBE PEX, incUnate contra. See Jablonsky as cited
by Eosenmiiller. OtherB would make it equivalent to A— nPE — XEK, a rege cindus. The word is almost identical with
"p^n , the Hiplii) imperative of "j^^ , and its Hebrew sense, how the Itnee or hneel (just as we make the verb from the
noun) would eeem the meaning, of all others, best adapted to the context. The slight variation confirms this. Had it
been simply dressing up a pure Egyptian word in a Hebrew form, there is no reason why the writer should not have
employed the proper Hebrew Hiphil. The word at this time, doubtless, belonged to both languages, hut its solemn and
pubbc pronunciation in the shouting procession made the narrator prefer to keep the broader Egyptian scnnd of X
for n .-T. L.]

[» Ver. 45. — p3yQ ^3B3 , ZophnatJt'paeneah. This word is doubtless Egyptian, as there can nothing he mSde cf it
in Hebrew. LXX, ■irov9oiJ.'l>avrix. The latter part of the compound is, doubtless, a Coptic word, equivalent to the Greek
muiiv, and the whole is rendered caput seculi or mundi. Vulg., salvatorem mundi. It ie worthy of note as showing, thai
at this early day, and in this early language, a time-word {agCy period^ cycle, etc.) was used for worlds like the later use
«f the Hebrew Qbl:5 , and of amv, for mundus in the New Testament — T. Ii.]

PEELIMINAEY REMAEKS.

Contents of this section : The dreams of Pha-
raoh (vers. 1-7); 2. The Egyptian interpreters of
dreams and Joseph (vera. 8-16); 3. The narration

of the dreams and their interpretation (vers. 17-32) :
4. Joseph's counsel in the employment of liis inter-
pretation ; 5. Pharaoh's consent and appointment
of Joseph as overseer (vers. 37-45); 6. Joseph's
management during the seven years of plenty, and

CHAP. XLL 1-5V.

6of

God's blessing him with children (vers. 46-63) ; 7.
The seven years of dearth, the famine, and the buy-
ing of the com in Egypt (vers. 54-67).

EXEGETICAI, AND CMTICAT,.

1. Vers. 1-7. The dreams of Pharaoh. — At the
end of two years (Q"'ai). — Thi.s shows Joseph's
long imprisonment. — By the river (Lange trans-
lates : By the Nile). — The Nile, as is well known,
is the coudition on which Egypt's fruitfulness de-
pends. Its overflowing fertilizes the soil, and when
it does not occur, the crops fail. — Seven well-
favored kine. — On the one hand was the male kine,
a symbol of the Nile (Diod. Sic. i. 51), and especial-
ly sacred to their god Osiris, who invented agricul-
ture (Diod. i. 21). The bullock was a symbol of
Osiris, whose name was also given by the Egyptian
priests to the Nile (Plutarch : De Iside, 33, X9, 43).
On the other hand, the female kine, in the Egyptian
symboUcal language, was the symbol of the earth,
of agriculture, and of the sustenance derived from
it 'Clemens Alex. Strom, v. p. 567). This agrees
with the representation of Isis, who was worshipped
as the goddess of the all-nourishing earth (Macros.
" Saturn," i. 20), or of the earth fertUized by the
Nile (Plutarch : De Ixide, 38). The cow was spe-
cially sacred to her, and she was pictured with horns
(Herod, ii. 41). Her symbol was the kine. "Isis
was, at the same time, goddess of the moon which
determined the year. In hieroglyphic writing, her
picture denoted the year." Enobel. Seven well-
favored kine rising out of the Nile were, therefore,
pictures of a seven-fold appearance of the soil made
fruitful by the Nile. — Seven other kine came up,
ill^avored. — Lit., thin (ver. 19), lank, lean-fleshed.
They follow these well-favored ones, and appear right
by their side — a typical expression of the fact that
the years of famine are to follow close upon the
rears of plenty: — And dreamed the second time.
— " According to the ancient art of dream-interpre-
tation, dreams that are repeated within a short time
have the same meaning ; the repetition was to awake
attention and secure confidence (Aktemidohus:
Oneirocrit. 4, 27). Knobel. — Seven ears of com
came up upon one stalk. — According to Knobel,
the coming up upon one stalk is to denote the imme-
diate connection of the respective heptades. But
then the same thing would have been mentioned in
respect to the seven thin ears. The plentiful branch-
ing of the principal stalk into separate spears and
ears, is, however, an immediate appearance of fer-
tility, whilst, on the contrary, the thin crop does not
spread, but comes up in separate and slender stalks.
—Blasted with the east vrind. — With the south-
east wind coming from the desert — the wind called

chamsin. — It was a dream It was obvious to

Pharaoh from both dreams that there was in them
something very important ; but the imagery had been
BO vivid that he awakes with conscious surprise at
finding it a dream. Knobel: "A beautiful series
of symbols : the Nile the source of fertility, cows as
representing fertility itself, and ears of corn as the
result."

2. Vers. 8-16. The Egyptian interpreters of
ireams, and Joseph. — That his spirit was troubled
(Comp. Dan, ii. 2). There was something painful in
the tho :ght that though there was some evident mo-
nition to him as a sovereign, the interpretation was
wanting ; and the pictures were the more painful ,

since their termination was apparently so terrible.—
And called all the magicians. — The D^SBin

from t2"jn , a writing stile, were the Upoypaixixarcls,
belonging to the order of the priests, and occupied
with the sacred sciences, such as hieroglyphical
writing, astrology, dream-interpretation, fortune-tell-
ing, magic, and sorcery. They were regarded at
possessors of the secret arts (Exod. vii. 11), or, in
other words, the philosophers, or wise men of the
nation. Keil. More particularly concerning then
magic art, see Knobel, p. 311. As interpreters o)
dreams the Egyptian priests are also mentioned bj
Tacitus : " Hist." iv. 83. See Delitzsch, p. 644",
and Hengstenberg. — But there was no one that
could interpret them. — " Though the roots of the
dream, and of its interpretation, were given in the
religious symbolical science of Egypt," as Keil re-
marks, they failed to find its meaning ; but then he
calls to mind what Baumgarten says : " It is the
doom of this world's wisdom to be dumb where it!
knowledge might avail, or dependence is placed upon
it (Job xii. 20)." This incapacity, however, must
naturally be increased in cases where the interpreta-
tion to be brought out is evidently of a fearful nar
ture ; for the heathen court-prophets were doubtless
flatterers, too, just as afterwards the false prophets
in the courts of the Jewish kings. — I do remembei
my fault. — The chief butler, too, is called to the
council ; for together with the magicians the wise
men generally were summoned to attend. The dec-
laration of the chief butler is referred, by Knobel
and Keil, to his offence against the king (ch. xl. 1),
and, at the same time, to hi.-i forgetfulness of Joseph
(ch. xl. 43). At all events, the unpleasant i ecollec-
tion of his former punishment was the principal
cause. — And they brought him hastily. — A vivid
representation of the turning of his fortune, caused
by the rising court favor. — And he shaved him-
self.— Joseph met the excitement of his liberators
with grace and dignity. " He changed his garments,
as is done by one who is to participate in some sa-
cred act (see ch. xxxv. 2). The i5gyptians let the
beard and hair grow, in mourning (Herod, ii. 36).
So Joseph had done in the mournful lime of his im-
prisonment. He observes the Egyptian custom.
The Hebrews, on the other hand, cut off their hair
and beard on such occasions." Knobel. According
to Wilkinson, the Egyptian painters represented with
a beard any one whom they would designate as a
man of low caste, or life. — To interpret it.^Pha-
raoh draws bold inferences from the statement of
the chief butler, but in a manner perfectly consistent
with that of a despot who is impatient to have his
expectations realized. Not even, however, the flat-
tering words of the king, can discompose Joseph.
He gives God the glory (as in ch. xl. 8). But he also
hopes for divine light, and courteously invites the
king to narrate his dream.

3. Vers. 17-32. The narration of the dreams,
and their interpretation. The narration agrees per-
fectly with the first statement, and it only brings oui
more distinctly the subjective truthfulness of the
account, that the king, in the description of the ill
favored kine, mingles something of his own reflei
trons. — What God is about to do he showeth
unto Pharaoh. — Joseph puts in the front the re
lif ious bearing of the dream, and in this most sue
cessfuUy attains his aim. Whilst unhesitatingly pro
fessing his belief that these dreams came from God
he at the same time keeps in view the practical as

60G

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

pect. God would inform Pharaoh, through Joseph's
interpretation, what he intends to do, in order that
the liing may take measures accordingly. The cer-
tainty and clearness of the interpretation are to be
eo prominently manifested as to remove it far from
comparison with any heathen oracles. Knobe! will
have it that the Elohist and the Jehovist assume
here different positions in respect to dream-revela-
tions.

4. Vers. 33-36. Josephs counselin respect to the
practical me of the interpretation. The candid advice
of Joseph shows that his high gift did notintoiicate
him; but rather, that he himself was greatly struck
by the providence revealed in the dreams. It is a
great delivery from a great and threatening destruc-
tion. The first demand is for a skilful overseer,
with his subordinates. Then there is wanted the
enactment of a law that the land shall be divided
into five parts during the seven plenteous years ; so
that they were to give the fifth instead of the tithe
(or tenth), as may have been customary ; and that
the royal storehouses should be built in the cities oC
the land, in order to be filled with corn. We have
no right to say that Joseph meant in this to recom-
mend himself It would seem rather that he is so
struck with the foresight of the great coming famine,
that he cannot think of himself. Besides, the ofiice
which his counsel sketches is much less important
than that which Pharaoh afterwards confers on him.
There is still a great difference between a chief of
the taxgatherers and a national prime minister.

5. Vers. 37-45. PharaoKa consent and Joseph's
appointment. — And the thing was good. — The
correctness of the interpretation and the certainty
of its fulfilment are both here presupposed. By the
rules of Egyptian symbolism their correctness could
not be questioned ; their certainty, however, lay in
the belief that the dreams of Pharaoh were sent by
God. The stress, therefore, lies upon the approba-
tion with which Joseph's advice was received. And
this was so conformable to the object in view, that
even had the fulfilment been doubtful, it would have
been a wise measure of political economy. But Pha-
raoh goes farther ; from the divine illumination that
appears in Joseph he concludes that he is just the
man to carry out the plan. — Thou shalt be over
my house. — What follows is the direct conse-
quence : And according to thy word. — Knobel
explains the Hebraism in this language (^^B '^^
■'BS bs pffi^ , lit., upon thy mouth every one of my

"people shall kiss), according to 1 Sam. x. 1 and Ps.
ii. 12, as referring to the custom of expressing hom-
age by a kiss, or throwing the kiss with the hand.
Keil disputes this on verbal grounds ; but even if the
language admits it idiomatically, such an act would
not be appropriate in homage paid to princes. It
would be better to give pU5 here its primary signifi-
cance : to attach^ to unite oneaelf. So Joseph is
nominated as Pharaoh's Grand Vizier. Knobel in-
fers from this that it is a Jehovistio insertion, and
that, according to the Elohist, Joseph was made a
Itate officer, and not a royal minister. Does he de-
rive this from an acquaintance with the Egyptian
Btate-calendar of those days ? Before Pharaoh's
nxplanation (ver. 41), Knobel's twofold distinction
of the highest dignities falls to the ground. — His
ring from hia hand. — After the concession of the
dignity, he confers on him its insignia. The first is
the seal-ring, " which the grand vizier or prime min-
Iflter h«ld, it. order to affix it to the royal decrees

(Esth. ill. 10 ; viii. 2)." Keil. So also was it among
the Turks (Knobel, p. 314). The second is the
white byssus-robe (made out of fine linen or cotton),
worn by the priests, and by which he was elevated
to a rank corresponding to the dignity of his office.
The third mark of honor was a gold chain about his
neck, to denote distinction, and as a special mark of
the royal favor. " According to JSlian and Diodo-
ruB, it was the usual mark of distinction in the per-
sonal appearance of the judges, like the golden col-
lar, as seen pictured upon the monuments." De-
htzsch. In this dignity Joseph is now to be present-
ed to the people ; the king, therefore, makes him
ride in procession through the city, in his second
chariot, i. e., in the one that came immediately after
the royal chariot, and caused the customary an-
nouncement of the dignity conferred to be made by
a herald. " The exclamation : T)"12!< , i. e., bow
dotim, is an Egyptian word formed from "["iS by
means of Masoretic vowels which make the Hiphil
and Aphel conjugation." Keil. Geklach : Out of
the Coptic word " boiu the head^'' a Hebrew is made,
6ow the knee. — I am Pharaoh. — He again repeats
the reservation of his royal dignity, but with tlie
same definiteness he appoints him overseer of the
whole land, with the consciousness that he was com-
mitting the salvation of his people to the favorite of
Deity. Therefore he says: And without thee
shall no man, etc. — Yet for the Egyptians' .-ake he
must be naturalized. Pharaoh, therefore, first gives
him an Egyptian name (the Sept.: •^ovho^(^a.vrix\
for the various interpretations of which, see Keil,
p. 256; Knobel, p. 314). Bunsen interprets it,
creator of Ife. In its Hebrew transformation the
word has been rendered reveater of secrets ; Luther :
secret counsel. In its stateliness the name is in ac-
cordance with the oriental feeling, — especially the
Egyptian, — yet it simply expresses Pharaoh's feeling
acknowledgment that Joseph was a man sent by
God, and bringing salvation. In him, first of all,
was fulfilled the word of that prophecy : In thy seed
shall the nations of the earth be blest. Next, the
king gives to him an Egyptian wife, Asenath, the
daughter of Potipheres (LXX, irevrecppri, ille qui
solis est), priest at On, which was the vernacular
name for Heliopolis (LXX, 'HAiouiroAii, city of the
sun). " This city of On ("lis , changed by Ezekiel,
XXX. 1*7, derisively into '{](<) was a chief city, devoted
to the worship of Ra, the sun-god.'' Delitzsch. "Ac-
cording to Brugsoh (' Travels,' etc.), its name upon
the monuments was Ta-Ra, or Pa-Ra, house of the
sun. Here, from the oldest times, has been a cele-
brated temple of the sun, with a company of learned
priests, who took the first stand in the Egyptian
colleges of priests (comp. Herod, ii. 3 ; Hengsten-
BERG, p. 30)." Keil. The same remarks : " Such
an extraordinary promotion of a slave-prisoner is to
be explained from the high importance which an-
tiquity, and especially Egyptian antiquity, ascribed
to the interpretation of dreams, and to the occult
sciences, as also from the despotic form of oriental
governments." As a parallel case, he refers to
Herod, ii. 121, where Rhampsinitus is represented
as promoting the son of a mason to be his son-in-
law, because, as " the Egyptians excelled all men, so
this one excelled all the Egyptians themselves, ir
wisdom." The priest rank was esteemed the highest
in Egypt, as it was the caste to which the king him-
self belonged. Knobel (p. 316) atteirpts to do
away the difficulty which tliis temple of On make*

CHAP. XLI. 1-67.

fi07

to the assumption that the Israelites were the same
»B the Hyksos, who are said to have destroyed the
Egyptian temples. This ancient On was situated in
lower Egypt, about two leagues northeast from the
present city of Cairo. The situation of Heliopolis
is marked by mounds of earth, now enclosing a flat
piece of land, in the centre of which stands a soli-
tary obelisk. In the vicinity is the city of Matarieh,
with the well of the sun, and a sycamore-tree, under
which, according to the tradition, the holy family is
said to have rested.

6 Vers. 46-53. t/oseph's management of the
lianeff during the seven years of plenty, and his bless-
ing 0/ children.— Andt Joseph was thirty years
old. — The summary account, ver. 45, and Joseph
went out, is here given more specifically. Knobel
does not seem to know what to make of this mode
of Biblical representation, in which it resumes a
former assertion for the purpose of making specifi-
cations. He calls upon the reader to note " that this
bad been already said, ver. 46." As tlie dreams are
fulfilled, so Joseph fulfi!s his calling. His mode of
proceeding is clearly stated. In the cities of the
different districts storehouses are built, in which is
to be laid up the fifth part of the harvest. — Manas-
seh. — In this name is expressed the negative effect
of his exaltation : God has freed him from the pain-
ful remembrance of his suflferings, and from all an-
gry recollections of his father's house. The name
Ephraim expresses, on the contrary, the positive
consequence. It is a double happiness on a dark
foil, as though he had said : In the land of my
wretchedness there is first, deliverance, second, a
•aising to honor.

1, The seven years of dearth, the famine, and the
filing of the grain. On the frequent occurrence
3f famines in Egypt and the adjacent northern coun-
tries, see Keil, p. 268. For particulars see Hengsten-
berg, and extracts by Schroder, p. 890. — And all
countries. — The countries adjacent to Egypt, and
eBpecially Palestine. Aside from the fact that Egypt,
in early times, was a granary for the neighboring
countries, and that they, therefore, suffered also from
every famine that came upon it, it is a thing to be
noticed that the rain-season of these lands, as well
as the rising of the NUe, was conditioned on north-
ern rainy winds.

DOCTEDTAL ANB ETHICAL.

1. Joseph's exaltation : 1) Considered in itself.
Grounded in his destiny. Accomplished by his in-
aoceut sufferings and his good conduct (Pliil. ii. 6).
Carried out by Uod's grace and wisdom as a divine
miracle in his providentia specialissima. Its princi-
pal object the preservation of Israel and of many na-
tions. Its further object, Israel's education in Egypt.
Its imperishable aim the glory of God, and the edifi-
cation of the people of God by means of the funda-
mental principle : through humiliation to exaltation.
2) This exaltation, in its typical significance : the
Beal of Israel's guidance in Egypt, of the guidance
of all the faithful, of the guidance of Christ as the
model of our divine instruction.

2. Joseph's sufferings from his brethren so turned
by God's grace that they become sufferings for their
own good. Thus Joseph's sufferings become a turn-
ing-point between Abel's blood crying for vengeance,
aud the death of Christ reconciling the world. The
contrast here is no contradiction. The blood of

Abel was crying for vengeance in no absolute OJ
condemning sense, whil.st, on the other hand, Christ's
reconciliation is connected with an inward and spir
itual judgjnent. And thus, also, Joseph's brethren
were to be led through a hell of self-knowledge to
peace of conscience, just as Joseph individually it-
tained, by degrees, to a complete victory over him.
self.

3. Pharaoh's dreams, like Nebuchadnezzar's, be
came, through the divine providence, factors in thj
web of the world's history. The king's heart is in
the hand of the Lord ; as the rivers of water he turnr
eth it {Ptoy. xxi. 1). As the high priests (John xi
51) were to utter words of significance unoonsciouely,
and unwillingly, so kings are made to serve God in
acts having a significance beyond immediate inten-
tions. Its roots, however, extended down into the
dream of life. Gerlach calls attention to Nestor's
words concerning Agamemnon's dream (Iliad, ii. 80),
Heim ("Bible Hours") is full on the same thought.

4. The memory of the chief butler. Forgetful-
ness of the small — a sharp remembrance in the ser-
vice of the great. The memory as exercised in the
service of God: forgetting all (that hinders) — re-
membering all (thiit promotes). The change from
darkness to light, from night to day, in the landscape
of history.

6. Joseph as opposed to the Egyptian interpreters
of dreams, Moses as opposed to the Egyptian sor-
cerers, Christ as opposed to the Scribes and Phari-
sees, Paul as opposed to heresies, etc. ; or, in other
words, the contrast between divine wisdom and the
wisdom of this world — a contrast that pervades all
history.

6. God conducts every nation by its special char-
acteristic, by its religious forms, according to the
measure of piety that is in them. Thus he ruled the
Egyptians through the night-life and the world of
dreams.

7. The Egyptian symbolism in the dreams of
Pharaoh. " These and similar thoughts, no doubt,
occurred also to the Egyptian scribes, but Joseph's
divinely-sealed glance was necessary in assuming the
responsibility of the fourteen years, as well as in the
interpretation of the dreams, which afterwards ap-
pear very simple and obvious." Delitzseh. The
etiiical point, that divine courage is necessary for
prophecy, is not to be overlooked. It was a perilous
undertaking to announce to the Egyptian despot a
famine of seven years. It is not correct, as Knobel
states, that among the Hebrews, false prophets alonfc
referred to dreams ; and still more groundless hi?
allegation of a difference between the " Elohist " ami .
the " Jehovist" in this respect. Roos speaks of the'
gift of interpreting dreams which Joseph possessed,
as a gift of prophecy, inferior, however, to that
manifested by Israel and Jacob when they blessed
their sons. For the dream interpreter has a handle
given to him by the dream ; whilst in the case of
Isaac, Jacob, and other prophets, everything is de-
pendent on direct divine inspiration. But the
prophets mentioned, even those that prophesied im-
mediately, had historic points of departure and con-
nection. We can only say, therefore, that there are
different forms for the manifestation of the pro-
phetic spirit. Divine certainty is the common mark
of all.

8. The universalistic aspect of the Old Testament
appears also from the fact that our narrative, without
any reserve, informs us how pious Joseph becomei
incorporated in the caste of Egyptian priests. " .1©

608

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

hoval.'s religion," says Delitzach, " enters into Egyp-
tian forms, in order to rule, without becoming lost
in it. Strictly speaking, it was the assuming of
Egyptian customs by one devoted to the Religion of
Jehovah. Compare the indulgence shown by Elisha
to Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings v. 1'7-19).

9. Delitzsch : " How, then, asks Luther — ^how
J it Christian in him to glory in having forgotten his
father and his mother ? " This, however, is not the
case ; for when Joseph speaks of having forgotten
his father's house, he has surely some memory of
the injuiies of his brethren, and the name Manasseh
3 to remind him constantly of this noble resolution
J forget his wrongs. Luther thus answers his own
question: He intended to say, I now see that God
meant to take away from me the confidence which I
jad in my father ; for he is a jealous God, and is
not willing that the heart should have any other
ground of rest than himself. " It is remarkable,"
says Knobel (p. 288), " that Joseph gives no timely
information of his existence, and of his exaltation,
io a father who so loved him, and whom lie so loved
n turn, but permitted a series of years to pass, and
even then was led to it by the coming of his breth-
ren." The proper solution of this scruple, already
entertained by Tlieodoret, we find in Baumgarten.
"With steadfast faith he renounced all sell'-aoiing in
respect to God's decree, which pointed to a further
and more glorious aim. The first consequence to be
traced was the verification of his prophecy, that his
power might be placed on a stable foundation." To
this there must be added the consideration that Jo-
seph could not make himself hastily known to his
father without leading to the discovery of the guilt
which weighed upoii his brethren. A precipitate
disclosure of this dark secret might, perhaps, ruin
Jacob's house irrecoverably. And, finally, it must
be considered tliat Joseph, especially during the first
years, had a call to active duties of the most strin-
gent and pressing nature. — Schroder : Since Joseph
first mentions his adversity (in the declaration re-
specting the name Manasseh), he must have referred
to Ills father's house only in its inoumful reminiscence
as the scene of his misery. In view of the present
as something evidently controlled by God, his whole
past vanishes away, as comparatively of no conse-
quence. It is the confidence of rest in God's provi-
dence. Calvin, it is true, imputes it to him as a sin ;
whilst Luther calls it a wonderful declaration. Af-
terwards, at Ephraim's birth, as Schroder remarks,
Joseph held in, so to speak, his former exuberance
•of joy. The words, in the land of my soi-rows
"(meaning Egypt), reveal a mournful longing for
.Canaan.

aOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.

See the Doctrinal and Ethical. Pharaoh's char-
acter. A good king a blessing to his country. Pha-
raoh's dream a mark of his care for his people,
therefore, also of God's care for him. Fruitful and
unfruitful years ; great means in the hand of God's
providence. Joseph's deliverance beyond expecta-
tion: 1. Late beyond expectation; 2. early beyond
expectation ; 3. great beyond expectation ; 4. en-
tirely different from what he thought in his longing
for home. Joseph's deliverance and exaltation a
typical order in God's kingdom : 1. Every true ex-
altation presupposes a deliverance ; 2. every trug de-
liverance is followed by exaltation. — Josepli and the

other personages in our narrative. Joseph the He-
brew slave standing in royal dignity before the throne
of Pharaoh : a. In his quiet preparation for audi
ence ; b. in his humility and his faithful confidence
c. in his fearless interpretation of the dreams ac
cording to their truth ; d. in his wise counsel. Jo-
seph, hke Moses, an Egyptian prince, and yet a prince
in the kingdom of God. — Joseph's pohtical economy.
— His economy on a grand scale the type of all lesser
economies. Joseph and his sons. — The years of
blessing. — God's care for men through the commer-
cial intercourse of different lands. — How sure the
divine decrees ! (the brethren of Joseph must come)
Ta0Be : Through humiliation to exaltation. — The
history of Joseph's exaltation: 1. When in the
deep, how confideutly may we suffer God to guide
us ; 2. when on the mount, how surely from the deep
does the blessing draw its verification.

Pint Section (vers. 1-7). Starke: (Plin. :
" Hist." V. 9). " There is famine in Egypt when the
Nile ri.'ses only twelve ells ; there is still suffering if
it does not exceed thirteen ; if it rises to fourteen,
there is great rejoicing." — Cramer: Whom God
means to raise to honor, he suffers to remain, for a
time, under the cross. — Scheodek: At the expiration
of two years of days. — Ldther : Joseph, oppressed
with cares, counted on his fingers all the hours,
days, months, whilst deeply sighing for dehverance.
For the anticipation of the future the soul of man
shares with that of the animal, except that in the
former, by its connection with spirit, or that higher
principle which constitutes humanity, such a faculty
becomes perceptible in dreams, whilst in the animal
it is confined to the waking state (Schubert). The
number seven represents the religious element in the
case. The tliin ears are said to be blasted with the
east-wind, which, when directly east, occurs in Egypt
as seldom as the directly west. The southeast wind,
liowever, is frequent (Hengstenberg).

Second Section (vers. 8-16). Starke: The wis-
dom that God reveals excels that of the world ;
therefore the latter is to be confounded by the for-
mer (Rom. viii. 28). — Cramer: A Christian is not to
judge the gifts according to the person, but the per-
sons according to the gifts, and must not be ashamea
to learn even from the lowest A Christian should
study decorum towards all, especially towards those
of high rank. Serving and suffering are the best
tutors for those maturing for the ruler's station (Ps.
cxiii. 7, 8). — Hall : How are God's children reward-
ed for their patience I How prosperous are their
issues ! A true Christian does not boast of the tal-
ents confided to him, but ascribes everythmg to God.

T}iird Section (vers. 17-32). Starke : Bibl.
Wirt.: Even to the heathen and to infidels, God
sometimes reveals great and secret things, to the
end that it may become known how his divine care
and providence may be traced everywhere within
and without the Church. — Cramer : When God re-
pe*s the same things to us, the repetition is not to
be regarded as superfluous, but as an assurance that
it win certainly come to pass. Schroder : In prison
and upon the throne, the same humility, the sami
joyous courage in God. — Joseph marks his God-
consciousness more distinctly before Pharaoh, bj
saying Ha-Elohim, thus making Elohim concnste bj
means of the article.

Fourth Section (vers. 33-36). Starke: Met
generally make a bad use of abundance. Thu peo
pie, doubtless, imitated Joseph's example, and pre
vided for the future. Careful in earthly things-

CHAP. XLH. 1-28.

609

mnch more so in heavenly things. Schroder:
God's true prophets did not merely predict the fu-
ture; they also announced means of relief against
the approaching evil (Calvin). — He who takes coun-
sel is the one to be helped (the same).

Mfth Section {vers. 37-46). Starke: Cramer:
" He that handles a matter wisely shall find good "
(Prov. xvi. 20). — [The Egyptian linen, on account
of its snowy whiteness, and its great excellence, was
10 costly that it was thought equal to its weight in
gold.] ? — Schroder : The king's conclusion shows
how greatly Egypt esteemed the higher knowledge ;
since it confirms the opinion which made this nation
80 renowned for wisdom among the ancients. — Lib-
eration was not Joseph's only wan', when in prison ;
afterward, however, he received what he did not, at
first, understand (Luther).

Si4cth Section (vers. 46-53). Starke: Wise

rulers fill their granaries in time of famine, and thna
teach prudence to the poor. The saving hand is
full and beneficent ; the squandering hand is not only
empty, but unjust. — Schroder : Information from
Hengstenberg on the monuments and tombs, serving
to elucidate our narrative. — Schroder : Now is the
time of exaltation, when he is to become the in-
strument of God's great purposes (Krummacher).

SeveiUh Section (vers. 64-57). Si tRKE : Cra-
mer : It is in accordance with Christian charity that
the surplus of the one shall relieve the deficiency of
the other. How gloriously does God compensata
Joseph for his former unhappiness. (The hate of his
brothers ; the favor of the king ; abuse and derision,
reverence; imprisonment in a foreign land, exaltsr
tion ; the work of a slave, the seal of the king ;
stripped of his coat of many colors, clothed in white
vesture ; iron bands, a golden cham.)

SIXTH SECTION.

RetribvUve Diteipline. The Famine and the First Journey to Egypt. Joseph's struggles with
himself. The repentance of the Brethren. Joseph and Simeon.

I

2

3,

5

6

Chapter XLII. 1-38.

Now when Jacob saw there was com in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do
ye look one upon another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in
Egypt; get you down thither, and buy for us from thence ; that we may live, and not
4 die. And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt. But Benjamin,
Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren ; for he said, Lest peradveuture
mischief befall him. And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came
for the famine was in the land of Canaan. And Joseph was the governor over the
land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land ; and Joseph's brethren came,

7 and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. And Joseph saw
his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly
unto them, and he said unto them. Whence come ye ? And they said, From the land

8 of Canaan, to buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him.

9 And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them,

10 Ye are spies ; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said unto them,

11 Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man's sons;

12 we are true men; thy servants are no spies. And he said unto them, Nay, but to see

13 the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said. Thy servants are twelve
brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this

14 day with our father, and one is not. And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I

15 spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies; Hereby ye shall be proved; By the life of

16 Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither. Send
one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept m prison, that your
words may be proved, whether there be any truth in you ; or else, by the hfe of Pharaoh

17 18 surely ye are spies. And he put them all together into ward three days. And

19 Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live ; for I fear God : If ye be true
men let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison ; go ye, carry corn

20 for the famine of your houses ; But bring your youngest brother unto me ; so shall your

21 words be verified, and ye shall not die. And they did so. And they said one to
another We are verily guilty concerning our brother, m that we saw the anguish of hia
soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon

39

610

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

22 ns. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sir
against the child ; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required.

23 And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for he spake unto them by an inter-

24 prater. And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and returned to them
again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before

25 their eyes. Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore
every man's money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way ; and thu»

26 did he unto them. And they laded their asses with the corn, and departed thence.

27 And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the inn, he espied hia

28 money ; for, behold, it was in his sack's mouth. And he said unto his brethren. My
money ;s restored, and, lo, it is even in my sack; and their heart failed them,'' and they

29 were afraid, saying one to another. What is this that God hath done unto us? And
they came unto Jacob their father unto the land of Canaan, and told him all that befell

£0 unto them, saying. The man, who is the Lord of the land, spake roughly to us, and

31 took us for spies of the country. And we said unto him, We are true men; we are

32 no spies; We be twelve brethren, sons of our father; one is not, and the youngest is

33 this day with our father in the land of Canaan. And the man, the lord of the country.
said unto us. Hereby shall I know that ye are true men ; leave one of your brethren

34 here with me, and take food for the famine of your households, and be gone ; And
bring your youngest brother unto me ; then shall 1 know that ye are no spies, but that
ye are true men ; so will I deliver you your brother, and ye shall tralfic in the land.

35 And it came to pass, as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man's bundle of
money was in his sack ; and when both they and their father saw the bundles of money,

36 they were afraid. And Jacob their father said unto them. Me have ye bereaved of my
children ; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away ; all these

37 things are against me. And Reuben spake unto his father, saying. Slay my two sons,
if I bring him not to thee ; deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee

38 again. And he said, My son shall not go down with you ; for his brother is dead, and he
is left alone ; if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring
down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.

[^ Ver. 4. — "liOS . A rare Hebrew word, occurring only here, in ver. 38, and in Exod. xxi. 22, 23. Geseniufi wonld

ooimect the root with the Arabic (^(31, others with the Arabic Lyw! and the Syriac ^sj which means to heal. The
first comes nearer to it in sense, but a much closer agreement, both in form and significance, exists between it and the

Arabic .f^Ml j tobe in grief ot pain^ and its noun <^**'I j pain, a^ffiiction. It occurs in the Koran, v. 29, 72; vii 91 ;

IviL 33, in the very sense here demanded by the context. — T. L.]

[* Ver. 28. — CSb StS'l , and their heart went out. LXX, efe'crnj ^ KopJi'a auTui'. Hence the Greek eKo-Tao-is, ecstasy.
It may denote rapture, astonishment, overwhelming sorrow — any condition of soul in which the thoughts and affectione
seem to pass beyond the control of the will. The heart goes forth, the mxTid wanders, the soul loses command of itsell
It is the same imagery, and nearly the same terms, in many languages. Corresponding to it are the expressions for the
opposite state. Compare the Latin exire de mente, ratione, etc., to be or go out of one's mind, and the opposite, colHgert se,
to take courage, to recover one's self. So the English, to be collected, or composed. There is a similar usage of the Gre€*
ffvvavayeipeoOai and a.6poi^e(rGai, to collect, gather back the soul. See the Fheedo, 67 c. Vulgate, obstwp^acti sunt. — T. I-.]

PEELIMINAET EEMAEKS.

1. It appears uncertain to Knobel which narrator
(the Elohist or the Jehovist) tells the story here.
Many expressions, says he, favor the original Scrip-
ture, but some seem to testify for tlie Jehovist, e. g.,
land of Ooshen (ch. xlv. 10), thy aervant'vas[,ea.i of/
(ch. xlii. 10). Very singular examples truly I Yet
the language, it is then said, is rich in peculiarities.
This part the Jehovist is said to have made up from
his first record. A very peculiar presentation this,
of the 'airai Xeynixeva of different authors, as obtained
by such a combination. The fiiraf Ke-f6ij.fva. (words
or expressions occurring but once) are always forth-
coming from behind the scene. Such is the de;id
representation of that spiritless book-making, or

rather that book-mangling criticism, now so much in
vogue with those who make synopses of the New
Testament.

2. The history of Joseph's reconciliation to hia
brethren extends through four chapters, from ch.
xli.-xlv. It contains ; 1) The history of the chas-
tisement of the brothers) which, at the same time is
a history of Joseph's struggles ; 2) of lie repentance
of his brothers, marked by the antithesis Joseph and
Simeon (ch. xlii.); S) the trial of the brothers, ii
which appears tlieir repentance and Joseph's recon
ciliation, marked by the antithesis of Joseph and
Benjamin (ch. xliii. 1 ; xliv. 17); 4) the story of the
reconciliation and recognition, under the antithesi)
of Judah and Joseph (ch. xliv. 18 ; xlv. 16) ; fi) th«
account of the glad tidings to Jacob (vers. 7-28)

CHAP. XLn 1-38.

611

■ 1. The contents of the present section : 1) The
oarney to Egypt (vers. 1-6) ; 2) the rough reception
vers. 7-17) ; 3 the tasks imposed and the arrange-
ments made by Joseph (vers. 1 8-34) ; 4) The volun-
tary release, the return home, the report, the dark
omen (vers. 25-35) ; 5) Jacob's lament (vera. 36-38).

EXEflETICAI, AND CEITIOAIi.

8. Vers. 1-6. The first journey of Joseph's
brethren to Egypt. — 'When Jacob saw. — It is al-
ready presupposed that the famine was raging in
Canaan. Jacob's observation was probably based
upon the preparations of others for buying com in
Egypt. The word 13(23 is translated corn, but more
properly means a supply of com {/rumtnti
cumulus, Gesen., Thesaur.), or vendible or mar-
ket corn. — Why do ye look one upon
another? — Their helpless and suspicious looking
to each other seems to be connected with their guilt.
The journey to Egypt, and the very thought of Egypt
haunts them on account of Joseph's sale. — Aiid
Joseph's ten brethren. — -They thus undertake the
journey together, because they received corn in pro-
portion to their number. For though Joseph was
humanely selling corn to foreigners, yet preference
for his own countrymen, and a regard to economy,
demanded a limitation of the quantity sold to indi-
viduals.— But Benjamin. — Jacob had transferred to
Benjnmin his preference of Joseph as the son of
Rachel, and of his old age (ch. xxxvii. 3). He
yarded him, therefore, all the more carefully on ac-
;ount of the self-reproach he suffered from having
jnce let Joseph take a dangerotis journey all alone.
Besides, Benjamin had not yet arrived at fuU man-
aood. Finally, although the facta were not clearly
inown to him, yet there must be taken into the ac-
count the deep suspicion he must have felt when
he called to mind the strange disappearance of Joseph,
their envy of him, and all this the stronger because
Benjamin, too, was his favorite — Kachel's son,
Joseph's brother. — Among those that came. —
The picture of a caravan. Jacob's sons seem wiUing
to lose themselves in the multitudes, as if troubled
by an alarming presentiment. Knobel thinks the
city to which they journeyed was Memphis. Accord-
ing to others it was probably Zoar or Tanais (see
Numb. xiii. 23). By the double Nin the writer
denotes the inevitableness of their appearing before
Joseph. Having the general oversight of the sale,
he specially observed the selling to foreigners, and
it appears to have been the rule that they were to
present themselves before him. Such a direction,
though a proper caution in itself, might have been
connected in the mind of Joseph with a presentiment
of their coming. He himself was the a^fe^- "^^^
circumstance that this word appears otherwise only
in later writers may be partly explained from the
peculiarity of the idea itself. See Dan. v. 29. Here
Daniel is represented as the third B'^bm (shalit) of
the kingdom. " It seems to have been the standing
title by whidh the Shemites designated Joseph, as
one having despotic power in Egypt, and from which
later tradition made the word SaAans, the name of
the first Hyksos king (see Josephus : Contra Apion.

. 14)." — Keil. — And bowed themselves Thus

Joseph's dreams were fulfilled, as there had been al-
•¥ady fulfilled the dreams ^f Pharaoh.

2. Vers. 7-17. The harsh reception. Joseph
recognized them immediately, because, at the time
of his abduction, they were already grown up men.
who had not changed as much as he, and because,
moreover, their being all together brought out dis-
tinctly their Individual characteristics. He was, be
sides, familiar with their language and its idioms.
They, on the contrary, did not recognize him because
he had attained his manhood since in Egypt, — because
he appeared before tliem clad in foreign attire, and
introduced himself, moreover, as an Egyptian whc
spoke to them through an interpreter. Add to this,
that he had probable reasons for expecting his breth-
ren, whilst they could have had no thought of meeting
Joseph in the character of the shaht. — But made
himself strange unto them. — By speaking rough-
ly unto them. It is a false ascription to Joseph of
a superhuman perfection and holiness, when, with
Luther, Delitzsch, Keil, and others (see Keil, p. 259),
we suppose that Joseph, with settled calmness, only
intended to become acquainted with the dispositioi
of their hearts, so as to lead them to a perception ot
their guilt, and to find out how they were disposec
towards his hoary sire, and their youngest brother,
Kurtz is more correct in supposing it a ttniggle be-
tween anger and gentleness. Their conduct to him-
self may have even made it a sign of suspicion to
him that Benjamin did not accompany them. True
it is, that a feeling of love predominates ; since the
humiliation foretold in his dreams was already, for
the moat part, fuffiUed, and he might, therefore, ex-
pect the arrival of his father, and of his brother Ben-
jamin, who would, at the same time, represent hia
mother. His future position towards them, however_
must be governed by circumstances. The principal
aim, therefore, of his harsh address, is to sound
them in respect to their inner and outer relations.
According as things should appear were they to ex-
pect punishment or forbearance. Finding tliem well
disposed, self-renunciation becomes easier to him ;
whilst his harsh conduct is to them only a wholesome
discipline. — ^Ye are spies. — That such a danger was
common, in those ancient days of emigration and con-
quest, is clear from various instances (Numb. xxi. 32 ;
Josh. ii. 1, etc.). See also Knobel, p. 321. More-
over, Egypt was exposed to invasion from the North.
Supposing, too, that Joseph had already a presenti-
ment of how the aifair would turn out, he might term
them spies, with something of an ironical feeling, be-
cause their coming was undoubtedly a preliminary to
their settlement in Egypt. — The nakedness of the
land — its unfortified cities, unprotected boundaries,
etc. Afterwards Joseph himself becomes to
them the gate through which they enter Egypt.
— Nay, my Lord. — Their answer shows a feel-
ing of dignified displeasure. — We are all
one man's sons, 'we are true men. — Yet
their mortified pride is restrained by fear and respect.
Joseph repeats his charge, and so gets from them the
further information, that his faj;her is still alive, and
that Benjamin was well at home. — And one is not.
— From this expression Keil concludes that they did
not yet feel much sorrow for their deed. But are
they to confess to the Egyptian shalit? If, however,
their distress alone had afterwards drawn from them
a sudden repentance, it could hardly have been
genuine. — That is it that I spake with you. —
Joseph's great excitement shows itself in his waver,
ing determinations quickly succeeding and correct
ing each other. They gravitate from seventy tt

612

GENESIS, OB THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSEa

mildness. In ver. 14, we have his positive decision
that they are spies, and are, therefore, to expect
death. In ver, 15, it is made conditional. Asatest
of their truth thev are to be retained until the ar-
rival of their brother. — By the life of Pharaoh.* —
The Egyptians, as the Hebrews afterwards, swore by
the life of their kings (see Knobel, 322). Joseph
thus swears as an Egyptian. His main solicitude,
however, appears here already : he must know how
Benjamin does, and their disposition towards him.
In ver. 16, he expresses himself more definitely ■ one
of them is to go and bring the brother, the others
are to remain in confinement. A change follows in
ver. 17, they are confined for three days, probably
on account of the expression of their unwiUiugness to
fetch Benjamin. Pit for pit (see ch. xxxvii. 24) 1
These three days, however, were to Joseph a time
for reflection, and for the brothers a time of visitation.
They all seemed now to have fallen into slavery in
Egypt, even if they had not incurred the death of
criminals. How this must have made them remember
Joseph's sale ! One ray of hope has he left them: on
Benjamin's appearance they could be released,

[* XLII. 15. ni)1S Tl. Literally, by the Kites of
Pharaoli ; but the primitive conception, whatever it may
have been (see note, p. 163, 2d. column), that gave rise to
the plural foi-m of this word, had probably become dim or
lost, and there is intended here only the one general sense
of life. There is, however, a remark of Maimonides on
this phrase, in this place, that is worthy of note. His criti-
cal, as well as most philosophical, eye observes a difference
in this little word ^n, and the vowel pointing it has in the
Scriptures according as it is used of God or man. Thus in
the Hebrew oath, r|lUS3 ^nl '^'^'^l ^1 (comp. 1 Sam. xx.
3 ; XXV. 26 ; 2 Kings ii. 2, 4,6 ; iv. "30 ; and other places),
wliich is rendered, as the Lord Uvelh, and as ihy soul livelh,
he notices what has escaped most critics, viz., the change of
vowel in the word ^n ; so that the rendering should be, as
the Lord liveihf or hij the living Jehovah, and by the life of
Uty soul. The reasons of this he thus states iu the SepJter
ffainada, or Book of Knowledge, the first pait of the great
work entitled Tad Hochazakah, ch. ii. sec. 14 ; " In Geo.
xlii. 15, it is said, ni' "S ^r\^,hy the life {lives) of Pharaoh ;
BO in 1 Sam. i. 26, TTIL'SD '^P, by the life of thy soul, as also
in many other places. But in the same connection it is not
said nin"^ "^n (chei), but HirT^ ^H (chai), in the absolute
form instead of the construct* or genitive, because the
Creator, blessed be he, and his life are one, not separate, as
the lives of creatures or of angels. Therefore, he does not
know creatures by means of the creatures, as we know them,
but by himself (l^SS! n?an^), because all life leans upon
him, and by his Itnowinghimself heknowethall things — since
he and his knowledge also, as well as he and his life, axe one.
This is a matter wliich the tongue has not the power of ut-
tering, nor the ear of hearing, nor can the mind comprehend
it ; hut such is the reason of the change, and of its being
said ny^D "^n, by the life of Pharaoh, in the construct
state, since Pharaoh and his life are two " Again, sec. xi.
andxii.; " All things beside the Creator, blessed be he,
exist through his truth (or truthfulness) and because he
knows himself, he knows everything. And he does not
know by a knowledge which is without (or outside, V'n
13^13), to himself, as we know, because we and our knowl-
edge are not one ; but as for the Creator, blessed be he,
both his knowledge and his life are one with himself in
every mode of unity. Hence we may say that he is, at the
sanie time, the knower, the known, and the knowledg'' itself,
all in one." Or, as he tells us in the hoginninL' of this pro-
found treatise, ch. i. sec. 1 : "God's truth is not like the
truth of the creatures, and thus the prophet says (-Terem. x.
iO), Jehovah God is truth, and God is life (plural C'^n
lives ; compare iraTTjp tui/ 0(uTb>f, James i. 17), he isute "i^'2
Dt)"'J', the king of eternity, the Hng of the world," That is,
he is, at the same time, the truth, the life, the everlasting
.'tfw, t'omoare, also, Maimoniueb, Porta Mosid, Pecocke
lditioii,p. .i'^6.— T. L.]

8. Vera, 18-24. The hard terms imposed; Jo
sepKs arrangement and the repentance of the brothers,
Joseph's struggle ; Simeon in prison. — This do and
live. — Joseph now presents the charge in its condi-
tional aspect. The motive assigned: Tor I feat
God. — This language is the first definite sign of
peace— the first fair self-betrayal of his heart Agi-
tated feelings lie concealed under these wordi It ia
as much as to say : I am near to you, and to you»
faith. For them, it is tnie, the expression meant
that he was a religious and conscientious man, who
would never condemn on mere suspicion. It is an
assertion, too, on which they are more to rely than
on the earlier asseveration made : by the life of Pha-
raoh.— Let one of your brethren be bound. —
Before, it was said : one shall go, but the others re-
main ; now the reverse, and more mildly : one shall
remain, but the others may go. This guarantees the
return with Benjamin, and leaves them under the
impression that they are not yet free from suspicion.
Joseph sees the necessity of the others going, for his
father's house must be supplied with bread. — And
they did so. — A summary expression of what fol-
lows, but anticipatory of their readiness to comply
with Joseph's request. — We are verily guilty. —
Not : " we atone for our brother's death " (Delitzsch) ;
for thus there would be effaced the thought that the
guilt was still resting upon them. The expiation is
expressed in what follows. — Therefore is this dis-
tress come upon us. — Knobel translates it atoning,
and makes the trivial remark ; "All misfortune, ac-
cording to the Hebrew notion, is a punishment for
sin." Joseph's case itself directly contradicts hun.
— When he besought us. — Thus vividly paints the
evil conscience. The narrator had not mentioned
this beseeching. Thus are they compelled to make
confession in Joseph's hearing, without the thought
that he understands them. But their open confes-
sion, made, as it was, before the mterpreter, betrays
the pressure of their sense of guilt — And Reuben
answered. — A picture of the thoughts that " accuse
or excuse one another" (Rom. ii. 15). Reuben, too,
is not wholly iimocent; but, as against them, he
thought to act the censurer, and what he did to save
Joseph he represents in the strongest light. We
may, indeed, conclude that his counsel to cast him
into the pit was preceded by unheeded entreaties for
his entire freedom.— For he spsike with them
by an interpreter. — Knobel here has to encounter
the difficulty that Joseph, "as an officer of thti
Hyksos " (to use his own language), assumes the ap-
pearance of not being able to speak Hebrew. — And
he turned himself about from them. — Overcome
by his emotion, he has to turn away and weep.
This is repeated more powerfully at the meeting with
Benjamin (ch. xliii. 30), and finally, in a most touch-
ing manner, after Judah's appeal (ch. xliv. 18, etc.).
The cause of this emotion, thrice repeated, and each
time with increasing power, is, in every instance,
some propitiating appeal. In the first case, it is the
palliating thought that Reuben, the first-born, in-
tended to save him, and yet takes to himself the feel-
ing of the guilt that weighed upon them. In the
second case it is the appearance of the young and
innocent Benjamin, his beloved brother, as though
standing before the ' guilty brethren. In the third
instance, it is Judah's self-sacrifice in behalf of Ben-
jamin and his father's house. The key-note of Jo-
seph's emotion, therefore, is this perception of aton-
ing love, purilying the bitter recollection of injustic«
suffered. A presentiment and a sentiment of recon

CHAP. XUI. 1-38.

G13

siliadon melt thp heart which the mere sense of right
might harden, eDd becomes even a feeling, at the
same time, of divine and human reconciliation.
Only as viewed from this definite perception can we
estimate the more general feelings that flow from it ;
" painful recollection of the past, and thankfulness
to God for his gracious guidance." — And returned
to them again. — Joseph's first emotion may have
emoved his harsh decisiveness. His feeling of jus-
lice, however, is not yet satisfied ; still less is there
restored his confidence in his brethren, especially in
reference to the future of Benjamin. But before
adopting any severer measures, he communed with
them, doubtless in a conciliatory manner. Then he
takes Simeon, binds him, or orders him to be bound,
that he might remain as a hostage for their return.
That he does not order Reuben, the first-born, to be
bound, explains itself from the discovery of his
eailtlessness. Thus Simeon, as standing next, is the
first-born of the guilty ones. He did not adopt
Reuben's plan of deliverance, though he did not es-
pecially distinguish himself in Joseph's persecution,
as might have been expected of him from his zealous
disposition shown in the affair of Shechem,— a fact
the more easily credited since neither did Judah, the
next after him, agree with the majority.

4. Vers. 25-85. The voluntary release; the re-
turn; the report; the dark omen. — To fill their
sacks. — Dv)''^3 , receptacles or vessels, in the most
general sense. — To restore every man's money
with his sack. — Joseph would not receive pay
from his father, and yet he could not openly return
tlie money without betraying a particular relation to
them. Therefore the secret measure, one object of
which, doubtless, was to keep up the fear and excite-
ment, as it also served to give them reasons for ex-
pecting something extraordinary. — Provisions for
the way. — To prevent the decrease of their store,
and to make unnecessary the premature opening of
their sacks. — One of them opened his sack. — At
the place of their night-quarters. It could not have
been what we now call an inn. Delitzsch supposes
that, at that time, already, there were shed-Uke
buildings, caravanseras, existing along the route
through ihe desert (Exod. iv. 24). KeU doubts this.
The fact of the separate opening of his sack by one
of them, demands no explanation. He might have
made a mistake in the sack, or the money might have
been put in a wrong one ; but even this circumstance
is so arranged as to increase the fear of their awak-
ened consciences. — What is this that God hath
done unto us ? — They are conscious of no decep-
tion on their part, and they cannot understand how
the Egyptians could have done it. Whether it were
an oversight on their side, or a cunning trick of the
Egyptians to arrest them afterwards for theft — at all
events, their aroused consciences tell them that they
aave now to contend with God. They see a dark
and threatening sign in it, now that a sense of God's
judgments is awakened in them. — And they came
unto Jacob. — The story of their strange intercourse
with the terrible man in Egypt, is confirmed by the
fearful discovery made when all the sacks are opened.
Joseph's intimation, which they report, that they
might traffic again in Egypt, provided they fulfilled the
bnposnd condition, is a ray of light, which, in their
present mood, they hardly knew how to appreciate.

5. Vers. 36-38. Jacobus lamentation. — Me have
ye bereaved of my children. — The pain of
Simeon's apparent loss, grief for Joseph here re-

newed again, and the anguish concerning Itenjamin,
move Jacob greatly, and cause him to express him-
self, hyperbolioally indeed, but still truthfully, ac-
cording to his conception, as a man overwhelmed
with nusfortune, and losing his children, one after
the other. So Uttle thought the wise and pious Ja-
cob how near was the joyful turning-point in the
destiny of his house. His reproach : me have ye be-
reaved of my children, as addressed to those who
might have formally contradiced it, is more forcible
in its apphcation than he could have thought. Or
had he a presentiment of something he knew not ?
In regard to Joseph he could only knowingly charge
that he had once sent him to them, and they had
not brought him back. In respect to Simeon he
could only reproach them with having told too much
to the governor of Egypt respecting their family
affairs (see ch. xliii.). Res{)ecting Benjamin he could
only complain that they should ask to take him
along. The aroused consciences 'of his sons, how-
ever, told them that truly all the threatening losses
of Jacob were connected with their removal of Jo-
seph ; for they themselves considered the present
catastrophe as a visitation on account of it. — And
Reuben spake. — With a clearer conscience, he has
also more courage ; but his offer to leave his sons af
hostages, so that Jacob might slay them if he did
not return with Benjamin, is more expressive of a
rude heroism than of true understanding ; for how
could it be a satisfaction to a grandfather to slay
both his grandchildren 1 It can only be understood as
a tender of a double blood-vengeance, or as a strong
expression of assurance that his return without Ben-
jamin was not to be thought of. Knobel thinks it
strange that Reuben speaks of two sons, since at the
time of the emigration to Egypt, according to ch.
xlvi., he had four sons. And yet he was quite ad •
vanced in years, according to the Elohistic account !
— With sorrcnv to the grave (see ch. xxxvii. 35 ;
1 Kings ii. 6, 9).

DOCTEINAIi AND ETHICAl.

1. A chapter showing the unfailing fulfilment of
the divine decrees, the power of a guilty conscience,
the righteous punishment of guilty concealers as
visited by suspicion on all sides, the certainly of
final retribution, the greatness of moral struggles,
the imaginations of an evil conscience, the presenti-
ments of misfortune as felt by a gray-haired sire in
a guilty house, and, with it all, the change from
judgment to reconciUation and salvation in the life
of the now docile sons of the promise.

2. They came at last ; late indeed, but come
they must, even if it had been from the remotest
bounds of the earth. Joseph's brethren were to
come and bow themselves down before him. God's
decrees must stand. It is not because Joseph saw
it in a dream, but because in the dreams ^tere was
represented the realization of God's decrees as al-
ready interweaving themselves with the future of the
sons in the innermost movements of their most i"
terior life. So sure is the fulfilment of the dii
counsels, — so unfailingly grow the germs of desti.
in the deepest life of man.

3. Why do the sons of Jacob look so helplessly
one upon the other 1 Why does it not come intc
their minds that corn is for sale in Egypt, and that a
caravan of travellers is making preparation in theii
vicinity? To their guilty conscience, Egypt is i

614

GENESlb, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

foreboding name, threatening calamity. If they
must go, however, they would rather go all together,
that, in the multitude, they may find mutual encour-
agement. They have to explain why they come ten
strong, and are thus driven to speak about Joseph ;
but with what embarrassment do they pass hastily
over one who is no more ! And now, terrified by
ihe prospect of imprisonment, and threatened with
death, they are unable, even in Joseph's presence,
iind within the hearing of the interpreter, to suppress
their self-accusation : " We are verily guilty concern-
ing our brother." And now, again, how vividly
come to their minds the prayers of that brother, in
vain beseeching them for mercy. So truthful is the
memory of conscience. The money, too, found
again in the sack of one of them, becomes another
fearful sign that the divine judgments are at last to
descend upon them. The last discovery of it iu the
sacks of all of them, fills up the measure of their
fears. All favorable signs are gone: the twofold
.nitigation of Joseph's purpose ; his assurance : I
fear God ; his explanation that Benjamin's appear-
ance would satisfy him ; the voluntary release ; the
finding again of their money. Reuben, too, though
having a better conscience, shares in their feelings ;
he sees coming down upon them the full visitation
of their blood-guiltiness; even the pious father has
a foreboding, becoming even more distinct, that
somehow, through the crime of his sons, a dark
doom is impending over his house. Therefore is he
not wilUng to trust his Benjamin, for so long a jour-
ney, to these sons, who seem, for some reason, to
have a guilty conscience, — it may be in relation to
Joseph.

4. Te are spies. Though Joseph's suspicion was
unfounded, it expresses a righteous judgment : that
guilty men who conceal a crime demanding an open
atonement, must ever encounter suspicion as the re-
flex of their evil secret. Even when trusted they
cannot believe it, because not yet true to themselves.
To Joseph it must have appeared strangely suspicious
that they came without Benjamin.

5. By regarding Joseph as a saintly man, who,
from the very first, and with a freely reconciled
spirit, was only imposing a divine trial upon his
brothers, and leading them to repentance through a
Boul-enlightening discipline, we raise him above the
Old-Testament stand-point ; to say nothing of the
fact that Joseph could not at first have known
whether these, his half-brothers, were not also the
persecutor.^ of Benjamin, and with as deadly a hatred,
perhaps, as they had shown to him. Neither had he
any means of knowing whether or not he could ever
be on friendly terms with them. But that he is to
pass through a great religious and moral struggle
with himself, is evident from his wavering decisions,
from the time he takes for consideration, and espe-
cially, from the fact that he postpones the trial even
after they had brought Benjamin to him. He adopts
a course in which both his aged father and bis be-
loved Benjamin are exposed, temporarily, to the
greatest distress. Decidedly, from the very begin-
ning, does he take a noble position, but by severe
struggles is he to attain to that holy stand-point of
complete forgiveness ; and for this purpose his
brothers' confession of their guilt, and especially the
appearance of Reuben, Benjamin, and Judah, are
blessed to him, just as his own conduct assisted the
brothers in bringing on their struggles of repentance
ind self-sacrifice by faith.

6. The tuniing of judgment into reconciliation.

A principal point in this is the invo'untary confes
sion of the brethren in Joseph's hearuig, the discov
ery of Reuben's attempt to save him, the atonement
made by the proud-hearted Simeon, the melting of
the brothers' obduracy, and, through it, of Joseph'i
exasperation. Above all, the recognition that God'a
searching providence is present throughout the whole
development. " Whatsoever maketh manifest U!
light " (Eph. V. 13). Thus under the light of Christ's
cross the entire darkness of the world's gmlt was
uncovered, and only in such an uncovering could it
become reconciled.

1. Even now there already dawns upon Joseph
the wonderful fact that his exaltation was owing
mediately to the emnity of his brethren, and that
they were together both conscious and unconscious
instruments of God's mercy and of his providcntia
design to save much people alive (ch. xlv. and 1.).

8. Jacob feels the burden of his house, an<i bia
alarming presentiments of evil become manifest
more and more. We must imagine this to ourselves,
if we would clearly understand his depression. He
is not strengthened by the spirit in his household,
but put under restraint and weariness. He feela
that there is something rotten in the foundation of
his house.

9. Here, too, death is not denoted as a descend,
ing into Sheol, but as the dying from the heart's sor-
row of an uncompleted hfe. Opposed to it is the
going home to the fathers when the soul is satisfied
with the life on earth, and its enigmas are all solved.

HOMILBTICAX, AUD PBAOTICAl.

See Doctrinal and Ethical. The brethren appear
ing before Joseph. Thus the world before Christ,
the oppressors in the forum of the oppressed, the
wicked at the judgment-seat of the pious. — Joseph
and his brethren as they stand confronting each
other ; 1. He recognizes them, but they do not rec-
ognize him ; 2. the positions of the parties are
changed, but Joseph exercises mercy ; 3. the judg-
ment must precede the reconciliation ; 4. human
and divine reconciliation go together. We are verily
guilty concerning our brother. 1. This language
considered in their sense ; 2. according to Joseph's
understanding ; 3. in the sense of the spirit. The
guilty conscience terrified, at first, by signs that were
really favorable. Jacob's lamentation as the seem-
ing curse of his house becomes gradually known.
At the extremest need help is near. Benjamin's
dark prospects (his mother dead, his brother lost,
himself threatened with misfortune), and their favor,
able issue.

Taube ; The hours of repentance that come to
Joseph's brethren : 1. How the sinner is led to re-
pentance; 2. how repentance manifests itself; S
the relation of the Lord to the penitent sinner.

First Section (vers. 1-6). Stakke : The utility
of commerce. The different products which God
has given to different countries, demand mutual in-
tercourse for their attainment. A believer must em-
ploy ordinary means, and not tempt God by theii
refusal. Nothing can hinder God's decrees in behalf
of the pious. — ScBKODER : The guilt of Benjamin's
brothers in respect to Joseph seems to weigh upon
the father's heart as a kind of presentiment. — Cal-
w ER Jffandbuch : Joseph's brethren are they called,
because Joseph stands here in the foreground of his-
tory, and the destiny of the family is coimected wltl

CHAP. XLIII. 1— XLIT. 11.

6\i

him. The Tery ten by whom he was sold must bow
'hemselves before him, and receive the righteous and
higher requital. — Heim : Tlie expression sons of Is-
rael, instead of sons of Jacob, points to Israel the
man of faith, whose children they were, who accom-
panied them with his prayers, and for whose sake,
although he knew it not, this journey to Egypt, so
dark in its commencement, became a blessing to them
tU.

Second Section (vers. 7-17). Starke : Formerly
they regarded him as a spy — now are they treated as
spies in turn. — Ver. 15. This expression is not an
oath, but only a general asseveration. The first
Christians, though making everything a matter of
conscience, did not hesitate thus to affirm by the Ufe
of the Emperors, but they were unwilling to swear
by their divinity. Jurainzcs sicui non per gemos
Gceaarum, ita per sa!utem eorum qum est augusUor
omnihvx geniU. Tert. Apol. — Hall : The disposi-
tion of a Christian is not always to be judged by his
outward acts. — Geklaoh: Ver. 9. Nothing is more
common than this reproach upon travellers in the
East, especially when they would sketch any parts
of the country. — Sohkoder : He who was hungry
when they were eating, now holds the food for which
they hunger. To him (Joseph) there was committed, for
some time, the government of a most important part
of the world. He was not only to bless, but also to
punish and to judge ; i. «., become forgetful of all
iuman relations and act divinely. [Krummacher :
StiU Joseph felt as man, not as though he were Provi-
dence.] Joseph plays a wonderful part with his
brethren, but one which humbles and exercises him
greatly. A similar position God assumes towards
believers when in tribulation ; 1st us, therefore, hold
assuredly that all our Diisfortunes, trials, and la-
mentations, even death itself, are nothing but a,
hearty and fair display of the divine goodness
towards us (Luther). Joseph's suspicion, though
feigned in expression, has, nevertheless, a ground
of fact in the former conduct of his brothers towards
him.

Third Section (vers 18-24). Stakke: God
knows how to keep awake the conscience. — ^Ver. 18.
The test of a true Christian in all his doings, is the

fear of the Lord. — Bibl. Tub. : How noble is religioi
in a judge 1 — Lanse : Chastisements as a means o*
self-examination. There may be times when sins,
long since committed, may present themselves s«
vividly before the eyes as to seem but of yesterday
— The same: God's wise providence so brings it
about, that though a guilty man may escape the do
served punishment for a time, the visitation wiL
surely come, even though it be by God's permittma
misfortunes to fall upon him through the guilt of
others, when he himself is innocent.

Fourth Section (vers. 25-35). Staeke : Simeon
may now let his thoughts wander back, in repentance
for his murderous deeds at Shechem, in weeping for
the grief he had caused to Joseph, and in imploring
God's forgiveness. God does not bestow the bless-
ing of the gospel on the sinner in any other way
than in the order of the law, or in the knowledge of
his sins. A frightened conscience always expects the
worst (Wisd. of Sol. xvii. 11). — Schroder: Simeon
is bound ; probably because the leader at Shechem
was also the prime mover against Joseph (Baum-
garten.

Mfth Section (vers. 35-38). Starke: He "who
wrestled with God (and man) and prevailed, shows
here great weakness of faith. Yet he recovers, and
again struggles in faith, Uke Abraham his grand-
father.— Cramer; When burdened with tria& and
temptations, we interpret everything in the worst
way, even though it may be for our peace. — Gerlach :
Jacob's declarations betray a feeling that the broth-
ers were not guiltless respecting Joseph's disappear-
ance. He knew their jealousy, and he had expe-
rienced the violent disposition of Simeon and Levi.
— Schroder ; There is nothing so restless or so great
a foe to peace as a frightened heart, that turns pale
at a glance, or at the rustle of a leaf (Luther). He
had long suspected them in regard to Joseph (see
ver. 4) ; the old wound is now opened again. Reu-
ben is once more the tender-hearted one. He offers
everything (ver. 37) that he may prevail with his
father. " But it is out of reason what he offers."
Luther. — Heim; Jacob's painful language. There
breaks forth now the hard suspicion which he had
long carried shut up in the depths of his own heart

SEVENTH SECTIOIT.

ITie tecond journey. Benjamin accmnpanying. Joseph maheth himself known to his brethism.

Their return. JacoVs joy.

Chapter XLIII— XLV.
A. The trial of the brethren. Their repentance and Joseph's reconcilableness. Joseph and Benjamin.

Chapter XLIII. 1— XLIV. 17.

1, 2 And the famine vias sore m the land. And it came to pass, when they had eatea

up the corn which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said unto them, Go

3 agair buy us a little food. And Judah spake unto him, say..ig, The man did solemnly

•516 GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

4 protest unto ua, saying, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother he with you. If

5 tho" wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and buy thee food ; But if thoii
will not send him, we will not go down ; for the man said unto us, Ye shall not see my

6 face [again], except your brother he with you. And Israel said, Wherefore dealt ye so
1 ill with me, as to tell the man whether ye had yet a brother ? And they said, Th«

man asked us straitly of our state, and of our kindred, saying. Is your father yet alive 'i
have ye another brother? and we told him, according to the tenor of these words; could

8 we certainly know that he would say. Bring your brother down ? And Judah said
unto Israel his father, Send the lad with me, and we will arise and go ; that we may

9 live, and not die, both we, and thou, and also our little ones. I will be surety for him ;
of my hand shalt thou require him ; if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before

1 0 thee, then let me bear the blame for ever ; For except we had lingered, surely now we

11 had returned this second time. And their father Israel said unto them, Hit must he so
now, do this ; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the
man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds,

12 And take double money in your hand ; and the money that was brought again in the
mouth of your sacks, carry it again in your hand ; peradventure it was an oversight ;

13, 14 Take also your brother, and arise, go again unto the man; And God Almighty give
you mercy before the man, that he may send away your other brother, and Benjamin.

15 If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. And the men took that present, and
they took double money in their hand, and Benjamin, and rose up, and went down to

16 Egypt, and stood before Joseph. And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said
to the ruler of his house, Bring these men home, and slay, and make ready ; for these

17 men shall dine with me at noon. And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man

18 brought the men into Joseph's house. And the men were afraid, because they were
brought into Joseph's house ; and they said, Because of the money that was returned
in our sacks at the first time are we brought in ; that he may seek occasion against us,

19 and fall upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses. And they came near to the
steward of Joseph's house, and they communed with him at the door of the bouse.

20, 21 And said, 0 sir, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food ; Anr) it came
to pass, when we came to the inn, that we opened our sacks, and, behold, ^very man's
money was in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight ; and wj have brought

22 it again in our hand. And other money have we brought down in our hands to buy

23 food; we cannot tell who put our money in our sacks. And he said. Peace he to you,
fear not; your G-od, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks;

24 I had your money. And he brought Simeon out unto them. And the man brought
the men into Joseph's house, and gave them water, and they washed their feet ; and he

25 gave their assos provender. And they made ready the present against Joseph came at

26 noon ; for they heard that they should eat bread there. And when Joseph came
home, they brought him the present which was in their hand into the houie, and bowed

27 themselves to him to the earth. And he asked them of their welfare, and said. Is your

28 father well, the old man of whom ye spake ? Is he yet alive ? And they answered.
Thy servant our father is in good health, he is yet alive. And they bowed down their

29 heads, and made obeisance. And he hft up his eyes, and saw his brother Benjamin,
his mother's son, and said, Is this your younger brother, of whom ye spake unto me ?
And he said farther [without waiting for an answer] God be gracious unto thee, my son.

30 And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother; and he sought

31 where to weep; and he entered into his chamber and wept there. And he washed his

32 face, and went out,and refrained himself, and said, Set on bread. And they set on for
him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, which did eat with
him, by themselves ; because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews :

E3 for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians. And they sat before hira, the first bom

according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth ; and the men
34 marvelled one at another. And ho took and sent messes unto them from before him;

but Benjamin's mess was five times so much as any of their's. And they drank, and

were merry with him.
Oh. XIjIV. 1. And Joseph commanded the steward of his house, saying, Fill the

men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man's mcmey in his

CHAP. XLIV. 18— XLV. 28. Ql",

'2 sack's mouth. And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of the youngest,

3 and his corn-money. And he did according to the word that Joseph had spoken. As

4 soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their asses. And
when they were gone out of the city, and not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward,
Up, follow after the men ; and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them, Where

5 fore have ye rewarded evil for good ? Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and

6 whereby indeed he divineth ? Ye have done evil in so doing. And he overtook them,

7 and he spake unto them these same words. And they said unto him, Wherefore saitb
my lord these words ? God forbid that thy servants should do according to this thing

8 Behold, the money which we found in our sacks' mouths, we brought again unto thee
out of the land of Canaan ; how then should we steal out of thy lord's house silver oi

9 gold 7 With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, both let him die, and we also

1 0 will be my lord's bondmen. And he said. Now also let it he according unto your words ;

11 he with whom it is found shall be my servant; and ye shall be blameless. Then they
speedily took down every man his sack to the ground, and opened every man his sack.

12 And he searched, and began at the eldest, and left at the youngest; and the cup v.'&s

13 found in Benjamin's sack. Then they rent their clothes, and laded every man his asa,

14 and returned to the dity. And Judah and his brethren came to Joseph's house ; for

15 he was yet there ; and they fell before him on the ground. And Joseph said unto
them, What deed is this that ye have done ? Wot ye not that such a man as I can

16 certainly divine? And Judah said, What shall we say unto my lord? what shall we
speak? or how shall we clear ourselves? God hath found out the iniquity of thy
servants; behold, we are my lord's servants, both we, and he also with whom the cup is

17 found. And he said, God forbid that I should do so ; hut the man in whose hand the
cup is found, he shall be my servant ; and as for you, get you up in peace unto yoiir
father.

B. The narrative of the reconciliation and the recognition. Judah and Joseph.

Chap. XLIV. 18— XLV. 28.

18 Then Judah came near unto him, and said, 0 my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee,
speak a word in my lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant ; for

19 thou art even as Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, saying, Have ye a father, or a

20 brother? And we said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, and a child of his
old age, a little one ; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and hia

21 father loveth him. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Bring him down unto me, that

22 I may set mine eyes upon him. And we said unto my lord, The lad can not leave his

23 father; fort/ he should leave his father, his father would die. And thou saidst unto
thy servants, Except your yoimgest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face

24 no more. And it came to pass when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told

25 him the words of my lord. And our father said, Go again, and buy us a little food.

26 And we said. We can not go down ; if our youngest brother be with us, then will we
go down ; for we may not see the man's face, except our youngest brother he with us.

27 And thy servant my father said unto us. Ye know that my wife bare me two sons;

28 And the one went out from me [and did not return], and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces;

29 and I saw him not since ; And if ye take this also from me, and mischief befall him, ye

30 shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave [sheol]. Now, therefore,
when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad he not with us, seemg that his life

31 is bound up in the lad's life ; It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not
with us, that he will die ; and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy

32 servant our father with sorrow to the grave. For thy servant became surety for the
lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thse, then I shall bear the blame to

33 my father for ever. JSTow, therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the

34 lad, a bondman to my lord ; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how sha 1 ]
go up to my father, and the lad he not with me ? lest peradventure I see the evd that
shall come on my father.

618 GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Oh. XLV. 1 Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by hitu

and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with hrm.

2 while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud ; and the

3 Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am
Joseph; doth my father yet hve? And his brethren could not answer him; for they

4 were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me,
I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye

5 sold into Egypt. Now, therefore, be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye

6 sold me thither ; for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years
hath the famine been in the land ; and yet there are five years in the which there shall

7 neither he earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity

8 in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you
that sent me hither, but God ; and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of

9 all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and go up to
my father, and say unto him. Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all

0 Egypt ; come down unto me, tarry not ; And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen

fEast district of Egypt ; the name ia of Koptic origin. Uncertain : difitrict of Hercules], and thou shalt be

near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and

1 1 thy herds, and all that thou hast ; And there will I nourish thee ; for yet there are five
years of famine ; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.

12 And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth

13 that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of

14 all that ye have seen ; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he
fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck.

15 Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them ; and after that his brethren
talked with him.

C. The glad tidings to Jacob, vers. 16-28.

16 And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, Joseph's brethren are

17 come; and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph,
Say unto thy brethren, This do ye ; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of

18 Canaan ; And take your father, and your households, and come unto me ; and I will

19 give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now
thou art commanded, this do ye ; take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your

20 little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. Also regard not your

21 stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours. And the children of Israel did
so ; and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and

22 gave them provision for the way. To all of them he gave each man changes of rai-

23 ment ; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of
raiment. And to his father he sent after this manner ; ten asses laden with the good

24 things of Egypt, and ten she-asses laden with corn, and bread, and meat for his father
by the way. So he sent his brethren away, and they departed; and he said unto them,

25 See that ye fall not out by the way. And they went up out of Egypt, and came into

26 the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father. And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive,

27 and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart famted, for he be-
heved tliem not. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which } e had said unto
them ; and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry 1: im, the spirit of

28 Jacob their father revived. And Israel said. It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive-
I will go and see him before I die.

(1 Oh. xliii. 14.— T-bsiS ipibs;:} 'I'?!*.? ■'???,!!■ Rendered :« If I am bereaved 0/ my cMdren, I am hareaved.
Onr translators, by putting in children, would seem to have regarded it as emphatic, thus : If I am bereaved of my chll
iren, I am bereaved of all. It may be taken, however, as a declaration of submission to what appears inevitable, a* ia
Esth. iv. 16, '^ri'l^K TlT^5< ^UJN 2 . Or it may be regarded as a passionate exaggeration in view of Joseph^s «ip-
losed death, Simeon's confinement, and the demand for Benjamin : I am bereaved of all my dbildren, one after Uit
Iher.— T. L. |

CHAP. XLUI. 1— XLV. 28.

61»

I' Ver. 18. — nt^j5^1 . The ? here is servile. Compare Malachi ii. 13 and Gen. zxTilL 6. In Gen. xxx. 15, wt havi
both forms of the infinitive (nnpb and rirp) in immediate connection. See It explained in the Sepher Harikna, oi
Hebrew Grammar, of Ben Gannach, p. 30, Itae 30. He regards both alike as infinitives. — T. L.]

[3 Ter. 20. — '^Snx ''S . Gesenius regards ^3 in this and some similar cases (see Josh. vii. 8), as a contraction foi
^53 , from the root T\yZ , a very rare word in Hebrew, though very common in the Chaldaic and Syriac. In the sensi
if entreaty, HSS occurs only Is. sxi. 12, and of inquiry, Obad. 6. Abbreviations are made only of words that are
much used, and we cannot, therefore, regard it as a forma precationis (^3P3 , my prayer), having such an origin. The
Targum of Onkelos interprets it in this way, but this is owing to its being written in the Chaldaic language. A much
better view is that of Aben Ezra, who regards it as the preposition and pronoun, with an ellipsis of the word ^iT , as in
Sam. XXV. 24, ■'SIK "^3 T^^Jn , on me my Lord be the guilt. Or it may be a sort of ejaculatory phrase, with an
ellipsis of the precatory verb, — as would seem to be confirmed by Judges vi. 13, tl3S5 nin^ IZJ'^I ^:^X ^3 , come teli
miy my lordt \f Jehooah is with ws, w/iy, etc. See Ben Gannach, Sepher Harihma, 32, 31. The view of Gesenius waa
•uggested, probably, by the Syriac rendering of this passage, Judg. vi. 13, u^^ ii*^ )j] j.2^£. In Josh. vii. 8,
where the same phrase occurs, the Syriac has left it out entirely. — T. Ij.1

PEELIMINABT REMARKS.

Contents: a. The trial of the brethren. Their
repentance and Joseph's forgiveness. Joseph and
Benjamin. Ch. xHii. 1-xliv. 17: 1. Judahas surety
for Benjamin unto his father, vers. 1-14 ; 2. Joseph
and Benjamin, vers. 15-30 ; 3. the feast in honor of
Benjamin, vers. 31-34; 4. the proving of the breth-
ren in respect to their disposition towards Benjamin,
especially after the great distinction shown to him,
ch. xliv. 1-17. b. The story of the reconciliation,
and of the recognition, as presented under the an-
tithesis of Judah and Joseph, ch. xhv. 18, xlv. 13.
1. Judah as surety and substitute for Benjamin, ch.
iliv. 18-34 ; 2. Joseph's reconciliation and making
himself known to them, ch. xlv. 1-5 ; 3. Joseph's
divine peace and divine mission, vers. 5-13; 4. the
solemnity of the salutation, vers. 14, 16. u. The
glad tidings to Jacob, vers. 16-28. 1. Pharaoh's
message to Jacob, vers. 16-20 ; 2. Joseph's presents
to Jacob, vers. 21-24; 3. the return of Joseph's
brethren ; Pharaoh's wagons and Jacob's revivifica-
tion, vers. 25-28.

EXEGBTICAIi AND CRITICAL.

a. The proving of the brothers. Their repentance
and Josephs forgiveness. Joseph and Benjamin,
ch. xliii. 1 ; xliv. 17. 1. vers. 1-14 ; Jndah as sure-
ty for Benjamin unto the father. — Buy us a little
bread. — In death and famine a rich supply is but
little ; so it was especially in Jacob's numerous fam-
ily, in regard to what they had brought the first time.

And Judah spake. — Judah now stands forth as

a principal personage, appearing more and more
glorious in his dignity, his firmness, his noble dispo-
sition, and his unselfish heroism. He, like Keuben,
could speak to his father, and with even more free-
dom, because he had a freer conscience than the
rest, aiid regarded the danger, therefore, in a milder
light. Judah does not act rashly, but as one who
has a grand and significant purpose. His explana-
tion to the wounded father is as forbearing as it is
firm. If they did not bring Benjamin, Simeon was
lost, and they themselves, according to Joseph's
threatening, would have no admittance to him — yea,
they might even incur death, because they had not
removed from themselves the suspicion of their being
(pies. — Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me 7 —
Knobel : " His grief and afSiction urge him on to
reproach them without reason." trnreaaonable,
nowever, as it appears, it becomes significant on the
•upposilion that he begins to read their guilty con-

sciences, and, especially, when, with the one pr«
ceding, we connect the expression that follows : Me
have ye bereaved of my children. — The mat
asked us straitly. — [Lange translates the Hebrew
\r-'6(n bsBJ biXlli literally, or nearly so : er fragU
und fragte uns aus; or, as it might be rendered,
still closer to the letter, he ashed to ask ; or, if we
take the infinitive in such cases as an adverb, he askea
inquisitively, and then proceeds to remark] : This
expressive connection of the infinitive with the in-
dicative in Hebrew must not be effaced by grammat-
ical rules ; we hold fast to its Uteralness here. They
did not speak forwardly of their family relations,
but only after the closest questioning. By this pas-
sage and Judah's speech (ch. xliv.), the account in the
preceding chapter (ver. 32) is to be supplemented.
They owed him an answer, since the question was to
remove his suspicion ; and, moreover, they had no
presentiment of what he wanted. — Send the lad
■with me. — '^PX {with me) says the brave Judah.
He presents himself as surety ; he will take the guilt
and bear the blame forever. The strong man prom-
ises all he can. To offer to the grandfather his own
grandchildren, as Eeuben offered his sons, that he
might put them to death, was too unreal and hyper-
bolical to occur to him. We become acquainted
with him here as a man full of feeling, and of most
energetic speech, as ver. 3, and ch. xxxiii. had be-
fore exemplified. He eloquently shows how they
are all threatened with starvation. The expression,
too : Surely noTO' we had returned the second
time, promises a happy issue. — If it must be so
now. — Jacob had once experienced, in the case of
Esau, that presents had an appeasing effect on hos-
tile dispositions. From this universal human expe-
rience there is explained the ancient custom, es-
pecially in the East, of rendering rulers favorably
disposed by gifts (see 1 Kings x. 25 ; Matt. ii. 11 ;
Prov. xviii. 16 ; xix. 6). — Of the first finiits of the
land. — (Lange translates : Of that which is most
praiseworthy.) Literally, of the song ; i. c, that
which was celebrated in song. The noblest products
of nature are, for the most part, celebrated and sym-
bolized in poetry. In presents to distinguished per-
sons, however, the simple money-value of the things
avails but little ; it is the peculiar quality, or some
poetic fragrance attached to them, that makes them
effective. Delitzsch doubts this explanation, but
without sufficient reason. They are especially to
take balm, the pride of Canaan, but in particular of
Gilead. Then honey. Knobel and Delitzsch sup.
pose it to be the honey of grapes, Arab., dibi.
" Grape syrup ; L e., mmt boiled down to one third.

6ao

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OP MOSES.

an article, of which, even at the present day, there
are aent yearly three hundred camel-loads from He-
bron's vicinity to Egypt." DelitzBch. But this very
abundance of the syrup of grapes would lead us to
decide rather for the honey of bees, were it not for
the consideration, that in the Egypt of to-day great
attention is given to the raising of bees, and that it
is no wine country, although not wholly without the
culture of the vine (ch. xl. 10). — Spices. — (Lange,
tragacanth-gum.) A kind of white resinous medica-
ment (see Winer, Tragacanih). — Myrrh. — Frank-
incense, salve medicament (see Winer, Ladanum).
— Nuts. — The Hebrew word D"'.B3 occurs here
only, but by the Samaritan translation it is interpret-
ed of the fruit of the Pistacia vera, "a tree similar
to the terebinth — oblong and angular nuts of the
size of a liazel-nut, containing an oily but very pal-
atable kernel, which do not, however, grow any more
in Palestine (as is stated in Schubebt's ' Travels in
the East,' ii. p. 478; iii. 114), but are obtained from
Aleppo (eomp. Rosen., in the ' German Orient. Mag-
azine,' xii. p. 502)." Keil. — Almonds. — (See Winer,
Almond-tree.) On the productions of Palestine in
general, see Calwer Bibl. " Natural History," etc. —
And take double money. — (Lit. second money.
They are not to take advantage of the mistake, even
though no unfavorable construction should be put
upon it, or it should occasion them no harm. — And
God Almighty. — Here, when some strong miracu-
lous help is needed, he is again most properly desig-
nated by the name El Shadai. — If I be bereaved
of my children. — Be it so. An expression of
resignation (Esth. iv. 16). As his blessing here is
not a prayer full of confidence, so the resignation
has not the full expression of sacrifice ; for Jacob's
soul is unconsciously restrained by a sense of the
ban resting upon his sons. He is bowed down by
the spiritual burden of his house.

2. Vers. 15-30. Joseph and Benjamin. — And
stood before Joseph. — Knobel justly states that
the audience they had with Joseph did not take
place until afterwards. The meaning here is that
they took their place in front of Joseph's house, to-
gether with Benjamin and the presents, and so an-
nounced to him their arrival. — Bring these men
home. — With joy had Joseph observed Benjamin
with them, and concludes from thence that they had
practised no treachery upon him, tlirough hatred to
the children of Rachel, the darUngs of their father.
Benjamin's appearance sheds a reconciling light upon
the whole group. He intends, therefore, to re-
ceive them in a friendly and hospitable manner.
His staying away, however, until noon, characterizes
not only the great and industrious statesman, but
also the man of sage discretion, who takes time to
consult with himself about his future proceeding. —
And stay. — Bohlen's assertion that the higher
castes in Egypt ate no meat at aU, is refuted by Kno-
bel, p. 326. — At noon. — The time when they par-
tools of their principal meal (ch. xviii. 1). — And
the men vrere afraid. — Judging from their for-
mer treatment they know not what to make of their
being thus led into his house. If a distinction, it is
Kn incomprehensibly great one ; they, therefore, ap-
prehended a plan for their destruction. Some mon-
Itrous intrigue they, perhaps, anticipate, having its
Introduction in the reappearance of the money in
their sacks, whilst the fearful imagination of an evil
conscience begins to paint the consequences (see ver.
18). "A thief, if unable to make restitution, wa-s

sold as a slave (Exod. xxii. 3)." Therefore they are
not willing to enter until they have justified them
selves about the money returned in their sacks.
They address themselves, on this account, to Joseph's
steward, with an explanatory vindication. — When
we came to the inn. — In a summary way they
here state both facts (eh. xlii. 2*7 ; and xlii. 35) to-
gether. For afterwards they might have concluded
that the money found in the sack of one of them
was a sign that that money had been returned in all
the sacks. — In full weight. — There was, as yet, no
coined money, only rings or pieces of metal, which
were reckoned by weight.— Peace be to you. — It
can hardly be supposed that the steward was let into
Joseph's plan. He knew, however, that Joseph him-
self had ordered the return of the money, and might
have supposed that Joseph's course toward them, as
his countrymen, had in view a happy issue. In this
sense in is that he encourages them.— Tour God
and the God of your father. — The shrewd stew-
ard is acquainted with Joseph's religiousness, and,
perhaps, has adopted it himself. He undoubtedly
regards them as confessors of the same faith with
Joseph. Knobel : " His own good fortune each man
deduces from the God he worships (Hos. ii. 7)." —
Has given you treasure. — Thus intimating some
secret means by which God had given it to them
but for all this they still remain uneasy, though suf-
ficiently calmed by his verbal acknowledgment of
receipt : I had your money, but more so by the
releasing of Simeon. It is not until now that they
enter the house which they had before regarded as a
snare. Now follow the hospitable reception, the
disposition of the presents, Joseph's greeting, and
their obei.=ance. — And he asked them of their
welfare. — This was his greeting. See the contrast,
ch. xxxvii. 4. For the inquiry after their father's
welfare they thank him by the most respectful obei-
sance, an expression of their courtesy and of their
filial piety. They represent their father, just as Ben-
jamin represents the mother, and so it is that his
dream of the sun and moon fulfils itself (ch. xxxvii.
9). If we suppose Benjamin bom about a year be-
fore Joseph's sale, he would be now twenty-three
years of age. Knobel does not know how to under-
stand the repeated expressions of his youth (153
etc.). But they are explained from the tender care
exercised towards him, and from the great difference
between his age and that of his brothers. — And he
said. — It is very significant that Joseph does not
wait for an answer. He recognizes him immediately,
and his heart yearns. — My son. — An expression of
inner tenderness, and an indication, at the same time,

of near relationship. — And Joseph made haste

His overwhelming emotion, the moment he saw his
brethren, like Jacob's love of Rachel, has a gleam
of the New-Testament life.* It is not, however, to

* {A glimpse of the New-Teatament life. It is very com^
mon to represent the Old Testament as containing tbs
harsher dispensation, and as presenting the sterner attri-
butes both of God and man. This is often done without
much thought, or discrimination of the respects in which it
may be false or true. The Old Testament is, indeed, a les&
full revelation of mercy as a doctrine, or a scheme of salva-
tion, but the mercy itself is there in overflowing measure,
and expressed in the most pathetic language. It is peculiar^
Iv the emotional part of Holy Scripture, presenting eveiy-
thing in the strongest manner, and in strongest contrast,
whether it be wrath or tenderness, indignation against
apostasy or love for the oft-times apostate and rebellioul
people. It may even be maintained that the New Testa-
ment, though more didactic, is less tender in its language,
less abounding in pictures of melting ccmpassion on thf

CHAP. XLIII. 1— XLV. 28.

621

be regarded as a simple feeling ; it is also an emotion
of joy at the prospect of that reconciliation which
he had, for some time, feared their hatred towards
Rachel's children might prevent, and so bring ruin
upon Benjamin, upon Jacob's house, and upon them-
selves. Ko emotions are stronger than those arising
from tl.3 dissolution of a ban, with which there is,
at the same time, taken away the danger of a dark
Impending doom, and the old hardening of impaired
affection.

part of Q-od, and of devoted affection of one human heart
to another. What more moving, in this respect, than the
language of the prophets (compare Isaiah xlix. 15; liv.
S-10; Ivii. 15, 16; Ps. ciii. 13-16; Gen. vUi. 21; Deut x.
12; X. 19; xxiv. 14-22; Ezek, xvi. 60-63; Hos. xi. 8,9;
Uic. vi. 8 ; vii. 18, 19), so full of God's pathetic yearning,
we might style it, towards humanity ! On the other hand,
ffhat more exquisite pictures can there be found of human
tenderness, than those of David and .Jonathan, Ruth and
Naomi, the pathetic meeting of Joseph and his brethren as
here described, David's forgiving tenderness towards Saul,
end even Esau's reception of Jacob (Gen. xxxiiL 4-15) after
all the wrong he had apparently, or in reality, received from
him. In this latter case, we may regard Esau as one who
had but little if any grace, and yet the feeling here, viewed
as growing out of the patriarchal life and religious ideas, may
well be compared with any general influence of our nom-
inal Christianity in arousing men to deeds of tenderness and
heroism. This false view of the Old Testament, which ig-
norance of the Bible is causing more and more to prevail, is
a great wrong to the whole cause and doctrine of revelation.
Even the most tender dialect of the New Testament, is
drawn from the Old. Its Hebraisms are its most pathetic
parts. Of this there is a good example in the very style of
language here employed. The expression 1'^^n^ !l"l?aDD,
rendered, his lowds did yearn (rather, warmed), has fce'en
naturalized iu the New-Testameut Greek, where aTT\6.yxva
isusedfor D"'ani. It may be said, however, that both
the Hebrew and the Greek are marred for the English read-
er by the rendering howeh, especially if taken in the sense
of iniesiina, instead of the larger meaning that belongs to
the Latin viscera. It may be doubted whether O^anT
does ever, of itself, denote any part of the body, either
more or less interior. When the singular is used for the
wonib, it is rather to be regarded as a metaphorical use of
its primary sense of clierishingt or as that which Imies and
cherishes. The (jreek counterpart, o-jrAdyxvo., denotes the
most vital parts, such as the heart, the tungs, and the liver,
the parts which, in the case of animals slain, were regarded
as the choicest eating, and were given as an honoraiy por-
tion to the guest. See Homer everywhere. They included
the KapSia, with the ^pei/es, or prxcordia, and the ^irap, or
liver. Another word was iJTop, which was used exactly as
O^an"! is used here, and with a similar verb signifying to
be warm, or bum ; as Odyss. i. 48 :

oAAd /tot a/i(^ , 'OSvff^t 5at^povK AAI'ETAI ^Top.

My heart is burning for the brave Ulysses ; with an evi-
dent paronomasia in Saii^povt and Saterat. Compare Ps.
- 4 I3"lp3 ^3^ z.T\, my heart grows liot within me,

Ills "l?3n, the fire is burning; also Luke xxiv. 32, oux' n

KapSia riiuiv icaiojieV/ f,--' «" Vl^'^'i " was not our heart burn-
ing within us ? " Instead of bowels, it would be mure in ac-
cordance with the spirit of the Hebrew word to render it
here, his heart yearned, or warmed. EosenmuUer, on this
passage, makes one of his wise remarks about " the ancient
men" (jprisci homines), and their great simplicity iii regnrd-
Ing these parts of the body as the seat of the affectioi:s. It
has, however, always been so, more or less, in all languages.
In the ancient tongues even intellect is generally assigned
to these middle regions, and but rarely, or compiiratively so,
to the head. With us it seems almost a matter of conscious-
aess that we think with our heads, but this is an effect ratjh-
ir than a cause of the change of language. In the Latin,
xr is used for wisdom, prudence, and cordatus Is equivalent
to epujipoy, a. wise s.ad prudent man. The Greek popular
language placed thought in the 4>pivt;, not in the eyice<l)a.>,09,
ov brain, although the latter is sometimes referred to m this
light, especially by Aristotle. Demosthenes once makes a
popular allusion to some such notion in the oration De Ha-
loncso ; but the poetical language, the best representative
of .'he popular feeling, is all the other way. So in the He-

3. Vers. 31-34. 77ie banquet in honor of Benja-
min.— And he washed his face. — ^A proof of th«
depth of his emotion. It was stUl hard for him tc
maintain a calm and composed countenance. — And
they set on for him by himself. — Three tables,
from two different causes. Joseph's caste as priest,
and in which he stood next to the king, did not allow
him to eat with laymen. And, moreover, neithei
Joseph's domestics, nor his guests, could, as Egyp-
tians, eat with Hebrews. Concemine the rigidness
of the Egyptian seclusion, see Ksobe.., p. 328. Be-
sides, the Hebrews were nomads (ch. xlvi, 34). On
the Egyptian castes, see Von Raumer, Vorlesungen
iiber die alte Oesch, i. p. 138. — And they set.—
They were surprised to see themselves arranged ac-
cording to their age. But the enigma becomes more
and more transparent ; whilst strange presentiments
are more and more excited. The transaction betrays
the fact that they are known to the spirit of the
house, and that it can distinguish between thei
ages. The Egyptians sat at table, instead of reelin
ing; as appears from their pictures. — And he toot
and sent messes. — They were thus distinguished
by having portions sent to them ; whilst, as yet, they
were hindered by no laws from eating of Joseph's
meat. — But Benjamin's mess. — This is a point
not to be overlooked in the proving of the brethren ;
it is an imitation, so to say, of the coat of many
colors. It would determine whether Benjamin was
to become an object of their jealousy, just as hia
father's present had before been to him the cause of
their hatred (so also Keil, p. 264). His mess is
five times larger than the rest. " Such abundance
was an especial proof of respect. To the guest who
was to be distinguished there were given, at a meal,
the largest and best pieces (1 Sam. ix. 23 ; Hom. II.
vii. 321, etc.). Among the Spartans the king re-
ceived a double portion (Herod, vi. 57, etc.) ; among
the Cretans the Archon received four times as much
{Heraclid. Polit. 3). Five was a favorite number
among the Egyptians (ch. xli. 34 ; xlv. 22 ; xlvii. 2,
24 ; Is. xix. 18). It may be explained, perhaps,
from the supposed five planets. — And they drank
and were merry with him. — Intoxication is not
meant here (see Hagg. i. 6), but a state of exliilara-
tion, in which they first lose their fear of the Egyp-
tian ruler. Benjamin was sitting as a guardian
angel between them, and it was already a favorable
sign, that the distinction showed to him did not em-
bitter their joy. Nevertheless, whether Joseph had
reached the zenith of an inexpressible rapture, aa
DeUtzsch says, may be questioned. In all this happy
anticipation, we may suppose him still a careful ob-
server of his brethren, according to the proveri"
in vino Veritas. At all events, the effect of the pres
ent to Benjamin was to be tested, and their disposi
tion towards him was to undergo a severe probing.

brew, the scat of thought, is in the reins, fll^^B. IJatin
rCTies, Greek (with digamma) t^pive^ : " try the hearts and
the reins," Ps. vii. 10; "in the night season my reins in-
struct me," Ps. xvi. 7. Only once in the Bible is the head sa
referred to ; and that is in the Chaldaic of Daniel, iv. 7,
where Nebuchadnezzar says : " the visions of my head upon
my bed," ^^;j<"l '^')^T^. Everywhere else it is the heart,
ab, or the reins ni'^b 3, or the Inward part S"!];, or some-
times expressions denoting something stil more interior, as
ninl3 and cnO, rendered the hidden part, Ps. li. 8 : "i«
the hidden partrkake me to Icnow wisdom." The practice ol
divination, by the inspection of these parts in sacilflos
shows the same mode of thinking, and a similar verbal oo»
sciousness. — T. L. 1

622

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

4. Ch. xliv. 1-17. Th^ trial of the- brothers' dis-
position towards Benjamin^ especially after his great
distitwtion. — And he commanded the steward
of his house. — The return of money does not be-
long to this trial, but only the cup in Benjamin's
Back. Knobel is incorrect in calling this also a chas-
tisement. So also is Delitzseh, in holding that a
surrender of Benjamin by his brethren loses all au-
thentic support, in the fact that in all the sacks
something was found that did not belong to them.
Eather is Benjamin the only one who must appear as
guilty, and as having incurred the doom of slavery
(ver. 17). — Up, follow after the men. — The haste
is in order that they may not anticipate him in the
discovery, and so defeat the accusation by their vol-
untary return. Tlie steward is to inquire only for
the silver cup. — And .whereby indeed he diviu-
eth. — "In Egypt, the country of oracles (Is. xix. 3),
hydromancy also was practised, i. e., to predict
events from appearances presented by the liquid
contents of a cup, either as standing or as thrown.
This mode of divination is still practised.* It was
called SJn:, lit., whispering (in magic formulas or
oracles), divinare." Delitzseh. Compare also Kno-
bel, p. 329. The indicating signs were either the
refraction of the rays of light, or the formation of
circles on the water, or of figures, or of small bub-
bles, whenever something was thrown in. Accord-
ing to Bunsen, however, the aim was, by fixing the
eyes of the diviner upon a particular point in the
cup, to put him into a dream-like or clairvoyant
state. Concerning this kulikomancy, or cup-divina-
tion, see Schroder. The cup is, therefore, marked,
not only as a festive, but also as a most sacred, uten-
sil of Joseph ; and, on this account, to take it away
was considered as a heinous crime. Knobel, in his
peculiar way, here tries to start a contradiction.
" According to the Elohist (he says), Jo'seph gets his
knowledge of the future from God (oh. xl. 8) ; whilst
here he derives it from hydromancy, as practised by
one received into the caste of the priests." So, too,
did he swear, in all earnestness, by the life of Pha-
raoh ; and the older exegetes would relieve us from
the apprehension that in so doing he might have
taken a false oath ! In a vigorous denial, and with
eloquent speech, do the accused repel the charges of
the steward and give strong expression to the con-
sciousness of their innocence. — 'With whomso-
ever it be fotind, let him die. — Whilst consent-
ing to their proposal, the steward moderates it in ac-
cordance with the aim of the prosecution. The pos-
sessor of the cup alone is demanded, and he, not to
die, but to become Joseph's slave. He presents this
forthwith, so that the discovery again of the money
may not be taken into consideration, and that tem-
porary fear of death may not harm Benjamin. Ben-
jamin only is to appear as the culprit, and this is in
order to find out whether or not his brethren would
jbandon him. For these reasons the money found
.n the sacks is not noticed at all. — And began at
Ihe eldest. — This was in order to mask the decep-
tion.— They rent their clothes. — This was al-
ready a favorable sign ; another, that they would not
let Benjamin go alone, but returned with him to the

♦ [See in the text notes, p. 323 (6, Gen. is. 6), another
Interpretation of this by that acute Jewish grammarian,
Ben Gannaoh. The 3 in T'-irrs he renders concerning
tC, instead of by it, — that is, as a means of divination.
•* Could not such a man find out by divination who had his
<I«n';"..l'.L.J

city ; third, that they put themselves under the diref>
tion of Judah, who had become surety for Benja.
min ; and fourth, that they, together with Benjamin,

prostrated themselves as penitents before Joseph

Wot ye not ? — Joseph's reproach was not so mu,-!!;
for the vileness, as for the imprudence, of the act ,
since he intends to conduct the severe trial as dar-
ingly as possible. The Hebrew ttjns , etc., denote*
here a divinely-derived or supernatural knowledge,
to which Joseph lays claim, not only as a membei
of the caste of priests, but as the well-known inter-
preter of the dreams, owing his reception into this
caste to his remarkable clear-sightedness. — That
such a man as I. — He puts on the appearance of
boasting, not to represent them as mean persons, but
only as inferior to himself in a contest of craftiness.
Thus he meets the supposed improbability that he
could still divine although the cup was taken from
him. — And Judah said, What shall we say 1 —
Judah considers Benjamin as lost, and without in-
quiring how the cup came into his sack, he recog-
nizes in this dark transaction the judgment of God
upon their former guilt. This appears from his
declaration : We are my lord's servants. — Ben-
jamin, it is true, had no part in that old guilt ; nei-
ther had Reuben and Judah directly, but concerning
this no explanation could be given in the court of
the Egyptian ruler. In a masterly manner, there-
fore, he so shapes his speech ambiguously that the
brethren are reminded of their old guilt, and ad-
monished to resign themselves to the divine judg-
ment, whilst Joseph can understand it only that they
are all interested in the taking of the cup, and he
especially, as the one confessing for them. 1, above
all, am guilty, says the innocent one, in order that
he might share the doom of slavery with the appar-
ent criminal. In this disguised speech the reservatio
meiitalis appears in its most favorable aspect. For
his brethren he utters a truth : Jacob's sons have
incurred the divine judgment. For Joseph hia
words are a seeming subterfuge, and yet a mos<
magnanimous one. Thus the two noble sons of Ja-
cob wrestle with each other in the emulation of
generosity, one in the false appearance of a despot
and boaster, the other forced to a falsity of self-accu-
sation that seems bordering on despair. — And he
said, God forbid that I should do so. — Here is
the culmination of the trial. Benjamin is to be a
slave; the others may return home without him.
Will they not be really glad to have got rid of the
preferred and favorite child of Rachel, in such an
easy way ? But now is the time when it comes true •
" Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise "
(see xlix. 8).

b. History of the reconciliation, of the recogni-
tion, and of their meeting each other again under tlie
antithesis of Judah and Joseph, ch. xliv. 18-x1t.
18. — 1. Vers. 18-34. Jvdah as surety and substitute
for Benjamin before Joseph. Judah's speech is not
only one of the grandest and fairest to be found in
the Old Testament (connecting itself, as it does, with
an increased significance, to those of EUezer and
Jacob), but, at the same time, one of the most lofty
examples of self-sacrifice contained therein. — Then
Judah came near unto bim and said. — Peciu*
factt disertum, the hart makes eloguent. Necessity,
and the spirit of self-sacrifice, give the inspiring con-
fidence (7ra/J^>)irm). — In my lord's ears. — He
presses towards him, that he may speak the more
impressively to his ear and to hLs heart (ch, L 4 ; 1

CHAP. XLin. 1— XLV. 28.

62S

Sam. xviii. 28). And yet, with all his boldness, he
neglects not the courteous and prudent attitude, —
For thou art as Pharaoh. — In this Judah intends
to recognize the sovereiguty which could not be af-
fronted with impunity. For Joseph, however, there
must have been in it the stinging reminder that the
acme of severity was now reached. The vivid, pas-
eionate style of narration, as the ground of treat-
ment in the cases presented, is ever the basis of all
Bible speeches. — And his brother is dead. — Jo-
leph has here a new unfolding of the destiny to
which God had appointed him ; especially does he
begin to perceive its meaning in relation to his father
Jacob (ver. 28). This language strengthens wliat is
said about Benjamin, as the one favorite child of an
aged father — doubly dear because his brother is
dead. — And Tve said unto my lord, The lad
cannot leave his father. — From this it appears
why Josepli confined them three days ui prison.
They had refused to bring Benjamin. It appears,
too, that they had consented to bring him only be-
cause Joseph had especially desired it, and had inti-
mated a favorable reception (" that I may set mine
eyes upon him," see Jer. xxxix. 12). Judah gently
calls his attention to this as though it were a prom-
ise. And, finally, they are brought to this determi-
nation on account of the pressure of the famine. It
had cost them, too, a, hard struggle with the father.
The quotation of Jacob's words (vers. 2Y-29) shows
how easily they now reconcile themselves to the pre-
ference of Rachel and her sons in the heart of Jacob.

That my wife. — Rachel was his wife in the

dearest sense of the word, the chosen of his heart.
Therefore, also, are her two sons near to him. — And
the one went out from me.— Here Joseph learns
his father's distress on his own account. His mourn-
In" and longing for him shows how dear Benjamin
must be, now the only child of his old age.— When
he seeth that the lad is not ■« ith us. — With the
utmost tenderness Benjamin is sometimes called the
youngest child, sometimes the lad. Out of this a
frigid criticism, that has no heart to feel or under-
stand it, would make contradictions. If Joseph has
his way, Jacob will die of sorrow. And now Judah
speaks the decisive word, — one which the mere
thread of the narration would not have led us to
imticipate, but which springs eloquently from the
rhetoric of the heart.— For thy servant became
surety for the lad unto my father.— Therefore
the passionate entreaty that Joseph would receive
him as a substitute of the one who had incurred the
sentence of slavery. In all this he makes no parade
of his self-sacrifice. He cannot, and will not, return
home without Benjamin. He would even regard ii;
as a favor that he should be received in his place.
He would rather die as a slave in Egypt, than that
his eyes should behold the sorrows of his father. So
stands he before us in his self-humiliation, in his self-
sacrifice, equal in both with Joseph, and of as true
nobiUty of sotil.

2. Vers. 1-5. Joseph's reconciliation ana mak-
ing himself known.— Then Joseph could not re-
frain.— The brethren had not merely stood the trial ;
Judah's eloquence had overpowered him. Reconcilia-
tion never measures itself by mere right ; it is not
only full but running over. Thus is it said of Israel :
"he wiostled witb God and prevailed." We must
listinguish, therefore, between two elements in Jo-
seph's emotion : first, his satisfied reconciliation, and,
lecondly, his inability to resti ain any longer, though
in presence of all the beholders, the strong agitation

of his swelling heart. See a fuU representation of
this as given by DELrTzsOH (p. 658). When, however,
he says, that Benjamin's brothers, do not press him
(Benjamin) with reproaches, notwithstanding they
had reason to regard him as guilty, and ab har'ng,
by his theft, plunged them into misfortunes, there
must be borne in mind their earlier suspicions as ex-
pressed ch. xliil. 18. Doubtless they now conjeo-
tured that they were the victims of some Egyptian
intrigue ; still they recognized it as a divine judg-
ment, and this was the means of their salvation. In
their resignation to suffering for Benjamin's sake, in
their sorrow for their father's distress, Joseph saw
fruits for repentance that satisfied him. He beheld
in them the transition from the terror of judgment to
a cheerful courage ol self-sacrifice, in which Judah
offers himself as a victim for him, inasmuch as he
does it for his image. This draws him as with an
irresistible power to sympathize with their distress,
and so the common lot becomes the common recon-
ciliation.— Cause every man to go out from me.
— He wished to be alone with his brethren at the
moment when he made himself known to them. The
Egyptians must not see the emotion of their exalted
lord, the deep abasement of the brethren, and the
act of holy reconciliation which they could not un-
derstand. Neither was the theocratic conception of
the famine, and of his own mission, for Egyptian
ears. — And he wept aloud. — With loud cryings
he began to address them ; so that his weeping was
heard by all who were without, and even by the
people in the house of Pharaoh. It follows that Jo-
seph's dwelling must have been near the palace ;
" his residence was at Memphis." (Knobel.) — I am
Joseph. — This agitating announcement, for which,
however, their despair may have prepared them, he
knows not better how to mitigate than by the ques-
tion : Doth my father yet live 7 — He had already
heard this several times, yet he must ask again, not
because he doubted, but that, in the assurance of this
most joyful news he may show them his true Israelit-
ish heart, and inspire them with courage. Nor are
we to forget that Judah's words had vividly pictured
to him the danger that the old man might die on ac-
count of Benjamin's absence, and that it now began
painfully to suggest itself to hun, how much he might
have imperilled his father's fife by the trial of his
brethren. — For they were troubled.— In then;
terror they seem to draw back. — Come near to
me, I pray you. — I am Joseph your brother
whom ye sold into Egypt. — It seems as if he had
to confess for them the thing they most dreaded. —
Now therefore be not grieved.— Seeing their
sorrow and repentance, he would now raise them to
faith. The one portion of them, namely, those who
were conscious of the greater guilt, must not mar
this favorable state of soul, and render faith more
difficult by their excessive mourning, nor should the
guiltless (Reuben, Judah, Benjamin) produce the
same effect by angry recriminations. — To preserve
life. To this they are now to direct their atten-
tion.

3. Vers. 5-13. Joseph's divine peace, and divim
mission. — To preserve life did God send me. —
What they had done for evil God had turned to good.
And now, having repented and been forgiven, as God
had shown to them in his dealings, they are now in
a state to understand his gracious purposes. A
closer explanation of these words, which would re-
quire the giving of his whole history, he, for the
present, discreetly waives. — And yet there are

624

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

five years. — Thia shows already the point towards
which his mind is aiming — to draw them down to Egypt.
— Neither eazing nor harvest A vivid represen-
tation of the years of famine. — Before you to pre-
serve you. — The preservation of Jacob's house
seems now of more importance than that of the
Egyptians, and the surrounding peoples. — By a
great deliverance. — The question was not one of
A.'isistance merely, however great, but of deliverance
from di'ath and famine. It may, however, be so
cal'ed in reference to the great future, and as con-
taining in it the final deliverance of the world. — So
now it was not you, — but God. — Here he makes
a pointed contrast : not you; in this is contained:
first, his forgiveness ; secondly, his declaration of
the nnlliiy of their project, and its disappearance be-
fore the great decree of God. Thrice does he make
these comforting declarations. But in what respects
was it God? He made him, first, a father unto
Pharaoh, that is, a paternal counsellor (2 Chron. ii.
12 ; iv. 16). " It was an honorary distinction of the
first minister, and which also existed among the Per-
sians (Appendix to Esther ii. 6 ; vi. 10), and the
Syrians (1 Maccab. xi. 32)." Knobel. These words
also refer to the interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams,
and the advice connected with it. The consequence
was, that he obtained this high position which he
can now use for the preservation of his father's house.
— Come down unto me. — The immediate invita-
tion given without any conference with Pharaoh
shows his firm position ; but it was, nevertheless, a
hazardous undertaking of his agitated, yet confident
heart. — In the land of Goshen.— (Ch. xlvii. 1 1). —
Razimses. — A district of Lower Egypt, north of the
Nile, and very fruitful (ch. xlvii. 6, 11), especially in
grass (ch. xlvi. 34). " Even at this day the province
of Scharkijah is considered the best part of Egypt
(Robinson : ' Falsest.,' i. 96)." Knobel. See The
SAME, p. 333, anil the Biblical Dictionaries. See also
Bunsen. — And there Tvill I nourigh thee. — The
expression ©"^JFI "S may mean, that thou mayest not
become a possession^ that is, fall into slavery through
poverty, and thus Knobel interprets it with reference
to ch. xlvii. 19, etc. ; but it may also mean, that thou
mayest not be deprived of thy possessions, so as to suf-
fer want, — an interpretation which is to be preferred.
— And behold your eyes. — If their father in his
distrust (see ver. 2.5) should not credit their testimony,
he will undoubtedly believe the eyes of Benjamin. —
All my glory. — He perceives that his aged father,
oppressed by sorrows, can only be revived again
through vivid representations (see ver. 27).

4. Vers. 14-15. The solemnity of the salutatirn.
— Anol he feU upon his brother Benjamin's
neck. — Benjamin is the central point whence leads
out the way to reconciliation. — Kissed all his
brethren. — The seiJ of recognition, of reconciUation,
and of salutation. — And wept upon them. — De-
LiTzscH : " While he embraced them." But of Ben-
jamin it is said, he wept upon his neck. Benjamin
would seem to remain standing whilst the brothers
bow themselves ; so that Joseph, as he embraced,
wept upon them. — And after that his brethren
talked vrith him. — Not until now can they speak
with him, — now that they have been called, and
been forgiven, in so solemn and brotherly a manner.
The joy is gradually brought out by an assurance,
thrice repeated, that he did not unpute their deed
to them, but recognized in it the decree and hand
of God.

q. T)ie joyful message to Jacob. Vers. 16-28.

— FharaolCs commisHon to Jacob. — ^And the fan*
thereof was heard. — At the recognition Jtsepb
was alone with his brethren ; now that he hai
made known their arrival, he avows himself as be-
longing to them.— And it pleased Pharaoh well.
— RecogEiitions of separated members of the same
family have an extraordinary power to move the
human heart, and we already know that Pharaoh wai
a prince of sound discernment, and of a benevolent
disposition. But what was pleasing to Pharaoh wa»
also pleasing to ills courtiers, and his servants. Be.
sides, Joseph had rendered grjat service, and had,
therefore, a claim to Egyptian sympathy. Thus fa<
a dark shadow had rested on his descent; for h»
had come to Egypt as a slave. Now he appears
as a member of a free and noble nomadic family,
—And Pharaoh said unto Joseph. — First, he ex-
tends an invitation to the brethren agreeing with
Joseph's previous invitation. Then foUons a com-
mission to Joseph, the terms of which bear evidence
of the most delicate courtliness. — The good of the
laud. — This is generally taken as meaning the best
part of the land, that is, Goshen (Raschi, Gesenius,
and others). Knobel, according to vers. 20, 23, m
terprets it, of the good things of Egypt : whateve)
good it possesses shall be theirs. The connectioi
with the following : the fat of the land, would seerr
to point to a leasing of possession, but, of course, not
in the sense of territoriiil dominion. It is not an
argument against this that the leasing of places is
afterwards asked for (ch. xlvi. 34 ; xlvii. 4). On the
contrary, the petition there made rather rests on a
previous general promise. — Now thou art com-
manded.— Pharaoh had refrained from using the
form of command towards Joseph, but now in adopt-
ing it, in a case of his own personal interest, it must
he regarded as, in fact, a refined courtesy. It is the
very strongest language of authorization. — This do
ye. — He regards the cause of Joseph, and his breth-
ren, as one and inseparable. The sense, therefore, is
not : cause thy bretliren so to do (Knobel) ; for they,
of themselves, could not take wagons from Egypt. —

For your little ones " Egypt was rich in wagons

and horses ; they are not mentioned among the no-
madic Hebrews." The small two-wheeled wagons of
the Egjptians "could be also used on the roadless
wastes of the desert." Keil. — Also regard not your
stuff. — They should not grieve over the articles of fur-
niture they would have to leave behind; since they
would have everything abundantly in Egypt. — The
children of Israel. — A decisive step for the house
of Israel. — Joseph gave them w^agons — and pro-
vision for the way. — Changes of raiment. —
Lange: Lit., festival habits (bohday clothing) as a
change for the usual dress. — But to Benjamin ha
gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five

changes of raiment He makes amends to thia

guiltless hrjiiher after the well-meant alarm which he
had given" him. — And to his father.— In these
presents love seems to surpass the measure of its aim.
since Jacob had been invited to come speedily to
Egypt ; but there might possibly be hindrances ta
the journey. Besides the ten asses were for the com
mon transportation, and the occasion of their dismis
sion is employed to send along with them costly
things of various kinds from the laud. — See that ye
fall not out by the way. — The old explanation : do
not quarrel by the way, is held by Knobel, Dehtzsch
and Keil, in opposition to Michaelis, Gesenius, and
others, who make it an admonition: fear not. But
the language, and the situation, both favor the first

CHAP. XLIII. 1— XLV. 28.

62^

Interpretation.* The less guilty ones among them
might easily be tempted to reproach the others, as
Reuben had done already. — Joseph is yet alive. —
In this message his heart lost its wamth f and joy.
He had not full trust in them. It was by no means
the Incredulity of joy (Luke xxiv. 44), because the
news seemed too strangely good to be true ; rather
had his suspicion, in its reciprocal working with their
long consciousness of guilt, made him fundamentally
mistrustful. And now that dreadful shalit of Egypt
tu^ns out to be his son Joseph ! Eren Benjamin's
witness fails to clear up his amazement. — And when
he saw the wagons. — Not until they had told him
all the words of Joseph, and added, perhaps, their
own confession — how they had sold him, how Joseph
had forgiTen them, how he had referred them to the
divine guidance — is Jacob able to believe fully their
report ; and, now, in connection with all thi-', there
come the Egyptian wagons, as a seal of the story's
• truth, as a symbol of Joseph's glory, a sign, in fact,
from God, that the dark enigma of his old years is
about to be solved in the Ught of a " golden .lunset."

^It is enough. — His longing is appeased, he has as

good as reached the goal. — I will go. — The old man
is again young in spirit. He is for going immediate-
ly ; he could leap, yes, fly.

" Now purified at last, witli hope revived,
For life's new goal he starts."

(See the close of the (Edipus Ooloneus.) Delitzsch :
" Thus Jacobs spirit lives again. — And Israel said. —
It is Israel now that speaks. How significant this
change of name."

DOCTBINAI, AITD ETKECAl.

(Ch. xliii. 1— xliv. 17.) '

The great trial : 1. Its inevitableness ; 2. its

* fThe old rendering is supported by the fact that the pri-
mary sense of TST is not fear, but exciUment of mind in any
way, like Greek opy'ti, opyifo/ii", by which the LXX translate
It, Ps. iv. 5 (see, also, Eph. iv. 26, Be ye angry, yet sin not),
and which is one of the places referred to by KosenmuUer
for the sense of /ear. In the other places cited by him the
icnse of anger, or excitement, suits the context best ; as
Exod. XV. 14 ; Dent. ii. 25. In all other places the sense of
.•age or anger ihpyri) is beyond doubt. There is no intima-
tion of anything on the way which should cause fear (m the
sense of terrcrr, cammolicm) any more than in any of their
previous goings and comings. The fear of apprehension, or
anxiety, such as might be felt on account of the mishap of
the money found in the sacks, would be expressed by a very
different word. Whereas everything in the context renders
this advice of .Joseph, that they should get into no disputes
with one another, very probable. LXX, m h/yyiitrret, Synac,

|.«jo^a .oAZ )3 , do M< quarrel on the road. So the

Targum.— T. L].

t [Hebrew, 13^ 3BJ' and his heart grew cMll. It is the
same idea as the Greek "miT, tiV. iri7>™(*'. ?? onomatopio
word of the second class, denoting soroe resemblance between
he sound and the effect produced— fairdmss, solidness, com-
pactness; hence solidity, coldness. The heart stoppmg In
flhill and amazement. It is interesting, too, to note how
•ommon in language is this metaphor, or secondary sense,
expressing hope a.nd joy by warmth, distrust and despair by
« ehill. As in thf Odyssey, i 167—

oufie T« fifiiv
DaXTrapij, eiirep t« eirvxeovioiv kvipairuv
■hri<rXv eXev(re<r9<u • ni S (iJlfo vatmiiov «uap.
•* No warmth to us,— that is, no warming hope, should
•ny one on earth declare that he would come again,— for-
•TOT gone, the day of his return." This is very much as
old Jacob felt. Compare, also, the Hiad, vi. 412, where
lnXiroipi), warmth, in this sense, is opposed to chilling griel.
Kpiio;, cold, is used m the opposite way.— T. li.J

40

need ; 8. its apparent end (the banquet) ; 4- its acme ■,
5. its glorious issue.

1. The pressure of want, and its power in the
hand of providence : 1) How inexorable in its de-
mands. Jacob is to deliver up Benjamin. 2) How
full of grace in its designs. By it alone can Jacob's
house be delivered from the burden of deadly guilt.

2. Judah's confidence. " A Uon's whelp " (ch.
xlix. 9). This confidence he would not have had, if
he had not formerly proposed to sell Joseph in order
to save him, or had he not been willing to sacrifice
himself for Benjamin's safe return. The spirit of
self-sacrifice is the great source of courage.

8. It is in the name of Israel that Jacob treats
with his sons in the giving up of Benjamin. Hil
reproach, too (ver. 6), is in the name of Israel. It
seems to come, indeed, from Jacob's weakness, and
to be, therefore, wrongly used ; but behind the mere
sound there lies the hidden announcement of a suspi-
cion that they were dealing unfairly with the sons
of Rachel. We now recognize Israel's character,
especially in the following traits : 1) Not to his other
sons does he entrust Benjamin, not even to Eeuben,
whose weakness he knows, but only to Judah, whose
frankness, honesty, and strength seem to inspire him
with confidence. 2) He again employs the old weap-
on, the giving of presents to a threatening antago-
nist ; yet well knowing that the Egyptian would not,
like Esau, look to the quantity so much as the qual-
ity of the things offered, and so he sends him tht
most highly prized or celebrated products of the
land. 3) With a severe uprightness does he require
his sons to return the money found in their sacks,
and thus disarm the suspicion of the Egyptian. 4)
He entrusts to them Benjamin as their brotlier. 5)
He commits himself to the protection of Almighty
God, i. e., the delivering and protecting God of the
patriarchs, who wrought miracles on their behalf.
6) He resigns himself to God's providence, even at
the risk of becoming entirely childless.

4. The prized fruits of the land of Canaan. In
Jacob's words there appears an objective poetry, or
the poetry of the lands, as it may be called. First
of all, it consists in their noblest products, not as
they serve the common wants of life, but rather its
healing, adornment, and festivity. When he selected
them, however, Jacob could have had but little
thought how mighty the influence these noble gifts
of Canaan's soil would have upon the great Egyptian
ruler, — how they would impress him as the wonders
of his youth, the glories of his native land.

5. Joseph's state of soul at the appearance of
Benjamin : 1) His joy ; 2) his deep emotion ; 3) his
doubt, and the modes of testing it: a. the feast ; *.
the cup ; c. the claim to Benjamin. If at the first
meeting with his brethren Joseph had to struggle
with his ill-humor, he now has to contend with the
emotions of fraternal love.

6. the agitating changes in the trial of Joseph's
brethren: 1) From fear to joy: 2) from joy to sor-
row ; 3) and again from sorrow to joy.

7. Their negotiation with the steward, or the de-
lusions of fear. They are innocent (respecting lUa
money), and yet guilty (in respect to their old crime)
Having once murdered confidence, there lies upoB
them the penalty of mistrust, compelling them t«
regard even Joseph's house as a place of treachery.
They could have no trust whilst remaining unrecon-
ciled.

8. The steward. Joseph's spirit had been lo
parted to his subordinates.

626

GENESIS, OE THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

9. Good fortune abounding (the money given to
ihem ; Simeon set free ; the honorable reception ;
the banquet; the messes); and yet tbey had no
peace, because the pure foundation for it was not yet
laid.

10. Joseph's deep emotion, a sign of reconcilia-
tion.

11. The banquet, and Egyptian division of castes.
(The distinction of caste is here recognized as cus-
tom interpenetrated by dogma, and this gives the
method of the struggle. Joseph sends messes from
his table. The true tendency of the caste doctrine
Is to absorb everything into that of the priesthood.)
Egyptian forma (honorary dishes ; the number five).
An Israelitish meul. As the banquet of Joseph's
joy, of his hope, of his trying watch. As the feast
of reviving hope in Joseph's brethren ; their par-
ticipation without envy in the honoring of Benjamin.
As an introduction to the last trial, and a prepara-
tion for it.

12. The successful issue in the fearful proving
of Israel's sons.

(Ch. xliv, 18 — xlv. 16. Joseph and Judah.)

1. Judah's speech. Delitzsch: "Judah is the
eloquent one among his brethren. His eloquence
had carried the measure of Joseph's sale ; it had
prevailed on Jacob to send Benjamin with them ;
and here, finally, it makes Joseph unable to endure
the restraint which he wished to put upon himself."
The end, however, is attained, not more by his
touching eloquence than by his heroic deed, when
he offers himself as surety for Benjamin, and is
willing to sacrifice himself by taking his place.

2. Ajtd I said. This citing of Jacob's language,
in Judah's speech, must have had something espe-
cially agitating lor Joseph, — all the more so because
the speaker is not aware of the deep impression it
must have made upon him. In this citation of Ja-
cob's last words in respect to that old event, there is
reflected, as Schroder rightly remarks, Jacob's
doubt. I said^ that is, I thought at that time.

3. The moral requisites of reconciliation, whether
human or divine, are quite obvious in our narrative.
Eeuben represents the better element in the moral
struggle, Benjamin the innocent party, Judah the
surety, who takes upon himself the real guilt of his
brethren and tlie factitious guilt of Benjamin. Re-
pentance, faith, and the spirit of sacrifice, severally
appear in these representatives. Through three
stages do these elements prepare the reconciliation
to Joseph's heart and to the brethren as opposed to
him. It has for its foundation a religious ground,
though only in an Old-Testament measure. The
thrice-repeated declaration of Josepli : Ye have not
seat me, but God has done it, is the strongest expres-
sion of restored peace and forgiveness. As Benja-
min, so to speak, had taken his place, the conclusion
avails : Whatever ye have done to him, ye have done
it even unto me.

4. It is an especial New-Testament trait in Jo-
ieph's mode of thinking, that he so fully recognizes
how the sin of his brethren, after having been atoned
for, is entirely taken away ; the divine providence
having turned it to good. This truth, which he so
promptly read in his mission, many Christians, and
even many theologians, are yet spelling out in the
letter. Joseph, however, recognizes, as the central
point of the divine guidance, his mission to save
Israel's house from starvation, and to preserve it for

a great deliverance. In this thought there lies en
closed the anticipation of a future Mnd an enJlesa
salvation. For this end the treachery of the breth
ren is first turned away, as guilt expiated, and then
under .the divine guidance, turned to good. Thus
Joseph's mission becomes a type of the cross of
Christ ; though the expiai ing points, which are found
separated in Joseph's history, are wholly concentra-
ted iL the person of Jesus. Here they appear in
divers persons : It is Reuben the admonisher, Benja
min the innocent, Judah the surety, Joseph thf
betrayed and the forgiving, Jacob the father of a
family pressed down by the guilt of his house.

5. Joseph's kiss of peace reniinds us of Christ's
greeting to his disciples and to the world.

6. Benjamin, by the way, became in after times,
a wild and haughty tribe, then deeply humbled (in
the days of the Judges), then Judah's rival, in the
opposition of Saul and David, then Judah's faithful
confederate and protegee : in the New-Testament
time, Paul again, its great descendant, connects him-
self in faithful devotion, with " the lion of the tribe
of Judah."

7. The recognitions of relative.', friends, lovers,
long lost to each other, are among the most impor-
tant occurrences in human life, especially as they
appear in their reality, and in ihe poetry of an
tiquity * (see Lange's " History of the Apostolic
Times," i. p. 42). In the most conspicuous points,
however, of outward recognitions, are reflected the
spiritual (Luke xv. 20), and, in both, those of the
world to come.

8. The ambiguous forms that present themselves
in the history of Joseph, and in which, at last, Judah
and Joseph stand opposed to each other, lose them-
selves entirely in the service of truth, righteousness,
and Jove. At the same time they appear as imper-
fections of the Old-Testament life in comparison with
the joy of confession that appears in the New Testa-
ment. What they represent, of the things that last
forever, is the caution and the prudence of the New
Testiiment wisdom. " Be ye wise as serpents and
harmless as doves."

(Ch. xlv. 18-27. Joseph and Jacob.)

1. The joyful news: 1) The announcers: Joseph,
Pharaoh, Egyptians, the sons of Jacob. 2) Theii
contents : Joseph Uves ; his glory in Egypt ; come
down. 3) Jacob's incredulity ; the chill of his heart
at the words of his sons, whom he does not credit
4) The evidences and the tokens : Joseph's words,
Pharaoh's wagons. 5. Jacob becomes again Israel
in the anticipation of the serene clearing up of his
dark destiny, in the discharging his house of an old
ban. Joseph's life restores to him the hope of a
happy death.

2. Delitzsch : " In Joseph's history the sacred
record maintains all its greatness ; here, in this scene

* [The dramatic power of such recognitions appears In
their having been made the effective points in some of the
noblest Greek tragedies. Aristotle has a special section
upon the a»'ay»'a)pi(ris, as it is technically named, in hlB
Ars Poetica, ch. xi., defining it as df a-^voia.^ ets yvStaat
^era^oA^, ^ eis t^iXiav ef ex^pas. He cites as examples the
rccognilions in the Odyssey, and especiaUy that of" Orestes
and Iphigenia, from Euripides. He might have cited, a«
a still more stri king example, that of 0/estes a d Eiectra,
in Sophocles. This story of Joseph, had it been l;nown to
him, would have furnished the great critic with the best
illustration of what he calls the pathetic^ to tto^os, as thfl
chief element of powor in the dramatic exhibition.— T L.

CHAP. XLHI. 1— XLV. 28.

621

»f recognition, it celebrates one of its triumphs.
It is all nature, all spirit, all art. These three here
become one ; each word is bathed in tears of sym-
pathy, in the blood of love, in the wine of happi-
Dess. The foil, however, of this history, so beauti-
ful in itself, is the S6(a, the glory, of Jesus Christ,
which, in all directions, pours its heavenly light upon
it. For as Judah (?) delivered up Joseph, so the
Jewish people delivered Jesus into the hands of the
heathen, and so, also, does the antitypal history of
this betrayal lose itself m an adorable depth of wis-
dom and divine knowledge." The samk : This Ja-
cob, over whom comes again the spirit of his youth,
is Israel. It is the name of the twelve-tribed peo-
ple, whose migration to Egypt, and new-birth out of
it, is decided by the ~^i^5 , / wM go, of the hoary
patriarch,

HOMILETICAl, AND PHACTICAL.

See Doctrinal and Ethical. Forms of character.
Forms of reconciliation. The types in our history.
Tadbe : Joseph's revelation to his brethren — a type
of Him who rose to his disciples.

(Ch. xliii. 1— xliv. 17.)

Staeke : Ch. xliii. 10. Bibl. Tub. : A less evil
should justly be preferred to a greater. — The same :
A Christian must bear with resignation the troubles
that God ordains. — At the door of the house. Per-
haps that they might leave iu time. The guilty con-
science interprets everything in the worst way
(Luther). [Sitting at a meal is more ancient than
lying (Exod. xxxii. 6) ; the latter mode came much
later into use, among the delicate and effeminate Per-
sians.]— OsiANDER : Let every land keep its own cus-
toms, unless they are in themselves indecent and
godless. [Ch. xliv. 1 5 ; Joseph is said to have
learned magic in Egypt ; but this is hardly credible.]
— [Ver. 9 ; that was said very rashly (?).] — Ch. xliv.
16. Cramer: God knows how to reveal secret sins
in a wonderful manner (Ps. L 21). — Calwer ffand-
huch: In suffering for Benjamin, they were to atone
for their sins toward Joseph.— Schroder : Conscience
is greater than heaven and earth. If this did not
exist hell would have no fire and no torment.

(Ch. xUv. 18— xlv. 16.)
Starke: When God has sufficiently humbled
his faithful children, he makes a way for their es-
cape (1 Cor. i. 13).— Ch. xlv. 5. Luther: A poor
weak conscience, in the acknowledgment of its guilt,
is filled with anguish. We must hold up and coun-
sel, open heaven, shut hell, whoever can, in order
that the poor soul may not sink mto despair. When
a Christian has been exalted by God to high woridly
«tate, hj must not be ashamed of his poor parents,
brothers, sisters, and other relations, nor despise
them (Rom. vui. 28).— The same : I wonder how
Joseph must have felt when he came to kiss Simeon,
Jie ringleader in the ciimes cemmitted against him ;

and yet he must have kissed him, too. — Comparisor
of Christ and Joseph, according to Luther and Ram-
bach. — Matt. V. 24. Calwer Handbuch : That is th<
most rational view in all cases, especially in the darli
dispensations of human life, not to halt at humai
causes, or stay there, but to look at God's ways, ae
Joseph does here ; and to trace his leading, like a
golden thread drawn througa all the follies and
errors of men. — Schroder : Here (at the close of
Judah's speech) is the time that the cord breaks
(Luther). — The thoughts and feelings of Jacob's
sons are all directed intently to this one thing : Ben-
jamin must not be abandoned ; everything else
ceases to trouble them. — Judah is bold because ho
speaks from the strong impulse of his heart. —
Luther, on Judah's speech : Would to God that 1
might call upon God with equal ardor. — Judah shows
that he is the right one to be surety (Richter).- -Ju-
dah may have closed with tears, and now Joseph be-
gins with them (Richter). — Joseph shows himself a
most aftectionate brother, while, as a genuine child oi
God, he points to him, away from himself and hi.-
people. — In God all discords are resolved. Grace
not only makes the sin as though it had never been,
but throws it into the sea (Micah vii. 19); without
abolishing sin as sin, tha is, as unexpiated, it makes
the scarlet dyed as white as snow (Isa. i. 18) —
Heim : Jerem. Risler, in section xl. of his historical
extracts from the books of the Old Testament, pre-
sents not less than twenty-two points of resemblance
between Joseph and Jesus. Such a gathering, how-
ever, of separate resemblances may easily divert tus
from the main features. Each essential homogeneity
is always reflected in many resemblances. Yet Ris-
ler's parallel is quite full of meaning (see Heim,, p.
540). As yet we have had before us the fulfilment
of the type in the course of history ; the fulfilment
of the other half still lies in the future (namely,
that Jesus makes himself known to the Jews, the
brethren who rejected him), Zach. xii. 10 ; Matt,
xxiii. 38, 39 ; Rom. xi. 26, 26.

(Cli. xlv. 17-28.)

Starke : Egypt's great honor and glory ; its
showing hospitality to the whole Church, that is, the
house of Jacob. Aft«r dark and long continued
storms, God makes again to shine upon his people
the sun of gladness. The joy of pious parents and
children at seeing each other again in the life to
come. — Schroder : (Three hundred pieces of silver,
equal to two hundred dollars.) He not only wished
to show his love to his brethren, but also, to induce
the absent members of the family to undertake the
journey (Calvin). On the journey to eternity we
must not become angry, either witli our companions,
or with God (Berl. Bib.). Christians, as brethren
ought not to quarrel with each other on the way ol
life. — Heim : The first impression that the joyful
news made upon the aged and bowed-down Jacob,
was to chiU his heart. Cases are not unfrequent of
apoplexy and sudden death arising from the recep-
tion of glad tidings. Ii was somewhat Hike the joi
of Simeon (Luke ii. 29, 30).

628 GENESIS. OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

EIGHTH SECTION.

ItratPi emigration with his family Ui Egypt. The settlement in the land of Goshen, Jaetih
and Pharaoh. Josephs political Economy. JacoUs charge concerning hit burial at

Canaan.

Chapters XLVI. and XLVII.

1 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and

2 offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. And God spake unto Israel in tha

3 visions of the night, and said Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here I am. And he said,
I am God, the God of thy father : fear not to go down into Egypt ; for I will there

4 make of thee a great nation: I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will a}so

5 surely bring tiiee up again ; and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. And Jacob
rose up from Beer-sheba; and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their

6 little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. And
they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan,

7 and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with him : His sons, and his sons' sons

8 with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought he with him
into Egypt. And these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt,

9 Jacob and his sons : Reuben, Jacob's first-born. And the sons of Reuben ; Hanoch

[initiated or initiating, teacherj, and Phallll [distinguiehedj, and Hezron [Furet; blooming one, beauti-

10 fulonej, and Carmi [Furst : noWe one, Gesen. : vinc-dresserj. And the sons of Simeon; Jemuel

[day or light of God], and Jamin [the right hand, luck], and Chad [Oesen. : gentleness; Furst : strong],
and Jachin [founder], and Zohar [lightening one, bright-shining one], and Shaul [the one asked for] the

H son of a Canaanitish woman. And the sons of Levi; Gershon [expulsion of the profane"?],

Kohath [congregation of the consecrated?], and Merari [harsh one, severe one, practiser of discipline?],

i2 And the sons of Judah ; Er [see chap, xxxriii. s], and Onan, and Shelah, and Pharc-e, and

Zarah : but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. And the sons of Pharez were

t3 Hezron [see v. 9], and Hamul [sparer? gentle one, delicate one]. And the sons of Issachar ;

Tola [worm, cocus-worm, one dressed in crimson cloth, war-dress], and Phuvah [=Phuah, utterance, speech,
mouth], and Job [=: 3^111.';, see Numb. xxvi. 29 ; 1 Chxon. vii. 1, returner], and Shimron [keeping, guard-

i4 ing]. And the sons of Zebulun; Sered [escaped, salvation], and Elon [oak, strong one], and

(5 Jahleel [waiting upon God], These be the sons of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob in

Padan-aram, with his daughter Dinah : all the souls of his sons and his daughters were

16 thirty and three. And the sons of Gad; Ziphion [beholder, watchman, the seemg one], and

Haggi [Chaygai, the festive one], Shuni [the restmg one], and Ezbon [Oesen. : devoted ; Furst: listener],

17 Eri [watchman], and Arodi [descendants], and Areli [heroic]. And the sons of Asher,
Jimnah [fortune], and Ishuah [like], and Isui [alike, one to another! twins?], and Beriah [gift],
and Serah [abundance], their sister; and the sons of Beriah; Heber [company, associate],

18 and Malchiel [my king is God]. These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah

19 his daughter, and these she bare unto Jacob, even sixteen souls. The sons of Rachel

20 Jacob's wife ; Joseph and Benjamin. And unto Joseph in the land of Egypt were
born Manasseh and Ephraim' [see chap, l., etc.], which Asenath, the daughter of Poti-

21 pherah priest of On, bare unto him. And the sons of Benjamin were Belah [see chap. xiv. j,
devourcr], and Becher [young camel f youth], and Ashbel [sprout], Gera [=:ni5, fighter?], and
Naaman [loveliness, graceful], Ehi [brotherty], and Rosh [head], Muppim [adorned one, from nB''],

22 and Huppim [protected], and Ard [ruieri from 1^"']. These are the sons of Rachel, which

23 were born to Jacob: all the souls were fourteen. And the sons [the son] of Dan;
M Hushim [thebastener]. And the sons of Naphtaii; Jahzeel [alloted by God], and Guni

25 [hedged around, protected pj], and Jezer [image, my image], and ShiUem [avenger]. These a«

the sons of Bilhah, which Laban gave unto Rachel his daughter, and she bare these
20 unto Jacob ; all the souls were seven. All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt,

which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore
n and six: And the sons of Joseph^ which were born him in Egypt, were two souls; all

CHAPTER XLVI., XLTH. 02t

the souls of the house of Jaoob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten,

28 And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to direct his face ' unto Goshen ; and they

29 came into the land of Goshen. And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up tc
meet Israel his father, to Goshen, ana presented himself unto him; and he fell on hit

30 neck, and wept on his neck a good while. And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me

31 die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive. And Joseph said unto hit
brethren, and unto his father's house, I will go up. and show Pharaoh, and say unto
him, My brethren, and my father's house, which were m the land of Canf.an, are come

32 unto me : And the men are shepherds, for their trade hath been to feeJ cattle ; and

33 they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have. And it shall
come to pass, wlien Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation ?

;i4 That ye shall say. Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle from our youth, even
until now, both we and also our fathers : that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen ; for
every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.

Ch, XL VII. 1 Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my

brethren, and their flocks and their herds, and all that they have, are come out of the

2 land of Canaan; and, behold, they are in the land of Goshen. And he took some of

3 his brethren, eveu five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said
unto his brethren. What is your occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy

4 servants are shepherds, both we, and also our fathers. They said, moreover, unto
Pharaoh, For to sojourn in the land are we come ; for thy servants have no pasture for
their flocks; for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan : now therefore, we pray thee,

5 let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen. And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying,

6 Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee : The land of Egypt is before thee ;
in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell; in the land of
Goshen let them dwell : and if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then

7 make them rulers over my cattle. And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set

8 him before Pharaoh : and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How

9 old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage
are an hundred and thirty years : few and evil have the days of the years of niy life
been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the

10 days of their pilgrimage. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before

11 Pharaoh. And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession
in the laud of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses [Ramses, son of the smi.

12 The name of several Egyptian kings], as Pharaoh had commanded. And Joseph nourished his
father, and his brethren, and all his father's household with bread, according to their

13 famihes' [Bunsen: "To each one according to the number of his children"]. And i/iere was nO bread

in all the land ; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt, and all the

14 land of Canaan, fainted * by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the
money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the com

15 which they bought; and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. And when
money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came
unto Joseph, and said. Give us bread : for why should we die in thy presence? for the

If. money faileth. And Joseph said. Give your cattle ; and I will give you for your cattle,

17 if money fail And they brought their cattle unto Joseph ; and Joseph gave them
bread in exchange for horses, and for their flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for

18 the asses; and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. When that
year was ended, they came. unto him the second year, and said unto him. We will not
hide it from my lord, how that our money is spent; my lord also hath our herds of
cattle; there is not aught left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies and our lands:

;» Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land ? Buy us and out

land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh; and give us seed^
20 that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate. And Joseph bought all

the land cf Egypt for Pharaoh ; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, becausfl
I] ths famine prevailed over them : so the land became Pharaoh's. And as for the people

ha removed them to cities ' from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other end
22 thereof Only the land of the priests bought he not; for the priests had a portion

assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Phf -aoh gave them: where

630 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

23' fore they sold not their lands. Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought
you this day, and your land, for Pharaoh ; lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the

24 land. And it shall come to pass, in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth part unto
T*haraoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and

25 for them of your households, and for food for your little ones. And they said, Thou hast
saved our lives : let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's ser-

^(j vants. And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh
should have the fifth part ; except the land of the priests only, which became not Phiv-

27 raoh\s. And Israel dwelled in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen; and they

28 had possessions*' therein, and grew, and multiplied exceedingly. And Jacob lived in
the land of Egypt seventeen years ; so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty

29 and seven years. And the time drew nigh that Israel must die; and he called his son
Joseph, and said unto him. If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy
hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in

30 Egypt : But I will he with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury

31 me in their burying-place. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. And he said, SwBar
unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head,

(' Cii. xlvi. 20. — The LXX have added, after Manasseh and Ephraim, averse seemingly from 1 Chron. vii. 14, but
differing so much, both from the Hebrew of that place, and from the LXX itself, that it can hardly be recognized. No
other ancienc version has it. It is not in the Sainaritaa, which, in most cases of variance, has been made to conform to
the LXX. If it was in some old Hebrew copies, it had clearly been put in to carry out the line of Joseph ; and this shows
us how explanatory scholia, referring to later things, may have got a place, and some of them an abiding place, in the
text of Genesis. — T. L.]

[2 Ver. 23.— n"flnp , to show the way — inf. Hiphil of n*!^ . This makes a very good sense here, but there is some
reason for doubting it, since the LXX render <rvvavTT)<rcu, as though they had read PN^lpb here, as well as just below.
To the LXX, as n^ual, the Samaritan is conformed, and gives PX"ip3 twice. The Syriac has n .i ^A v^ X ^ ^q appear

unto, or be seen, which shows that the translator read nNTinb (for ntf^nb), Hophal inimitive of the verb JnX"!
or regarded minb as being the same defectively written. This has some support from what immediately follows in
ver. 29, T"bx N'^'^l (Niphal of HXI), and appeared, or "presented himself" to him. The Targum of Ontelos rendera
it to meet him ; which shows also the reading DX^pb , like that of the LXX. — T. L.]

[3 Ch. xlvii. 12.— r|l3!l "^sb . This is sometimes a phrase of comparison, or proportion, as also "^BSi (see Lev. xxv.
52 ; Numb, vi, 21 ; Exod. xii. 4, etc.), yet hero it is more expressive taken literally, to the mouth of the little ones, pre-
serving the sense of proportion, yet showing, at the same time, Joseph's pathetic care — seeing to the wants and providing
appropriate food even for the youngest in the great company. — T. L.]

[* Ver. 13.— yxn rlbni. The Textus Sam;iritanuB has xbm (^SPPlI ), which Uosenmuller condemns as a mere
gloss. It seems, however, to be the same word, only with a different orthography, X for H ; and so all the old interpre-
ters regarded it— either reading xbni , or regarding nbm as equivalent to it; LXX efe'AtTre, failed, fainted; Syriac
£w£i-M , was desolate. Literally, if we read nfc<!3 , tJie land was weary, faint. So the Greeks use the verb Kafivio of
lands and cities as well as of persons. Such » poetic transfer has great pathos. So also, in Hebrew, is the verb
n jTD , to rest, transferred to the land. Comp. Lev. xxvi 34, 35. As also other verbs by the same or an opposite figure ;
Is. xxiv. 4, b^n nbD3 nbb^lS V^X<^ "^^^5 Jr^Ziiymourning, withering, is the land, languid and wasting the world.
There is no need of supposing a different root, as Gesenius does, or of comparing it with iin!3 , which is quite a different
word. Bee in the (Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, 26, the description of a land wasting with famine and pestilence

— T. L.]

\^ Yer. 21.— U^^shirik^^DV f\,tran^erred it (the people) to cities, etc. The LXX read here n^"13Sb inx T^^yrt
which is good Hebrew, notwithstanding what Rosenmiiller says about it, and render accordingly, KaTeSovAbJo-aro outcJ
fit rraifias, made them serve him as servants, which would not, however, be slavery, in the sense of man- owner ship^ ac-
sording to the most modern notion, but, rather, an increase of their civil subjection. The Samaritan has the Hebrew
corresponding to this ; but the whole argument of Gesenius on that codex goes to show that it is evei^where a conform-
ing to the LXX, rather than an older text whence the readings of the LXX were derived. See on this passage his
tract De PenlatenclU Samariiani Origine, etc. p. 39. The Hebrew gives a clear and satisfactory sense, as it stands, and
the whole aspect of the case proves that the change wafl from that reading rather than to it. The Targum agrees with
the Hebrew. So does the Syriac, only with more clearness, having, instead of the single word Di"!^ , a repetition,
li-al^ i j-D «^^» flora, city to city, or rather, frovi farm to farm. Raschi says he did this to bi«jak up their title by
destroying the residence as a memorial of ownership, and so preventing seditions, as Grotius also remarks upon tho \ ftoe.
Ths common reading is confirmed by Jcsephub, Antiq, Jud. ii. 7, 7.— T. L.]

[• ^'er. 27.— n^ -Tfnx;^^. The Niphal form, with its passive, reflexive, or deponent sense, makes the expreseiot
^erc correspond exactly to the technical language of the English common law in regard to the holding of land.— tJiey wers
Kized of If— the passive of the habendum et tenendum, in the language of a grant. Compare Josh. xxii. 9, CPlTnX V*"!!^
P13 ^TnXD "1^^^^. » "the land of their AoWm^ " of which they were seized, as tenants in fee, having had " livery q)" seizin *'
given to them, no TO ■T^3,"bythe hand of Moses." Compare also Numb, xxxii. 30, DD3in3 ^Tn&<3T,"and thei

CHAP. XLVI., XLVn.

63.

IHK ttized (that is, they had possession given them) in the midst of you." In the Terse before (Oen. xlvil S«), Jcsepl
1b aa: d to have given them possession (acting doubtless as agent or attorney to the king, the chief lord, or holder in capitr\
that is, liiiery of seisin, in some such manner, or with some such ceremonies as are described in our old common-law book*
P'^'. ^^'''' '^n'* O'r?*!!' "''ii'i Joseph put it for a decree"— a memorial of the grant, Oi'n ns , unto this day, tha
is, " in fee "—in pei-peluum. It is interesting to notice how strikingly similar have been the law-language and ceremo-
niBs of different ages. Compare the prophetical, or spiritual, grant, Ps. ii. 8, where rwns has the same emphasis, "th»
nations for an inheritance, the ends of the earth for a holding forever."— T. L.] ' * '

PKELIMINAET EBMAEKS.

1. The transplantation of the house of Israel to
Egypt under the divine sanction in the genesis of the
people of Israel, and under the protection afforded
by the opposition to each other of Egyptian preju-
dice and Jewish custom ; this bemg vrith the definite
reservation, confirmed by an oath, of the return to Ca-
naan. Such is the fundamental idea of both chapters.

2. Knobel finds a manifold difference in the his-
tory contained in chapters xlvL-xlviu., " between
the ground scripture as it is accepted by him, and the
amplification of the later editor." According to I he
Elohist (he says), Manasseh and Ephraim are said to
have been youths already, whilst here, that is, in the
" amplification," etc., they appear as boys (ch. xlviii.
8-12). In the narrative of the Elohist, Jacob's re-
quest respecting his burial is directed to all his chil-
dren, whilst here it is made to Joseph only (ch.
xlvii. .SI). And this is held up as a discrepancy !
See another specimen of this critical dust-raising, p.
336. Here again Knobel knows not how to take
the significancy of his awa^ \ey6ij.ei/a. Even "tl,
ver. 23, must answer as proof of a second Jehovistic
document.

3. Ch. xlvii. and xlviii. are taken by DeUtzsch as
Delonging to the superscription, as containing Jacob's
testamentary arrangements.

4. Tlie contents : 1) Jacob's departure, ch. xlvi.
1-7; 2) Jacob's family, ver. 8-27; 3) the reunion
and mutual salutation in the land of Goshen, ver,
28-34 ; 4) introduction of Joseph's brethren and
his father Jacob to Pharaoh ; grant of the Goshen
territory ; the induction and settlement of the house
of Israel, ch. xlvii. 1-12; 6) Joseph's administration
in Egypt, ver. 13-26 ; 6) Israel in Egypt and the
proviso he makes for his return to Canaan, even in
death, vers. 27-31.

EXEGBTIOAL AND CKITICAL.

1. Jacob's departure (ch. xlvi. 1-7). — And Is-
rael took his journey. — Even as Israel he had a
human confidence that he might follow Joseph's call
to Egypt. But as a patriarch he must have the di-
vine sanction. Until this time he might have doubts.
When he halted at Beer-sheba (" the place of Abra-
ham's tamarisk tree, and of Isaac's altar ") he offered
sacrifice to the God of his fathers — a peace offfering,
which, /in this case, may also be regarded as a thank-
offering, an offering of inquiry, or in fulfilment of a
vow. It must be remembered that Isaac once had
It in view to journey to Egypt, had not God forbid-
den him. And so, in the last revelation that Jacob
eceived, in the night-vision, there comes to him a
»oice, saying, Jacob, Jacob ; just as Abraham had to
le prepared hj a decisive prohibition in the repeated
tall, Abraham, Abraham, ch. xxii. 11, so, in a similar
wiy, must Jacob here be prepared for going onward
to Egypt. The reve'ation wliich Abraham had, ch,
XV., might seem dark to him. Its import neither

held him back nor urged him forward on the jour
ney. The transplantation of his house to Egypt wan
a bold undertaking. On this account the God of hla
fathers, the Providence of his fathers, reveals himseli
to him as God El, the powerful one,* with whom he
may safely undertake the journey, notwithstanding
the apparent inconsistency that he is leaving the
land of promise. The main thing in the divine
promise now is, that he is not only to become a
mighty people in Egypt, but that he shall return to
Canaan. The latter part might be fulfilled in the re-
turn of his dead body, but this would be as symbolic
pre-representation of the fact that Israel's return to
Canaan should be the return of his people. The
firmness of the departure appears in the fact that
Israel, with wives and children, allows himself to be
placed on Egyptian wagons, and that they took with
them all the movable property that they possessed
in Canaan. The picture of such a migration scene
upon the monument of Beni Hassan is described by
Hengstenberg, " Moses and Egypt," p. 37, etc.
" Jacob is now to die in Egypt ; this death, however,
in a foreign land, is to have the alleviation that Jo-
seph shall put his hand upon his eyes. This last
service of love was also customary among other an-
cient nations (oomp. Hom. H. xi. 453, etc.-f)." Kno-
bel. Concerning the wagons, see Delitzsch, p. 562.
2. Jacob'x house (vers. 8-27). Three things are
here to be considered: 1) The number 70 ; 2) the
enumeration of the children and grnndchildren who
may have been born in Egypt ; 3) the relation of the
present list to the one given Numb, xxvi,, and 1
Chron. ii. The numbering of the souls in Jacob's
household evidently points to the important symbolic
number 70. This appears in its significance through-
out the history of the kingdom of God. It is re-
flected in the ethnological tablo, in the 70 elders of
Moses, in the Jewish Sanhedrin, in the Alexandriau
version of the LXX, in the 70 disciples of our Lord,
in the Jewish reduction of the heathen world to 70
nations. Ten is the number of the completed hu-
man development, seven the number of perfection
in God's work ; seventy, therefore, is the develop-
ment of perfection and holiness in God's people.
But between the complete development and the germ
there must be a correspondence ; and this is the
family of the patriarch, consisting of seventy souls.
"The number seventy is the mark by which the
small band of emigrants is sealed and stamped as
the holy seed of the people of God." Dehtzsch. On
the manner in which the number 70 is formed out
of the four columns, Leah, Zilpah, Rachel, Bilhah,
see Delitzsch, p. 663 ; Keil, p. 270. It is to be

* [Our English translation, I am God, fails here in not
giving the article (bXtl), or any emphasis of expressioB
equivalent to it. The best way would have been to give the
name itself- /a™ ,Ei— as elsewhere there is given the nam«
El Shaddai, or else the meaning of the name as Lange ren-
ders it — I am the Mighty One, the God of thy fathers.-
T. Ii,]

t [See also the Odyssey xi, 426; xxi-^
cles, 1138.-

and a verj

toucbline: passage to the same effect in the Elect ra of SoT>ho*
- '-- .T.L.I

632

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

obgerved that Dinah, as an unmarried heiress, con-
Btitutes an independent member of the house, just as
Serah, daughter of Aeher (ver, IV) ; whilst it may
De supposed, in respect to the other daughters and
granddaughters, that by marriage they became incor-
porated with the families and tribes that are men-
Honed. The fact that a son of Simeon is specially
mentioned as the son of a Canaanitish woman, shows
that it was the rule in Jacob's house to avoid Ca-
Daanitish marriages, though the " Ishmaelitish, Ke-
turian, and Edomitic relationship still stood open to
them." Keil. The ancient connection, however, with
Mesopotamia, Laban had impaired, if not entirely
interrupted. A similar enumeration, Exod. i. 5 ;
Deut. X. 22 ; whilst the LXX, and, after it, Acts vii.
14, presents the number 75, by counting in the five
sons of Ephraim and Mauasseh according to 1 Chron.
viii. 14 (see note by Keil, p. 271), an enumeration by
which the persons named are still more distinctly
set up as heads of families.

As to what farther relates to the sons of Pharez,
thesons of Benjamin, etc., it is clear that when it is said
of Jacob, that he brought all these souls to Egypt, it
must have the same meaning as when it is said of
his twelve sons, that he brought them out of Meso-
potamia, though Benjamin was born afterwards in
Dis home. The foundation of the Palestinian family
state was laid on the return of Jacob to Canaan,
whilst the formation of the Egyptian family state,
snd of its full patriarchal development, was laid when
he came to Egypt. The idea goes ahead of the date.
Baumgartea urges the literal conception ; but the
right view of the matter is given by Hengstenberg.
For a closer discussion of the question see Keil, p.
271, and Dehtzsch, p. 564; especially in relation to
the difficulties of Knobel, p. 840. Keil : " It is clear
that our list contains not only Jacob's sons and grand-
sons already bom at the time of the emigration, but
besides this, all the sons that formed the ground of the
twelve-tribed nation, — or, in general, all the grjind-
and great-grandchildren that became founders of
mischpa-hoth, or independent, self-governing fami-
hes. Thus only can the fact be explained, the
fact otherwise inexplicable, that, in the days of
Moses, with the exception of the double tribe of
Joseph, there were, in none of the tribes, descend-
ants from any grandson, or great-grandsons, of Jacob
that are not mentioned in this list. The deviations
in the names, as given in Numb, xxvi., and in Chroni-
cles, are to be considered in their respective places."
We refer here to Keil, p. 272; Delitzsch, p. 565.

3. Their re-union and greetings in the land of
Goshen. Ver. 28-34. — And he sent Judah,—
Judah has so nobly approved himself true and faith-
fiil, wise and eloquent, in Joseph's history, that
Jacob may, with all confidence, send him before to
prepare the way. Judah's mission is to receive
Joseph's directions, in order that he himself may be
a guide to Israel, and lead him unto the land of
Goshen. Joseph, however, hastens forward to?meet
his father in Goshen, and to greet him and his breth-
ren.—And he presented himself to him. — Keil :
'' nxna otherwise generally thus used in speaking of
an appearance of God, is here chosen to express the
glory in which Joseph went to meet his father.'^ *

[* The right view of 13 N'^^^l (appeared unto him) is ne-
■ifssnry to detennine the meaning of what follows ; a7id he
fell ftpon his neck, etr. "WTio fell ? It is not so clear that the
subject of the verh b'S*^] is Joseph, although it is eo talien
bv the LXX, the Vulgate, and most of the translators In our

But surely it was less the external splendor, in itfeK
considered, than the appearance of one beloved, long
supposed to be dead, but now living in glorious pros'
perity.^Now let me die. — This joyful view of
death is not to be overlooked \ it is opposed to the
common notion respecting the Jewish view of the
life beyond the grave. Such language shows that

English version, as in that of Luther, it is left ambiguouB,
though both convey the impression that it was Joseph. The
Jewish commentators differ. Rashi makes it Joseph, and
raises the query, why Jacob did not fall upon his son*? neck
and kiss him ; for which he gives reasons from the Babbina
that are harcHy intelligible. Maimonides, on the other
hand, makes Jacob the grammatical subject. It would no'
have been according to the ancient notions of reverence fol
the son to have first fe-llen on his father's neck and kaasec
him. The proper action, he sayf, would have been to have
kissed his hand, and then to have waited for the father's em-
brace. Joseph, he intimates, appeared to him in all his
glory. At first he did not recognize him, hut as soon as he saw
who it was (Heb., as expressed passively, appeared, became
visible unto him) he fell, etc. We may think Maimonides'
other reason to be inconclusive in this case, but the gram-
matical one is entitled to much attention. The easy and
natural rule is that where there are a number of verbs con-
nected, the subject of the first belongs to them all unlera
there is a change direct, or implied in some way, in the
number, gender, or Idiiim. Had lb XTl been like the
rest of the verbs, there would have been no ground for
such a supposition. It is, however, passive or deponent ; he
app^red unto him (badly rendered, presented himself), or
became visible or icnown to him. The Targum of Onkeloe
translates IP N"!'! by Plb "^baPN , was revealed to Mm.
In such case the gramm:itlcal object of the verb preceding
may become the real subject of the one that follows ; and it
must be looked for here in the pronoun (15) which repre-
sents Jacob. This makes se change as though it had been
said actively, and he (Jacob) recognized hiTti, and fell on his
neck, etc. The verb XTi is Niphal, corresponding to' the

Syriac >.^L^ ^j • which is used for it here, and is employed

to denote a subjective appearance. Thus, in the Peschilo
yor;iou of the New Testament, it corresjionds to the Greek
u)(}>9tj, and is even used for ai'ej3A€j//€ {he recovered sighi\
taken in this passive or subiective aspect. As in Mark x.
52 ; John ix. 15, where, in the Syriac, Jesus is the subject
of the verb, and the bliid man's seeing, or seeing again, is
most strikingly expressed by saying, he became visible unto
him — that is, Jesus standing before him, as the first object
on which the new eye fell. Compare, also, in the Greek,
Luke xxii. 43, '* and an angel app* ared {w<|t6ij) unto 7wm,
and he prayed," etc. The subject of TrpoaijuxeTo is different,
on this account, from the grammatical sultject of cu</iO>7, and
is derived from the preceding ovtw, although no other direct
caujse of change intervenes. In the spirit of this the late
Arabic Version of Drs. Smith and Van Dyck has well ren-
dered it aj (7)h 1 ^^ appeared unio him, instead of

5K L4J* "^hen fie saw him, of a previous Arabic transla^

tion following the Vulgate. Of course, the rule stated and
the apparent exception, become nnimportant, and are both
disregarded, when the context, of itself, pievents all am-
biguity. The more carefully, however, the language is
examined here, the more reason will there appear for re-
garding the father as the subject of the verb b'B'il ■ asin the
parallel passage, Luke xv. 20, where it is the father who
sees the eon, and who falls upon his neck, elSei' airrhv o
Trarijp *cal kiriiTf.<Tev en-l tov rpn^'^^o*' aVTOu. It would have
been the same had tiie construction been, and he appeared
unto him.

But whatever view is taken, there is great pathos in the
particle 11?, commonly rendered again, and here, very
tamely, in our English Version, a good while. In this pas
sage it must have its primary sense of repetition, reittration
as it appears in the Arabic t^Lfc ■> "w^hich the translator,
Arabs Erpenianus, actually uses for it. So Eashi and Aben
Ezra. They refer to Job xxxiv. 23,113' ~"'C'^ N'b "fol
not repeatedly (or conlinuaily) does God lay upnn man."
Abetter reference would be to Ps.cxxxix. \%lwhcn I am:i}:>^
Jam still with thee, "^3!' ill?, again and aijoin with theo
or Ps. Ixxxiv. 5, "Blessed are they who dwell in thy hooee^

CHAP. XLTI., XLVn.

63S

Jacob recognizes, in Joseph's reappearance, the last
miraculous token of the divine favor as shown to him
in this world. — I will go up to Pharaoh. — ^Knobel
explains the expression from the fact, that the city
of Memphis, being the royal residence, was situated
oigher than the district of Goshen. Keil explains it
deally as a going up to court. This view becomes
necessary if we regard Tanals as the capital, which is,
however, rendered somewhat doubtful by tlie expres-
sion itself, if it is to be talteu literally. — That ye shall
Bay, thy servants' trade hath been about cattle.
^This instruction shows Joseph's ingenuousness,
combined with prudent calculation. His brethren are
frankly to confess their occupation ; Joseph even
sets them the example before Pharaoh, although, ac-
cording to his own explanation, shepherds were an
abomination to the Egyptians, that is, an impure
caste. By this frankness, however, they are to gain
the worldly advantage of having given to them this
pastoral district of Goshen, and at the same time, the
theocratic spiritual benefit of dwelling in Egypt, se-
cured, by this distinction of castes, from all impure
mingling with the Egyptians themselves. Knobel
lays stress upon the word IXS, in distinction from
"Ip3, because sheep and goats were not generally
used for sacrifice by the Egyptians, because their
meat did not belong to the priestly royal dish, and
because wool was considered by the priests to be un-
clean, and was, therefore, never used for the wrap-
ping of the dead. But the conclusion drawn from
this, that keepers of sheep and goata had been es-
pecially nasin (a thing tabooed), cannot be estab-
lished. Tills, in a very high degree, was the case
only with herdsmeu of swine (Herod, ii. 41), who,
nevertheless, together with the herdsmen of cattle,
were numbered in the seven castes (Herod, ii. 164),
and both together called the caste of shepherds,
(DioD. i. 74). The name BovKnXot is only a naming
a potiori (from the better part)." Delitzsch. Ac-
cording to Grant ("Travels," ii. 17), the herdsmen
are represented on the monuments, as long, lean,
distorted, sickly forms — a proof of the contempt that
rested upon them. Joseph's theocratic faithfulness
preferred for his people contempt to splendor, pro-
vided that under the cover of this contempt, they
might remain secluded and unmixed (see Heb. xi. 26).
For the cause of this dis-esteem, see Keil, p. 274 ;
Knobel, p. 341.

4. The presentation of Joseph's brothers, and of
his father, to Pharaoh. The grant of the land of

they shall be «(iI2 praising thee, evermore praising thee ;" as
hi Efiv. iv. 8, " They cease not day nor night saying, holy,
holy, holy." He wept long, translates Luther, vieinete Jange,
but it means more than this ; he fell uponhis neck and wept
repeatedly, — over and over again, — unable to satisfy the
\iifpov — KkavByiolo, as Homer styles the luxury of grief e^en
tor remembered sorrows, much less the joy of tears at such
a recognition. Affecting is it in either view, but most of all
when we regard it as the long sobbings and long embracings
of the aged father. The old eyes weeping I There is not in
our human life a more touching scene, even when it comes
from senile weakness, and not, as in this case, from recog-
Qitions that might draw tears from the stoutest manhood,
and from the recollection of events whose pathetic interest
Ihe utmost invention of the novelist or the dramatist fails
to imitate. "With this passage in Genesis there may be com-
pared the interview of David and Jonathan, 1 Sam. xx. 41 :
" And they kissed one another, Jind wept, one with another,
until David exceeded, b^^Sfl "Tl'n nS ," David a-utem am-
plius; his emotion went beyond all ordinary bounds. The
expreb-sion seems to have much of the force of the particle in
the passage before us. It is another example of the rhctori-
eal fact, that the briefest and simplest language is ever the
nost affuoting.— T. L.l

Goshen. The induction and settlement. Ch.xlviLl-12
—Some of hig brethren — (nspa) This has beer
mterpreted as meaning some of the oldest, and some
of the youngest, or, in some such manner ; but thert
is no certainty about it ; since the expression mai
mean any part as taken (cut off) from a whole. A*.
Joseph could not present all his brethren tc Pharaoh,
he chooses five, a number of much significance tc
the Egyptians (see ch. xliii. 34). Pharaoh again
shows himself, in this case, a man of tact and deli-
cacy. Of the young men he asks the nature of their
occupation ; of old Jacob he inquires his age. Es-
pecially well does he manage in not immediately
granting to Joseph's brethren their petition tc
be allowed to settle in Goshen, but leaves it to
Joseph, so that he appears before his brethren in
all his powers, and their thanks are to be rendered
unto him instead of Pharaoh. Joseph, at the same
time, receives full power to appoint proper men
from among them as supei-intending herdsmen
{magiatros pecoris). — See Knobel, who thinks " that
this petition was more suitable for the chief of the
horde (sic)." Yet he quiets himself by the fact
that in other places the narrator brings forward the
sons of the aged father ; as though this were not
an obviously pioper proceeding. Still he will have it
that the ground Scripture, as he calls it, reports but
one introduction of Jacob. — And Jacob blessed
Pharaoh. — When he came into his presence and
when he left him. There is something more here
than a mere conventional greeting. Jacob had every
inducement to add his blessing to his thanks for
Joseph's treatment, for the stately invitation, and for
the kind reception. Besides, an honorable old age is
a sort of priesthood in the world. — Of my pilgrim-
age— Jacob's consciousness of the patriarchal life,
as a pilgrimage in a foreign land, must have devel-
oped itself especially in his personal experience (see

Heb. xi. 13, etc.).— Few and evil That is, full of

sorrow. Jacob speaks of his life as of something
already past. This is explained from his elevated
state of soul. He is ready to die. In such presenti-
ment of death, however, he is mistaken by almost
seventeen years ; for he died at the age of one hun-
dred and forty-seven. His father, Isaac, also had
thought to make his testament much earlier (seech.
xxviL 1, etc.). In fact, the age of Jacob fell much
short of that of Abraham (one hundred and seventy-
five), and that of Isaac (one hundred and eighty). —
In the land cf Rameses. — (Heroov^polis.) Ch
xlv. 10, it is called Goshen. It is here named after a
like-named place in Goshen (Exod. i. 11); and thus
we are already prepared for the departure afterwards,
which started from Rameses (Exod. xii. 37 ; Numb,
xxxiii, 35). Concerning the country of Goshen, see
Keil, p. 276 ; Delitzsch, p. 572.

5. Joseph's administration of the affairs of Egypt
(Ver. 13-26). This proceeding of Joseph, reducing
the Egyptians, in their great necessity, to a state of
entire dependence on Pharaoh, has been made the
ground of severe reproach; and, indeed, it does
look strange at first. The promotion of earthly wel-
fare, and of a comfortable existence, cannot eicuse
a theocratic personage in bringing a free people into
the condition of servants. But the question here is
whether Joseph really acted in an arbitrary manner.
He was not a sovereign lord of the storehouses, but
only Pharaoh's servant. As such, he could not de-
mand of Pharaoh views that in their aspect of liber
ality lay beyond his horizon ; besides it is to be con
sidered that the people themselves desired to 8av«

634

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

their lives at the price of their freedom. The
point we are roainly to look at is that Joseph was
not at liberty to give the cora away, and, to say
nothing of Pharaoh's right, he might thereby have
opened so wide the door of a wasteful squandering, as
to have produced a universal famine. We are also
to suppose that Joseph was urged, step by step, to
these measures, by the pressing consequences of the
situation ; but that he tried to mitigate, as much as
posible, the dependence that necessarily followed, by
an assessment of the fifth part, leaving four-fifths
to them. The principal aim of the narrative is to
show, in the first place, the advantages of the Israel-
ites in comparison with the Egyptians ; how splen-
didly the former were provided for. Again, Joseph
might have yielded to the urgency of the circum-
alauces, all the more freely from the consideration,
that the future of Israel would be more secure by
thus having a favorable position among a depressed,
rather than a haughty and oppressive people. But,
at all events, even in this relation, divine retribution
surpasses, in its severity, the measure of human un-
derstanding. When afterwards the Israelites were
held in bondage by the Egyptians, it may remind us
of the fact, that, througli Joseph, the Egyptians
themselves had been made servants to Pharaoh, how-
ever pure may have been his motive. — Herds of
cattle. — The expression fianan riipa shows that
the fair value of the cattle is here kept prominently
in view ; since n:pa denotes property acquired. —
And as for the people they demanded. — Con-
cerning the different readings, ver. 21, where the
LXX and the Samaritan, and otljers,with Knobel, read
T'^sn instead of 1^3Sn , see note, Keil, p. 2*77.
We must not, however, suppose, with Delitzsch,
a translocation of the people from one place in Egypt
to another in its remotest part, but the distiibuting
of the present crown peasants into the different towns
of their respective districts throughout the whole
land. The ground of this was that, for the present,
they must get their sustenance from their granaries
in the cities, and that, afterwards, these became the
places in which they were to deliver the fifth part. —
Had a portion assigned them. — We understand
this of the land of the priests, not of their portion of
the provision which is mentioned afterwards. — Ye
shadl give the fifth part. — This was no heavy tax ;
and there was a benefit in it, that it tended I o pro-
duce an habitual carefulness in respect to the unfruit-
ful years. That a provision, in such cases, had here-
tofore been wanting in Egypt, is evident from the
destitution of the people. Joseph may, therefore, be
looked upon, in all this, as a wise man striving with
the necessities of famine, so sore an evil in ancient
times.*

[* All this diffloulty, about Joseph's proceeding, vanishes
when one studiously considers what the Egyptians would
have done, or how fatal their /ree improvidence might have
proved, without his sagiicious political economy. There
ffould have been no cattle to be sold ; the litnds would have
Deeo barren for the want of hands to till them. Each one
for himself, without a common weal, and awise ruler taking
care of it, and taxing them for such care, there would not
have been, in their future prospects, any stimulus to frugal-
ity, or industry. It is yet an unsettled question, whetlier
anregnlated individual cultivation of land, in small por-
tions, or a judicious system of landlordism, for which, of
xurse, there must be rent or tax, Is the better method for
the univei-sal good. The twenty per cent, which Joseph
exacted for the govemmcntal care, was not a systcrn of
slavery ; and it may have been far better than a much great-
»r percentage, perhaps, to capitalists and usurers. — T. L.]

The accounts which Hebodotcs (ii. 109), and
DiODORUS (i. 73), have given concerning the national
economy of ancient Egypt, seem to refer to disposi-
tions of a later date, at whose basis, neverthelc'e!>,
may have lain these measures of Joseph, oven as the
latter may have been grounded on still older rela-
tions and peculiarities. The main view to be taken
in respect to this economy is, that the king, a
connection with the priest and warrior castes, pos-
sessed the land (Diod. Sic), whil.st the peasants and
tradesmen had land subject to rent. Now if Joseph
changed the feudal system, formerly existing, intc
one of servitude, it is to be remembered that tht
former was not so favorable, nor the latter so un
favorable, as that which existed in still later times.
The feudal peasant was already under an absolute
authority, and was obhged, e. g., at the beginning of
the seven years of plenty, to give the fifth part ;
whilst the servants, as they are afterwards called,
were only persons put under a more definite direc-
tion in the management of their economic relations.
For more on this, see Keil, p. 278, on the tax rela-
tions of the East, and also Knobel, p. 346. Gerlach
maintains that the Egyptians did not become bonds-
men in this transaction, but were only brought into
a feudal relation to Pharaoh. It is said, however,
expressly, that Joseph bought not only their land,
but themselves, their bodies. It is true, a distinction
may be made between this, and an entire bodily sub-
jection ; and, therefore, may it be called servitude
or dependence.

6. Israel in Egypt. Sis proviso. Sis return in
death to Canaan. Ver. 27-31. — And they had

possession therein Personal appropriation and

outward extension. — And Jacob lived The nar-
rative prepares us very circumstantially for Jacob's
death, as an event of great moment to his people. —
Put thy hand under my thigh. — See ch. xxiii.
Joseph is to confirm by an oath his promise to bring
his remains home to Canaan. Because Jacob exacts
this of all his sons collectively (see ch. xlix.), Knobel,
as usual, discovers a discrepancy. It is, however,
the same determination, only more fully developed
in the latter passage. After Joseph's promise, Jacob
prays upon his bed. The fulfilment of his last wish

has been secured. — And Israel bowed himself,

We must think of him as sitting up in his couch ; it
is, therefore, incorrect when Keil says, he turned to-
wards the head of the bed, in order to worship, while
lying with the face turned towards the bed. The Vul-
gate wliioh KeU quotes, says the reverse : adoravil
Ileum conversus ad lectuli caput. The idea is, that,
kneeling, he bows himself in the bed, with his face
turned towards the head. The LXX seems to have read
nCJSn for ilBHfl {ham-mat-teh for ham-mit-lah]
caused by a mistake of the vowels to the unpointed
consonants, and the consideration that Jacob ia not
represented as sick and confined to his bed until the
next chapter. By this LXX interpretation : irpo<Teicu-
vi](T(v 'I(Tpa^\ 4-n\ rh &Kpoi/ TTJs l>d^5ov avrov (which
we also find in the Syriac, the Italian, and Heb. xi,
21), there is suggested the rich and beautiful thought,
that Jacob celebrates the completion of Ms pilgrim-
age (ch. xlvii. 9) in prayer and thanksgiving. If we
take it in the other sense, having no greater evi-
dence, and less significance, the turning to the bed's
head in a kneeling posture is the one natural to the
body, if we imagine the bed's head to be the higher
part. At the same timt, it seems here expressed that
Jacob, m praying, turns away from the world, ana

CHAP. XLVI., XLVII.

eat

from men to God, as the facing and turning of the
priest at the altar expresses the same idea symboli-
cally. Von Bohlen maintains that the question has
nothing to do with praying. It means, he says, that
Jaoob was sinking bacls upon his pillow, as David,
1 Kings i. 47, whilst Joseph put his hand under his
thigh. For such an occasion, however, the word
sinnm^l (generally denoting adoration) would seem
unhappily chosen, and ia easily misunderstood. De-
liTzsoH talies the two representations together (as
denoting in one the act of prayer and the oath cere-
monial).

DOCTEIMAI, AND ETHXCAL.

1. Jacob's halt at Beer-sheba furnishes a proof
again of the distinction between human certainty,
and that derived from the divine assurance. Thus
John the Baptist knew already of the Messianic mis-
sion, before his baptism, but it was not until the
revelation made at the baptism that he received the
divine assurance which he needed as the forerunner
of Christ. In our day, too, this distinction is of
special importance for the minister of the gospel.
Words of divine assurance are the proper messages
from the pulpit.

2. The God of Israel is also the mighty God of
Jacob — the same God who commanded the one to
stay, the other to go.

3 Not until Jacob had again made sure and
sealed his patriarchal covenant-relation with God, is
he able to set forth, with joy and confidence, on a
journey, with his whole family, into a strange and
dangerous world.

4. Exegesis, as in other places, hastens too rap-
idly over the significance of these Biblical names.
Though some are quite doubtful, others have an un-
mistakable importance, openingj by their connec-
tions, a view revealing the spirit of the respective
families, and of their fathers. Thus the names of
Reuben's sons express a sanguine hope (initiated,
distinguished, etc.). In the names of Levi's sons,
we may recognize the three leading traits of hierar-
chical rule. And so in many other cases.

.5. Dinah had to atone for her former freedom,
and the fanatical severity of her brothers, by a joy-
less single life. But she has the honor, along with
Serah, of being reckoned among the founders of the
house of Israel in Egypt. Together with the devel-
opment of the theocracy, there is unfolded the
gradual elevation of woman. The idea of female
inheritance here presents itself.

6. Judah, the father's minister to Joseph. By
his faithfulness, strength, and wisdom, he has risen
in the opinion of his father, and thus it is that Ja-
cob's divine illumination shows itself especially in
respect to the tribe of Judah, — becoming a revela-
tion full and clear in the blessing pronounced ch. xlix.

7. Jacob's and Joseph's reunion, full of unspeak-
able emotion expressed in tears and in embraces.
To Jacob, Joseph appears as one who had come
from the realm of the dead.

8. Jacob's declaration: now let me die, presents
Mother aspect in the contemplation of death and
Iladcs, difierent from that which is usually raised
through the more common speech respecting it in
Old-Testament times. The men of the Old Testa-
ment describe Sheol as a gloomy region ; but this
eomes from their fear of descending into it before
ihey have seen the full tokens of grace, or have re-

ceived that peace of the Lord which giveth rest
When they have had a sight of these, they die wil
lingly; it is then a lying down to sleep, — a goiu^
home to the fathers. In general, however, it is true
that this terrified legal consciousness of death pre
dominates over the Old-Testament evangelical con-
sciousness of unconditional resignation in hope.

9. The instructions that Joseph gives his breth-
ren show us that this ancient statesman clearly com-
prehended the truth, that the highest ingenuousness,
and the purest frankness, is, at the same time, the
highest wisdom (see the instructions of Christ to the
apostles, Matt. x.). This wisdom of Joseph, it ia
ti'ue, was not the wisdom of this world. It was a
divine wisdom, that he thus placed the house of
Israel in Egypt under the protection of Egyptian
contempt. By thus giving them a lowly position, he
secured their worldly welfare, whilst promoting their
theocratic prosperity.

10. Pilgrim in youth, pilgrijn in age, always a
wrestler, — Jacob juat touches upon his sfliferings,
as far as it is meet for Pharaoh to hear. The feeling
of his wonderful dehverances shows itself movingly
in his blessing upon Joseph's sons. The idea of the
spiritual pilgrimage of believers upon earth appears
very distinctly in this picture of Jacob's life, which
he sketches before Pharaoh.

11. The last thought of Jacob, erstwhile in
Mesopotamia, and now in Egypt, is that of going
home. There he wishes to return, even in death
itself. And yet Canaan was not his true and proper
home ; though it was for him the type and pledge
of the everlasting rest (see Heb. xi.).

12. The transplantation of Israel had for its aim
the negative and positive advancement of the people
of God. Negatively : It must be transplanted from
Canaan if it would escape being ruined spiritually
by mingling with the people of the land, or bodily,
through premature wars with them. Positively : In
Egypt they were parted from heathenism by a double
barrier, namely, their foreign race, and their reputa-
tion as a caste impure ; but here they found suste-
nance and room lor their enlargement as a people
upon its fertile soil ; at the same time, they were
drawn out, through the Egyptian culture, to develop-
ment of their mental powers. In Egypt were they
prepared for their transition from the nomadic to the
agricultural state.

HOMILETICAl AND PEACTICAL.

See Doctrinal and Ethical. Jacob's last pilgrim-
age.— Jacob's house. — Jacob and Joseph's reunion.
— Jacob's joy in death. — Jacob before Pharaoh. — .
Israel in Goshen. — Tacbe (ch. xlvii. 7-10): Jacob's
life : 1. As a mirror of the miseries of human life in
general ; 2. as a mirror especially of a true and
blessed pilgrimage.

First Section. (Ch. xlvi. 1-7.) Stakke: Thia
departure to Egypt is often spoken of; Numb. xx. 14,
16 : Josh. xxiv. 4 ; Ps. cv. 23 ; Is. Hi. 4 ; Jer. xxxi.
2 ; Acts vii. 15. — This is the last appearance with
which God favored Jacob. — Ver. 3. Jacob might be
afraid : 1. On account of his personal safety (ad-
vanced years) ; 2. on account of the prohibition tc
Isaac (ch. xxvi. 2) ; 3. on account of his descend
ants (Egypt a heathen country) ; 4. on account of
servitude threatening them (as predicted 3h. xv. 13)
6. on account of leaving Canaan, the promised land ■
6 Abraham's experiences, ch. xii. 12 (see Jacob'i

630

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

declaration ch. xIt. 28). — ^A Christian should enter
upon his journeys with God accompanying. — Bihl.
"hb. : God guides his people on their ways. — Cea-
MEii : Jacob an example of the fortune and pilgrim-
age of believers. — Schroder ; The answer of God
L=. in reply to his distressing anxiety, — to his flesh
and blood, as we may regard it ; therefore does he
call him by his more human name: " Jacob ! Jacob !
Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes; " the last
service of love that the nearest kindred could per-
foim to the dying (Tobit xiv. 15). See Robinson
ou the halting of the wagons at Beersheba.

Second Section. (Vers. 8-27.) Starke: The
use of this accurate catalogue of the children of Is-
rael ; it shows the separation of the tribes, and marks
the tribe of the Messiah. It gives a clearer view of
the people's increase, and thus shows the fulfilling
of the divine promise.— Chad, Numb. xxvi. and 1
Ohron. iv. 21, not counted liere ; probably died
without issue. — (Ver. 16. The numbers do not sum
up to more than thiny-two. The Rabbins remove
the difficulty by saying, God must be counted in,
since he said that he would go down with them.
But this is not necessary. It would be better to say,
Jacob and his children, etc.) — Ver. 21. On the differ-
ence between this and 1 Chron. viii. 6, and Numb,
xxvi. 38, 39, in respect to Benjamin's children, see
the explanation in the respective places. The gene-
alogies are important. — £ibl Wirt. : The true church
of God is a small number, but let no one stumble
thereat. God takes good care of his elect, and
knows all their names. — Schroder: The fact that
Egypt is the hiding-place for Israel, shows that the
relation was not one-sided only; if Israel was some-
thing for the heathen, it is also clear that the hea-
then, on the other hand, had their mission for Israel
(Baumgarten). — The full people of Israel consisted
of twelve sons, and seventy souls, and the Christian
church consisted of twelve apostles, and seventy dis-
ciples (Koos),

Ttdrd Section. (Vers. 28-34.) Starke ; (In the
land of Goshen; after several weeks spent on a jour-
ney of foTty or fifty miles). — John xvi. 20. — Was
Joseph's joy great when he saw again his father, how
great will be the joy of God's children when they
meet each other again in glory ! — Schroder : Now
the patriarch is ready to die, for in Joseph he be-
holds the fulfilment of all the promises. — Ver. 33.
To be sure, is to win. Right ahead, is the motto of
the good rider (Valer. Herb.). The pride of the world
makes small estimate of what God regards as highest
(Baumgarten). Thus began already in the house of
Jacob, at its entrance into Egypt, that reproach of
Christ which Moses afterwards esteemed greater
riches than the treasures of Egypt (Roos). This an-
tipathy of the Egyptians towards the shepherd-
people was a fence to them, such as was afterwards
the law of Moses (Roos).

Fourth Section. (Ch. xlvii. 1-12.) Starke : Ver.
1. Joseph does not ask particularly for Goshen, yet
he knows in what manner to arrange it, that Pharaoh
may readily perceive how much he would be obliged
to him for the grant of that district. — (Ver. 2.
i^SpB; some translate it from the extremes., that is
from the oldest and the youngest ; others understand
t as referring to those wlio were of least account.
Their idea is that Joseph meant to prevent Pharaoh's
imploying them as soldiers.) — Calvin; Se quia aliter
pure Deo scrvire non potest quam si munao se fosti-
dum reddat, hie omnis facessat ambitio. A Christian
must not be ashamed of the humble condition in

which God may have placed him. — Muscdl. : Pha
raoh does not inquire after Jacob's piety, religion,
and godly walk, but only after his ai^e.—Sevefdeen
years. As long as he had sorrowfully cared for Jo-
seph, so long Joseph, in return, cared for him.
Earthly benefits God repays by spiritual blessings
1 Cor. ix. 11. — Cramer : God bestows much on th«
man who has many children. — Schroder : Very
proper that they remain in the border district untU
everything is settled. In the midst of the Egyptians,
the Israelites are ever as strangers in the land.—
Heim : The patriarch standing before Pharaoh. The
patriarch and the priest of God's church before the
king of the mightiest and most civilized state at that
time in the word.

Fifth Section. (Vers. 13-26.) Starke : Ver. 1 3.
A divine punishment of the Egyptians. (They wpuld
not otherwise have regarded Joseph's example in the
sparing use of the com ; some, perhaps, would have
scouted his predictions).— Ver. 16. Joseph said :
Fidelity to Pharaoh requires that I should not lei
you have the com for nothing. — Freihurger Bibel
Slavery is against the law of nature. — Our dailj
bread, a great proof of the divine beneficence. —
(Ver. 22. Circumstances sometimes excuse. If Jo-
seph favored the heathen priests it was in obedience
to the express commands of Pharaoh.) — Schroder :
Concerning Goshen. It was for the most part a
prairie country, adapted to the grazing of cattle, and
yet there were fertile agricultural portions (Heng-
stenberg). — See Robinson's account of Goshen, or
the province Surkijeh, p. 620. — In the enumeratiou
of Egyptian herds, horses come fii-st, Exod. ix. 3 ;
for their raising was especially proper for the coun-
try.— Sheep, "held sacred by the Thebans." — Asses,
were sacrificed to Typhon. — Thefifth, a religious
political revenue, whose relation to tithes (double
fifths) is obvious. The tax of a fifth is small in a
fertile land like Egypt, where harvests are from thirty
to a hundred fold.) — (Robinson compares Joseph's
conduct with that of Mohammed Ali (p. 623), who
made himself sole owner of all the property in
Egypt ; but the great difiference between them is ob-
vious.}— The double tithe in Israel was probably a
Mosaic imitation. " As Pharaoh provides by a fifth
for the sustenance of the priests, so also Jehovah "
(Hengstenberg).

Sixth Section. (Vers. 26-31.) Starke : Bibl.
Tub. : It is right that a certain part of what the land
produces should be given to the lord.* — Ver. 30.
Thus Jacob testifies to the resurrection of the dead,
as one who awakes from sleep. — Schroder : Jacob
dies as the last of the patriarchs, and his death is
the conclusion of this historical introduction, or his-
tory of the beginning. He dies, moreover, in a for-
eign land. That makes it the more important and
conclusive event. (In the expression : have found
grace, there comes into consideration : 1. That it has
not the same weight, nor the same subordinate sense,
as it would have in occidenta" speech ; 2. that Ja-
cob here asks a favor of Joseph which might seem
to him as coming in collision with hia Egyptian
duty.) — Hkim : Jacob had reached a lovely evening
of his wearisome and troubled life ; but it might be
said of him : Forgetting the things that are behind
I reach forth unto the things that are before.

* [So says tlie European commentator. The American
would rather say : to the government that protecte its pro-
duce and the labor employed in its cultivation, — presenting
a similar idea, but in a more rational, as well as in fl
milder form. — T. L.]

CHAP. XLVl., XLVU.

oar,

[NOTK ON THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN JaCOB AND

Pbabaoh — THE Patriarchal Theoloqt — the Idea
UF THE Earthly Life as a Pilgrimage. — Commen-
tatorB have bestowed much study upon the gene-
alogical register in the preceding chapter, the mean-
ing of its proper names (in most cases not easily
determined), and the question, whether all the de-
scendants of Jacob there mentioned were born be-
fore the migration. This is valuable, indispensable,
it may be said, to a right knowledge of the Scrip-
tures ; but it has led many to pass very slightly over
those scenes of touching beauty, and most exquisite
tenderness, that are presented in Joseph's meeting
iritb his father (already alluded to in the note, p.
633), and in the interview between Jacob and Pha-
raoh, eh. xlvii. : " And Joseph brought in Jacob his
father, and set him before Pharaoh." What a pic-
ture of life and reality have we here ! The feeble
patriarch, leaning upon the arm of his recovered son,
is led into the presence of the courteous monarch,
who receives him, not as an inferior, nor as a de-
pendent even, but with all the respect due to his
great age, and with a reverent feeling that in this
very old man, the representative, as it were, of an-
other age, or of another world, there was something
of a sacred and prophetical character. " And Ja-
cob blessed Pharaoh." It is probable that Pharaoh
asked his blessing. At all events, there is something
in the kindliness of his reception that induces Jacob
to bestow his patriarchal benediction upon him ; and
doubtless the king received it, not as a formality, or
with a mere feeling of courtly condescension, but as
something that had a divine value for himself and
his kingdom. Throughout this narrative of Joseph
there is a hfe-likeuess in the character of Pharaoh
that shows him to us as one of the most veritable
objects presented in history. And what an air of
reality in all these scenes here so exquisitely por-
trayed ! What a power of invention do they exhibit
(if we concede to them no higher excellence) ; what
skill in the art of pictorial fiction. — that peculiar
talent so cultivated in modem times, and which, it
is supposed, has only reached its perfection in our
own day. It is this, — inconsistent as it may seem
with all we know of the most early writings, — or it
is the most natural and exact drawing from the very
life. There is something here in the internal evi-
dence which the sound mind intuitively perceives,
and on which it confidently relies. It is no invented
tale. The picture stands out vividly before us ; age
has not dimmed its colors ; remoteness of scene, and
wide diversity of life and manners, cannot weaken
its effect. It produces a conviction of reality stronger
than that which comes, often, from narratives of
events close to our own days, or even cotemporary.
Away over the chasm of time we look directly into
that old world. We see the figures distinctly mov-
ing on that far-off ancient shore. It is brought nigh
to us in such a way that we could almost as weU
doubt our senses, as think of calling it in question.
At all events, no mythical theory can explain it. We
»re shut up to a very sharp issue, a very stringent
»ltemative : It is the very truth, the very hfe, in- the
minutest feature of its close limnhig, or it is the
most monstrous, as it is the most circumstantial, and
consciously inventive, lying. No " higher criticism,"
as it is called, can ever make satisfactory, to a truly
thoughtful mind, the comparison sometimes drawn
between these " Bible stories " and the cloudy fables
that characterize the early annals of other ancient
lations. Study well the strikmg contrasts. The

lives of the pilgrim patriarchs, so clear in their lif»
like portraitures, the wild Scandinavian legends, th«
wilder Hindoo myths, presenting not simply the
mtpernatural, for there are connections in which tha'
is most credible — more credible even than its ab
sence — but the unnatural, the horrible, the mou
strous, the grotesque; what aflSnity between these'
The clear, statistical story of Joseph, the picture ol
the veritable Pharaoh, — the sliadows of Ion, of Dorus
of Cadmus, that flit across the dim page of the ear-
liest Hellenian history ; what sane mind ciin trace
any parallel here ? There is no escaping the issue,
we may say again. It is sharp and decisive. The
reasoning is curt and clear. Absolute fiction in these
Bible stories, with a skill surpassing that of Defoe,
Scott, or Thackeray, — absolute forgery, with a con-
scious intent to deceive in every particular, or abso-
lute truth, self-verifying, is the only alternative. It
is not such a forgery ; it is not such an artful fiction
Ihe most extreme rationalist shrinks from affirming
this ; it is, therefore, the truth, and nothing but tha
truth. We may reverently use the imagination in
attempting to fill up some parts of the picture, bul
we may not disturb the graphic outline. How very
clear it is in the passage specially before us. Im-
agination needs no help. We can almost see them,
the stately monarch, the very aged man, the beloveil
son now in the strength and glory of manhood, —
they stand out as vividly as anything now on the
canvas of our present history. We may as well
doubt of Csesar and Alexander, yea of Napoleon and
of Washington, as of Jacob, Joseph, and Pharaoh.

" And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art
thou ? " The English translation here, in departing
from llteralness in the question, has marred the ef
feet of the answer, the peculiar language of which
is suggested by it, or, at least, strictly connected
with it. The Hebrew is, Tj^'^n iJIIJ la') nH3.
which we have reason, from what Diodorus says of
their views of life (lib. i. 51), to regard as an Egyp
tian as well as a Shemitic idiom — " How many arc
the days of the years of thy life" (or, lives)? It la
a drawing out of the phrase to make it intensive.
It suggests the long years of the earthly sojourning,
enhanced by the thought of the many days of which
they are composed — or days taken in that indefinite
way so common in the early languages to denote
times or periods. In what perfect harmony with
tills is the answer ? We see in it the old man's gar-
rulousness (using the term in its most innocent and
natural sense), the feeling of personal importance
which the very old exhibit, and rightly exhibit, in
view of their surpassing length of years. They love
to dwell on it, and to state it minutely, extending
their words as though in some proportion to the long
time through which memory looks back. How
strongly we are reminded here of the Grecian Nestor,
except that there is a holiness and a moral grandeur
about Jacob, to which the old Homeric hero, in his
garrulous worldliness and boasting, makes no ap-
proach. They are alike in the senile reduplication
of their words. Not, however, like the frequent
Nestoric prelude, fiff &s ri^dotiii, " 0 that I were
young again," but in a prolonged strain of solemnity
and sadness comes the slow reply : " The days oi
the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirtj
years ; few and evil have been the days of the years
of my life, and have not attained unto the days of
the years of the lives of my fathers, in the days ol
their pilgrimage." We can see the old man as h»
says this, leaning on his staff, and supported by hit

638

GENESIS, OR THE FIEST BOOK OF MOSES.

son ; we can almost hear the tones of his trembling
voice, the pauses of his slow utterance, the seem-
ingly tautological yet most emphatic sound of hia
repetitions. " Few and evil ; " alas! how ancient is
this style of speech ! How from the very beginning
dates this wailing language so full of the feehng that
Bome great evil has befallen humanity, and that our
earthly life, in its best condition, is but a pilgrimage
of sorrow. It has not come from the world's later
experience. The farther we go back, even into what
would seem to be the very youth of our race, the
louder and clearer is the voice. It is not confined to
the Scriptures. It meets us everywhere in the ear-
liest heathen writings, but without the placid resig-
nation that is so evident in the most striking Bibhcal
examples. Compare the OJt/ssey, xviii. 130.

ovSkv aKlSvoTepov yala. Tptipet avOpuiiToio
TTatTitiVf oaaa re yaiav em TTveUi Te (cat epirei —

Sophocles, (Edipus Ti/ranrms, 1186,

tw ■y€»'eal fiporiav •
Tt's yap, Tis av-qp Tr\iov
Ta? euSaifioWa^ <itipei,
rf Toaovrov 6(rov fidKeic,
Kai 86^avr' a7ro«Aii/ai.

So Pindar's iTKias ovap &v^pu)7roSf Pyth. viii. 99.
Compare Job vii. ; xiv. ; Ps. ciii. 15 ; Gen. xviii. 27
("who am but dust and ashes,"); the same, Job
XXX. 19; xUi. 6 ; Sirach x. 9 ("whyis dust and ashes
proud") ; and other passages too numerous for quo-
tation.

Among the most natural and truthful things in
(his narration is the respect shown by Pharaoh to
Jacob. It might be accounted for by that courteous-
ness and sense of justice wliich seems so character-
istic of this monarch, as also by his great friendship
for Joseph. But there is something more in the case,
and having a deeper ground. It is a feeling of rev-
erence which makes him desire the patriarch's bless-
ing. Eespect for age was more felt, and more lauded
as a virtue, in the ancient world, than in the modern,
although it still holds, and notliing but a most disso-
lute civilization can break it up. There is, moreover,
something of awe with which we look upon a very
old man, a centenarian or upwards, one who has
gone far beyond the ordinary limit of human life.
It affects us as a strange spectacle. There seems to
be something unearthly about him, superhuman,
almost supernatural — as though he belonged to
another age, or world. So to the young Telemachus
appeared the aged Nestor who had survived three
generations of men (Odyss. iii. 246),

SiaTe juoi aBivaro^ li/SoAAeTcu ciffopacurdai,

" like an immortal, as I gaze, does he stand out be-
fore me " — like one seen in vision, to give the full
force of that peculiar word IvSaWerat — or as some-
tliing transcending the ordinary humanity. This
feeling was heightened by the fact that the Egyptians,
as compared with the nomadic patriarchs, were not a
long-lived people. Jacob, although he had " not
attained unto the days of the years of the life of
his fathers," was to them a remarkably old man.
Pharaoh had, probably, never before seen a ca^ie of
Buch extreme longevity. Herodotus (iii. 23) learns,
from the Egyptians, of an ^Ethiopian people, among
whom some reached the age of one hundred and
twenty years, but the manner in which it is narrated
shows that it was regarded as remarkable and excep-
tional, confirming the idea that such advanced age
was unknown amoig the Egyptians themselves.

The matter however, of deepest interest, ana
most worthy of note in this answer of Jacob, 16 itx
pilgrim tone : " The days of the years of my oil-
grimage — few and evil have they been, and have noi
attained unto the days of the years of the Ufe of my
fathers, in the days of their pilgrimage." Who can
deny the fairness of the apostle's reasoning (Heb. xL
14): " Now they who say such things declare plainly
(ifiipavi^ouaiv, make it very manifest) that they seek
a country — that they long {bpeyovTai) for a better
country, even a heavenly — confessing themselves to
be strangers and sojourners upon e.arth " (f fVoi icai
irapemSr}ij.oi, men away from home). " Wherefore
God is not ashamed to be called their God (not of
the nonexistent, or the perished. Matt. xxii. 32), for
he hath prepared for them a city " — "a city which
hath foundations," stable, enduring, that " passeth
not away." This language of pilgrimage is not re-
solvable into the unmeaning, like a worn-out modern
metaphor, or a mere poetical sentimentality. Such
use of words would be wholly inconsistent with the
character of the patriarchs, and their stern ideas of
reality. It was not a pilgrimage simply in respect to
the old home '* whence they came out ; " for thither,
its the author of the epistle to the Hebrews most
pertinently observes (xi. 14), they could, at any time,
have returned. That certainly was not " the better
country " they were seeking. No going back to
Mesopotamia, the region of the fire-worshipping
idolatry; rather go down to Egypt, the land of
dreams and symbols, yea, down to Sheol even — ever
pressing on their pilgrim-way with unabaXed confi-
dence in the covenant God. He would be with them
wherever they went. Into whatever regions they
might pass, known or unknown, there would be the
5S<jri ~S<^^i the "angel Redeemer," to "deliver
them from all evil." It was no metaphor except as
a transfer from a lower to a higher sense. The true
pilgrim idea is inseparable from the term constantly
employed. No word in the Hebrew language main-
tains a more clear and emphatic sense : inaa,
a sojourning, a tarrying, a pilgrimage, from ^"J.
to turn aside by the way, to tarry as a stranger, oyer
denoting a temporary instead of a settled residence.
It is a staving in a land which is not one's home.
So, to the patriarchs, even Canaan is called V"!X,
Dll^'15^ the land of their pilgrimages. To their de-
scendants, or to the Israelitish nation taken collect-
ively, as a corporate historical entity, it was a
KXripovoyiia, a settled earthly in/ieriiance, but to them,
individually, it was not " the rest provided for the
people of God," and this language was ever to re-
mind them of it. Their only inheritance was the
promise, of which the Canaanitic K\y)povoii.'m was the
type, and of this they became " Aeirs through faith"
— 5ia TrffTT-ewy K\'i)povo^uvvTuv TA2 'EriArFEAl'AS,
Heb. vii. 12. For examples of such use of "ila,
",1113 and "(S, see Gen. xvii. 18, xxviii. 4 (" the land
in which thou art a stranger "), Ps. cxix. 64 ; xxxii.
13; 1 Chron. xxix. 15 ; Lev. xvii. 22 (" the strange:
dwelling in the midst of you "), Deut. v. 14 ; xxiv.
14, and many other places. The idea is ever pres-
ent, that of a stranger tarrying in a strange land ;
and this language of the patriarchs has been takei
up by later writers, thus becoming predominani
among the grave pictures of the Old-Testamenl
saintly life. See 1 Chron. xxix. 15 ; Ps. xxxix, IS,
" strangers before thee, and sojourners as all out
fathers were." The words are also used of lod^n"

CHAP. XLVl., XLVII.

63fi

ID an inn, or dwelling temporarily in a tent, and this
calls up the passage before quoted from Diodorus
Siciilus (Excursus on Sheol, p. SSY), showing that
some such an idea of life being a pilgrimage was not
altogether unknown to Pharaoh, and to the early
Egyptians,^ The other conception of life, as a tran-
sient dwelling in a tent, gives an inexpressible sub-
limity to some of the Old-Testament declarations,
evidently accommodated to it, and intended to denote
the security of the everlasting rest : " From the ends
of the earth do I cry unto thee " (from this distant
earth, this remote and foreign land) ; " 0 that I
might dwell in thy tabernacle of the eternities
(c-iabis ^bnS2), O that I might find shelter under
the covert of thy wings," in the " secret place of thy
presence 1 " Ps. Ixi.

As Canaan was not " the rest," so neither was
Sheol, whether regarded as the grave merely, or some
strange state of continued being, lying beyond. No
mere sentimentality about the sepulchre as a place
of repose from life's weariness could answer to these
grave declarations of grave men, much less that mon-
strosity of conception which would connect the ideas
of rest and utter non-existence. Sheol lay in the
road of their pilgrimage. Through this unknown
region — so very dark then, so obscure even yet, —
they had to pass ; but only as a part of their ap-
pointed journey. The " city which had foundation*,"
lay still beyond. But why, it may be asked, as it
often has been asked, did not the patriarchs, and the
pious Bible writers who followed them, say more
about this better country, instead of only, now and
then, giving a glimpse of it in some pious ejacula-
tion ? It may be answered, that perhaps their
Marts were too full of it to say much about it. They
jad the pilgrim's reticence in the midst of frivolous
and unsympatbizing strangers. These old "men of
faith " had that precious thing so pleasing unto God
as the only root of any true human virtue, and which
made these uncultivated Old-Testament heroes, im-
perfect as they were in some things, fairer in His
sight than an Epictetus, a Seneca, or an Antonine,
with all their lauded and refined morality. They had
"this precious faith," but they did not weave it into
dogmas, or construct from it systems of heartless
ethical speculation. They did not talk of their spir-
ituality ; and yet, even in the few things they said,
what approach is made to them by the modem rar
tionalist, or our flippant litterateur, who calls them
gross, and pronounces their views so defective as
measured by the later progress in all elevated and
refined thinking ? Who hears, or expects to hear,
'rom critics of this class, the utterance of any long-
mg desires for the better country ? How strange it
would sound to hear them. say; "I have waited for
thy salvation, 0 Lord," or to make, in earnest, the
declaration that they regarded themselves as " pil-
grims and sojourners " upon this unsatisfying earth !

Again, a reason of their silence may have been
the reserve aiising from the thought of the dark and
unknown journey yet to be made before their pil-
grimage was wholly ended. Their views of Sheol
were sombre, because Sheol (in its true sense) was
to them, perhaps, a stronger, a sterner, if not a clear-
er reality, than it has become to us wth those con-
fident expectations of an immediately perfect state
that have placed the old doctrine, with much valua-
ble Scripture connected with it, almost whoUy in the
background of our theology. But to understand
their language we must go back to their standpoint,
dark and inadequate as it may seem to us. As death

was not non-existence in any view (see note on thi
earliest ideas of death, p. 274), but a state of being,
however strange, — not the opposite of being, at all,
but of active ifie, — so Sheol was the continuance, the
prolongation of the judicial death pronounced upon
man, not a state following it. Deliverance from out
was deliverance from the other. Their pilgrimage
led them through this shadowy place, and though
they still trusted to their covenant God, they knew
not when, nor where, nor how that deliverance should
be. Sheol was not their home, their language im.
plies that; it was not the end of their journey.
They did not talk of going to Heaven, or to glory
these ideas, as we now hold them, had not yet come
in ; and yet, if we may take many expressions in
the Psalms as the language of the Old-Testament
religious experience, there was ever the thought of
a divine presence, of a nearness unto God, of the
support and guidance of the redeeming Goel, what-
ever ideas of locality, of time, or of condition, might
be present or wanting to the conception. As their
eyes grew dim in death, their hope grew stronger,
though, perhaps, no more definite than before.
Hence Jacob's ejaculation, coming in so strangely
and so suddenly, whilst presenting the visions he
had of his sons' worldly destiny. To cheer his dying
heart, there seems to have mingled among these far-
off yet earthly pictures, as they crowded upon the
seer's mind, a ray still tTiore remote, from the other
side of Sheol. What else could he have meant in
that remarkable interruption of the prophetic series :
nin'i ir-'|ip TjnSiliaib , "for thy salvation have 1
waited, Jehovah" (Gen. xhx. 18). What salvation?
nothing, surely, in this life. It was no deliverance
from Laban, or Esau, no expectation of worldly se-
curity, such as followed his vision upon the stone
pillow at Bethel. That was all past and gone. Sheol
was before him, but Jacob still trusts the angel of the
covenant, and this dying ejaculation shows that there
was with him, then and there, in some way, the pres-
ence of the name/ess power that had met him at
Peniel. What meaning in it all, unless that power,
and that guide, was expected to go with him through
the still darker journey? The supposition that this
sudden exclamation refers to something seen in vision
in respect to Dan and Samson (an opinion derived
from its place among the blessings which it inter-
rupts), seems the merest trifling, — with all respect,
be it said, to the learned commentators who have
held it. Even if we regard the whole as an ecstatic
dream, there must be some consistency in it.

The whole patriarchal theology may be summed
in one great article, trust in the covenant God, — a
trust for life, a trust for death, for the present being,
or for any other being. There was something ex-
ceedingly sublime in this faith. They were like men
standing on the border of an immense ocean, all un-
known as to its extent, its other shore, if it had any,
or its utter boundlessness. Ready to launch forth
at the divine command, they had the assurance thai
all would be well, whatever might be their individual
destiny, since this covenant God was also the God
of their fathers, who must, therefore, in some way,
" live unto Him," that is, they must have yet a being
that would make them the proper subjects of such *
covenant relationship. Still Sheol had a gloomy as.
pect ; it was associated with the idea of penalty
Death and Hades went together ; the one was but a
form of the other, a carrying out of the great sen-
tence. Though 'i part of their pilgrimage, the waj
was very dark Not with rapture, therefore, bu(

640

GENESIS, OK THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

with calm confiience, did they go down into its un-
Known depths, still holding fast the hand of the " re-
deeming angel," who in death, as well as in the
active earthly life, would " deliver them from all
evil." They knew that this " Kedeemer lived " (Job
xix. 25), and they felt that in some way, they knew
not how, his life was theirs. He could "quicken
them, and bring them up again from the depths of
the earth " (Ps. Ixxi, 20), Thus their hope took the
form of a waiting, until " th« wrath should turn "
(TjBS -"'J ^S , Job xiv. 13), and the dread penalty,
m some way, be satisfied. Thus Job says : " all the
days of my appointment (there) will I wait, until my
change shall come " — my halipah, my revivL^icence
or renewal (see how the word is used Ps. xc. 5, and
cii. 27), So Ps. xvi. 10, "Thou wilt not leave my
soul in Hades," Ps. xlix. 8-16, " No man can redeem
his brother " ; " yet God will redeem my soul from
the haiid of Sheol, for He will take me." Let the
rationalist say what he will of this language, the
takintf out of the hand, and the preverdinci, for a
brief and unimportant time, the hand from seizing,
can never be made to mean the same thing. To the
same effect Ps. xxxi. 6, " Into thy hands do I trust
my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me {rescued, ran-
tomed me), Jehovah, God of trtilh "—of covenant-
faithfulness. Sometimes it seems to take the form
of a hope that this Goel, this "angel of the cove-
nant," would be personally with 'hem in Sheol.
There is good reason foi thus interpreting the pas-
sage Ps. xxiii. 4, as referring rather to Sheol itself,
the spirit-world, or world of the dead, instead of a
state of sorrow in this Ufe, or a drawing near unto
death, as is commonly supposed. For places in which
riTsbs {tzalmaveth, there rendered shadow of death)
is put for death itself, or the state of the dead, see
Job xxxviii. \1 (niabs "'nj.B , gates of tzalmaveth),
X. 22, xii. 22, compared with Job xxviii. 3, and
especially Job xxviii. 21, 23. Such a rendering
seems necessary to the climax intended Ps. xxiii. 4 :
" Even in the valley of tzalmaveth," in the land of
the shades, the terra umhrarum, "I will fear no evil
(comp. Gen. xlviii. 16), for thou art with me, thy rod
and thy staff, they shall comfort me" — ■'SanS'^,
restore me, revive me, and hence the Syriac SansiJ ,
for reviviscence, resurrection. In Hades they are
Btill with "the Shepherd and Bishop of Souls."

This patriarchal faith, in its pilgrim aspect, seems
» strange thing to our modern conceptions ; but
there is a view of it which may lead us to regard it
as even a stronger, if not u better, faith than our
own. Involved in the very essence of all spiritual
religion are two great truths : 1. The being of a God,
a moral governor who treats man as something
above the plane of nature, that is, enters into a cove-
nant with him ; and, 2 the existence of the human
■oal in arnther Wft aa groundel, in its ultimate per-

fection at least, upon sue: covenant. The fii-st of
these is also first in value and importance. It is the
first lesst n in the catechism of theology. It must
be learned thoroughly, or the second, by itself, ai
the mere idea of continued spiritual existence, b*
comes a perversion, and may be a source even of
dangerous imaginative error. The patriarchs were
educated chiefly in this greater and more funda-
mental dogma, belief in God, tnist in God, submis-
sion to God, whatever might be the human destiny.
Nothing can be purer or more lofty than their theism
when viewed alone ; though, as has been before re-
marked, it is never wholly separate from some form
of the other doctrine. The purity with which men
hold the second must depend upon the thoroughness
of their initiation into this prime idea of a God to
be trusted, in life, in death, in light, in darkness, and
to whose sovereign wisdom and goodness there must
be an implicit resignation, whatever may be known
or unknown in respect to his dealings with the finite
being he has cieated. To this state Job was brought,
when, at the close of the long drama, he fell upon
his face before God, and said unto Him ("'bx, ■unto
me, not, coneerning me) that " right thing " for which
he was commended, rather than for any superiority
in the previous argument. Hence it ig that this first
truth takes precedence, not in rank only, but in the
time order of revelation, though the second, in its
rudimentary state, may be almost coeval with it.
The one is fully developed, while the other is in its.
germ. As best expressing the contrast, the editor
would venture here to quote from something he has
elsewhere written (" Article on the Closing Chaptera
of the Book of Job," Mercersburg Review, Jan.
1860) : "The patriarchs were first instructed in that
first and greatest chapter in theology. Is there not
something in modern experience to show the evil of
reversing this order of ideas, of making the subordi
nate primary, of coming to regard the human spi«
itual destiny too much as the chief thought in re-
hgion, and the belief in a God as something mii.is-
terial or mediate to it? We refer not now to that
naturaUstic form of spiritualism which has lately be-
come so rife among us, but to much that appears in
the better thinking of the religious world. We may
yet learn from the Old Testament. We may see a
glory in its theism thus standmg alone in its sublim-
ity. Boast as we may of our progress in theology,
unless this order of ideas is presei ved in all its purity,
our belief, our reverence, our highest thought of
God, may fall below that of the Syrian pilgrim, or
of that ancient son of the East whose sufferings and
experience are recorded in attestation of this first
and greatest of truths." We must guard against such
tendency, or there is danger that our re-lig^o, — our
view of the bond between the infinite and the finite
soul, — may become nature instead of covemn'., — a
dreamy sentimentality instead of faith. — T, L.]

OHAP. XLVm. 1-22. 64?

NINTH SECTION.

JacoVa sickness. His blessing of his grandchildren. JosepKs sont.

' Chapteh XLVm. 1-22.

1 And it came to pass, after these things, that one ' told Joseph, Behold, thy father m

2 sick ; and he took with him his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim. And one told Jacob,
and said, Behold, thy son Joseph cometh unto thee ; and Israel strengthened himself,

3 and sat upon the bed. And Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me

4 at Luz [Bethel] in the land of Canaan, and blessed me. And said unto me, I will make
thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and I

5 will give this land to thy seed after thee, for an everlasting possession. And now thy
two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, that were born unto thee in the land of Egypt, be-
fore I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine ; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.

6 And thy issue, which thou begettest after them, shall be thine, and shall be called after

7 the name of their brethren in their inheritance. And as for me, when I came from
Padan, Rachel died by ' me in the land of Canaan, when yet there was but a little way
to come unto Ephrath ; and I buried her there, in the way of Ephrath ; the same is

8 Beth-lehem [reason for enlarging the descendants of Haciiel]. And Israel beheld Joseph's sons,

9 and said, "Who are these? And Joseph said' unto his father. They are my sons whom
God hath given me in this place. And he said. Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and

10 I will bless them. Now the eyes of Israel were dim for age, so that he could not see.

11 And he brought them near unto him, and he kissed them, and embraced them. And
Israel said unto Joseph, I had not thought to see thy face ; and, lo, God hath shewed

12 me also thy seed. And Joseph brought them out from between his knees [Jacob's],

13 and he bowed ' himself with his face to the earth. And Joseph took them both,
Ephraim in his right hand towards Israel's left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand

U towards Israel's right hand, and brought them near unto him. And Israel stretched
out hia right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim's head, who was the younger, and his left
hand upon Manasseh's head, guiding' his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the first

15 born. And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and

16 Isaac did walk, the God which fed " me all my life long unto this day, The angel
which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads ; and let my name be named on them,
and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude

17 in the midst of the earth. And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand
upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him ; and he held up his father's hand to re-

18 move it from Ephraim's head unto Manasseh's head. And Joseph said unto his father,

19 Not so, my father; for this is the first-born ; put thy right hand upon his head. And
his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it ; he also shall become a
people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than

20 he and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. And he blessed them that day,
saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim, and as Manasseh ;

21 and he set Ephraim before Manasseh. And Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die;

22 but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers. More-
over, I have given to thee one portion ° above thy brethren, which I took out of the
hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.

• Ver. 1.— laX'l . An ellipsiBof-ia-isn.orT'JBn.onewho told. The construction is rare in the singular.
It is'probably used here, not impersonally,' or p'asBiyely,' as some grammarians say, but emphatically, by way of calling
attention to it-denoting, perhaps, a special messenger. EasH giyes it as the opinion of the Rabbins that it was Ephram
who was the messenger, and that the same is the subject of TJIV ver. 2.— T. L.]

ra Ver 7 — "'bs nnu . Died by me. It cannot here denote simply nearness of position ; for Joseph need not havo
been informed of that. 'There is an emotional tenderness in the preposition. On account of me, for my sake ; -as Lang,
intimates she had borne for him the hardships of the journey in her delicate state, and that had brought on the deadly
Vtavail. Or it may be used like not redundant, as it is wrongly called, in Qieek-Bachd to me, or my Rachel, more rao-

41

642

GENESIS, OE THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

phatic than the gsnUive would have been. Very near to it, would be Luther's rendering, sUirb mir Rachel. The LX2
and Wie Vulgate both omit it, but the LXX adds, Rachel thy mother, which has much, internally, in ittt favor ; ijUice U
would seem strange that Jacob, in speaking to Joseph, her son, should call her Rachel merely, just as he would speak o.
I.«ah. n^nS , rendered a little way. Rashi makes it a thousand cubits, or the same as the H^C Qlnn , the limit ol a
sabbath day's journey. — T. L.]

[3 Ver. 12. — *innir'^1 . And he bffwed. The LXX render it in the plural, Kai npoaetcvmjtTav avrtf, and tfiey bowed^
or kneeled down before him, that is, Manasseh and Ephraim ; as if they had read 1'nn^^T , which is given in th?
Samaritan Codes. The reading is also followed by the Syrian, and has much internal probability on its side. — T. L]

(* Ver. 14.— T^T^ ni< ?3iy • Literally, he made his hands intelligent, that is, did not go by feeling only, in aid o.
Mb dim eyas. The LXX rendering, eroAAo^ Td9 x«ipas, his hands a'osswise, and the Vulgate, commutans manus, ismerel
Inferential, and requires no change in the Hebrew text. See Glasbii J^hil. Sacra, 1629. — T. L.]

[* Ver. 15.— ^rx ny"lil D'^Tibi<T^~theGodwho/edme. It is the pastoral image. The God who was my shepJwrd,
—or, ir a more general sense, my tnior, guide, or guardian ruler. Obmpare the frequent Homeric TToifiT^v, Troifituvei, to
cipress the kingly relation. — T. L.]

[» Ver. 22.— InN D31U . See what is said on this in the Exegetical and Critical. See also the very same phrase
Zeph. iii 9 (with one shoulder, that is, with one consent, or shoulder to shoulder), though its usage there does not shed
much light on this passage. Glassids ( Phil. Sa/^a, p. 1985) gives it as an example of the Biblical enigma. The conjecture
of Gesenius seems very probable. He regards it as the common word for shoulder, taken metaphorically for a tra«t o

S be-
laud, from some supposed resemblance, like the Arabic i_;JLJjO • So the English word shoulder is used in arohitectnn;
See "Websieb.- T. L.]

PEELIMINAET EEMAEKS.

1. To the distinction of Judah, in the history of
Israel, corresponds the distiDction of Joseph, name-
ly, that he is represented by two tribes. This his-
torical fact is here referred back to the patriarchal
theocratic sanction. In this Jacob authenticates the
distinction of Rachel no less than of Joseph. The
arrangement is of importance as expressing the fact
that the tribe of his favorite son should be neither
that of the priesthood (Levi), nor the central tribe
of the Messiah (Judah). Only through divine illumi-
nation, and a divine self-renouncement of his own
wisdom, could he have come to such a decision. It
was, however, in accordance with his deep love of
Joseph, that he richly indemnified him in ways corre-
sponding, at the same time, to the dispositions of the
sons and to the divine determination ; and that, in
this preliminary blessing, he prepared him for the dis-
tinguishing blessing of Judah. If we regard the right
of the firstborn in a three-fold way : as priesthood,
princehood, and double inheritance (1 Chron. v. 2),
then Jacob gives to Joseph, by way of devise, the
third part, at least, namely, the double inheritance.
Thus this chapter forms the natural introduction to
the blessing of Jacob in ch. xlix. Neither of them
can be rightly understood without the other.

2. Contents: 1) The distinguishing blessing of
Joseph, especially the adoption of his sons, Manas-
•eh and Ephraim, vers. 1-7 ; 2) the blessing of
Ephraim and Manasseh, vers. 8-16 ; 3) the prece-
dence of Ephraim, vers. 17-19; 4) The preference
of Joseph, vers. 20-22.

EXEGETIOAl AND OEITICAL.

. T:! adoption of JosepKs sons, Manasseh and
Ephraim (vers. 1-7). Delitzsch; "We must call
it an act of adoption, although, in the sense of the
oiril law, adoption, strictly, is unknown to Jewish
mtiqnity ; it is an adoption which may be compared
to the adoptio plena of the Justinian code (adoption
on the side of the ascendants, or kinsmen reckoned
upwards)." The theocratic adoption, however, has,
tefore all things, a religious ethical character, though
including at the same time, a legal importance. —

After these things. — Jacob's history is now spir.
itually closed ; he lives only for his sons, as testator
and prophet. — And he took ■with him. — The sons
of Joseph must now have been about twenty years
old. They were already bom when Jacob came to
Egypt, and he lived there seventeen years. — And
Israel strengthened himself. — Deliizsch: "It
is Jacob that lies down in sickness ; it is Israel that
gathers up his strength (compare a similar significant
change of these names ch. xlv. 27 : Jacob recovers
from his fainting ; it is Israel that is for going straight
to Egypt)." — God Almighty appeared unto me
— Jacob makes mention first of that glorious revela-
tion which had shed its light upon the whole of his
troubled life. He makes prominent, however, the
promise of a numerous posterity, as an introduction
to the adoption. — They shall be mine. — They
shall not be two branches, merely, of one tribe, but
two fully-recognized tribes of Jacob and Israel, equal
in this respect to the firstborn Reuben and Simeon.
— Shall be thine. — The sons afterwards bom shall
belong to Joseph, not forming a third tribe, but in-
cluded in Ephraim and Manasseh ; for Joseph is
represented in a two-fold way through these. Alter
this provision, the names of the other sons of Jo-
seph are not mentioned ; it was necessary, liowever,
that they should be contained in the genealogical
registers. Numb. xxvi. 28-37; 1 Chron. vii. 14-19
(Josh. xvi. 17). — As for me, vrhen I came from
Padan. — The ^3S1 here makes a contrast to Joseph.
The calling to mind of Rachel here would seem, at
first glance, to be an emotional interruption of the
(lain of thought. In presence of Joseph, the re-
membrance of the never-to-be-forgotten one causes
a sudden spasm of feeUng (Delitzsch). But the very
course of the thought would lead him to Rachel. Sht
died by him on the way to Ephrath (^bs would mean,
Uterally, for him ; she died for him, since, while
living, she shared with him, and for him, the toils
of his pilgrimage life, and through this, perhaps,
brought on her deadly travail. She died on the waj
to Ephratah, that is, bothlehem, after she had only
two sons. And so must he make this satisfaction to
his heart's longing for that one to whom he espe-
cially gives the name of wife (see xliv. 27), his first
love, that there should be three full tribes from

CHAP. XLVIII. 1-22.

C4»

khese two branches of RacheL And thus, through
their enlargement, is there a sacred memorial, not
only of Joseph, but also of the loves and hopes of
Rachel and Jacob. Knobel rightly remarks that the
descendants of Joseph became very numerous, infe-
rior only to those of Judah (Numb. i. 33, 36), and
3ven surpassing them, according to another reckon-
ing Numb. xxvi. 34, 37) ; so that, as two tribes, they
were to have two inheritances (Numb. i. 10), a fact
which Ezekiel also keeps in view for the Messianic
times (Ezek. xlvii. 13; xlviii. 4); although (Deut.
xxxiii. 13) they are put together as one house of Jo-
seph. Knobel, however, will have it that it is the
narrator here who must be supposed to make this
explanation instead of allowing that the patriarch
himself might have foreseen it. — Padan. — Put here
for Padan-aram. — Bethlehem. — An addition of the
narrator.

2. The blessing of the sons, Ephraim and Manas-
seh (vers. 8-16).— Who are these?— "The old,
dim-eyed patriarch interrupts himself. He now per-
ceives, for the first time, that he is not alone with
Joseph, and asks. Who are these heref Here again
Knobel puts us in mind, in his presumptive way,
that the narrative follows the old view, that the ut-
tered blessings of godly men have power and efBca-
cy " (a view which has not wholly died out), and re-
marks that these young persons ought to have been
well known to Jacob. In the Elohistic time-reckon-
ing, therefore, the question was an improbable one
(he would say). Then, too, ought the old, and al-
most blind Isaac to have been able to distinguish his
;wo sons, Jacob and Esau ! — And he brought
Kaeai near. — The emotion of the frrandfather grows
(tronger as he calls to mind, bow God had given him
joy beyond his prayers and anticipations. He bad
not even expected to see Joseph again, and now be
oeholds not only him, but his two children. — And
/oseph brought them out. — Jacob, in his embrace,
lad drawn them between the knees, and to his
oosom; for we must think of him as sitting. This
would suggest the idea of boys, or of children in the
arms, a thing which Knobel has not overlooked ;
and yet it is self-evident that even as grown-up chil-
dren, they might stand between the knees of Jacob.
The blessing was a religious act, and in receiving it,
they mu.«t take another and more solemn attitude.
Therefore does Joseph draw them back, and kneels
down himself, to prepare the sons, and himself with
hem, for the patriarchal blessing. Hereupon he
jrings them in the right positions before Jacob. If
Jacob would lay his right hand upon Manasseh, Jo-
seph must present him with his left, and, with like
care, must Ephraim be placed before the left hand
of Jacob. Among the Hebrews the right hand was
the place of precedence (1 Kings ii. 19). But Jacob
crosses his expectation.— Guiding his hands wit-
tingly.— Delitzsch and Knobel are in favor of the
LXX interpretation, witl which agrees the Vulgate
and the Syriac, he chcmged, crossed his hands ;
Keil disputes it. The expression denotes a con-
scious and well-understood act. This is the first
mention, in the Scriptures, of the imposition of the
hands in blessing (Numb, xxvii. 18,23).— And he
blessed Joseph.— rln his blessing of Manasseh and
Ephraim, " who are also comprehended as Joseph in
the blessing of Jacob (ch. xlix.) and Moses." Kno-
bel.—God before whom.— The l-issb here is not
to be disregarded (see ver. 16). It is the God who
reveals himself to the fathers through His Presence

the angel of His Presence, T^JS riS^O, Isa. Uiii
9). — Who fed me. — Led me, guided me, as mj
shepherd, Ps. xxiii. — The singel. — Compare I«a
Ixiii. 9. The word Tisbsn has no Wau conversiva
Delitzsch explains this as showing " that the sepa-
rate self-existence of the God-sent angel mentioned
Numb. XX. 16, is inconsistent with the idea of bin
being a medium and mediator of the divine self
witnessing." This is evidently a mingling of the di
vine and the creaturely which the Old Testamen
does not recognize. A creaturely angel cannot stand
in connection with God as a fountain of blessing (but
see Keil, p. 281). It is inconsistent when Delitzsch
would here, too, regard the Logos as represented by
this angel. It is worthy of notice, that along with
this threefold naming of God (which would seem to
sound like an anticipation of the trinity; see Keil,
p. 281), there is, at the same time, clearly presented
the conception of God's presence, of his care as a
shepherd, and of his faithfulness as Redeemer — all,
too, in connection with the laying on of hands. We
have, therefore, in this passage, a point in which the
revelation makes a significant advance. — From all
evil. — Jacob could tell of many seasons of sore
pressure, in which the prospect of deliverance had
almost vanished. They are connected with the
names Esau, Laban, Shechem, Joseph, and the fam-
ine. The most grievous calamity was the ban of
unrevealed guilt, that, for so many years, lay as a
burthen upon his house, and which threatened to
carry liim away into a death-night of anguish; foi
here, along with eiiil there is also wickedness, and so
the first ground laid for that last prayer " Our Father
(deliver us from evil)." — Bless the lads. — " There
is expressed here, in the singular, the threefold de-
notation of God in the unity of the divine being."
Keil. And so also in the unity of the divine gov-
ernment.— And let my name be named on them.
— The blessing divides itself into a spiritual and an
earthly aspect. Here, the first rightly precedes ;
for the words are not at all nota adoptionis {Ga\Mm),
in which case not only would the name of the fathers
be unsuitable, but the extinction of Joseph's name
would be altogether out of place ; much rather are
they to be acknowledged as genuine children of the
patriarchs, and so prove themselves to be, notwith-
standing their mother was the daughter of an Egyptian
priest. The remembrances and the promises of salva-
tion are to be sustained by them and through them.
The name of the fathers is the expression of the life of
the fathers, and the thus becoming named denotes the
realization of that which is verified in these names,
that is, the faith of the fathers, as well as the recog-
nition, which, by virtue of them, becomes th2ir por-
tion. To the predominant spiritual blessing there ia
added the predominant earthly, or, rather, the hu-
man, with like force. — And let them grow into
a multitude.— The verb inJT is from a'n with rela-
tion to the extraordinary increase of the fishes. And
truly shall they so multiply themselves in the
midst, that is, in the very core of the land.

3. The precedence of Ephraim (vers. 17-19).~
When Joseph saw. — Joseph looks to the nat ural
right of the first-born. He supposes that his father
has made a mistake, and this, all the more, from the
pains he had taken in the proper presentation of the
song _I know it, my son, I know it.— Joseph,
with his merely natural judgment, stands here in
contrast with the clear-seeing and divinely impxrted
wisdom of the prophet, who knows riglit well that

&44

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

by Ms crossed bands, lie is giving the precedence of
the birthright to the younger son. From his inter-
position he talies occasion to announce to the father
the future relations of the two. True it la that a
rich blessing is bestowed upon Manasseh, but Ephraim
shall be the greater. — " This blessing begins to
fulfil itself from the days of the Judges onwards ; as
the tribe of Ephraim in power and compass so in-
creased that it became the head of the northern ten
tribes, and its name became of like significance with
that of Israel ; although, in the time of Moses,
Manasseh still outnumbered Ephraim by twenty
thousand (Numb. xxvi. 34 and 37)." Kell.

4. The preference of Joseph (vers. 20-22). —
In thee shall Israel bless. — This rich expression
of benediction shall, in its fulfilment, become pro-
verbial in Israel. — And he set Ephraim before
Manasseh. — These words close the preceding nar-
rative, but they belong here, as denoting that
Ephraim is preferred only in the sense that Manas-
8«h, too, was to be a great people. It was, moreover,
a single tribe that again branched into two great dis-
tricts, having separate inheritances on each side of
Jordan. — And God shall bring you again. —
This was, for Joseph and his children, a great
promise and dispensation; Notwithstanding their
Egyptian relations they are not to complete their
history in Egypt. — Moreover, I have given unto
thee one portion. — Josh. xvii. 44. We may well
suppose that npic is a play of words upon Shechem,
which lay in the district of Joseph (Josh. xxi. 11),
and where, at a later day, the bones of Joseph him-
self were interred in the field purchased by Jacob
(ch. xxxiii. 19). This is to be inferred from the
great importance that Shechem attained in the later
history of Israel ; but not at all, as Von Bohlen and
others suppose, that there is reference here to an
actual occupation of Shechem, on the ground that
Jacob had aftiTwards appropriated to himself the
act of bis sons. The perfect, "'pn;?^, is used in a
prophetic sense. Keil : " The words cannot be re-
ferred to the purchase at Shechem (ch. xxxiii. 19),
for a forcible taking by sword and bow cannot be
called a purchase ; • much less can they relate to the
wicked robbery perpetrated by Jacob's sons (ch.
xxxiv. 25) ; for Jacob could not possibly take to
himself, as his own act, this evil deed for which he
lays a curse upon Simeon and Levi (ch. xlix. 6) — to
say nothing of the fact that the robbery had, for its
consequence, not the occupation of this city, but
the withdrawal of Jacob from the country. More-
over, the conquest of that district would have been
in entire contrariety to the character of the patri-
archal history, which consists in renunciation of
self-willed human works, and in resigned believing
hope in the God of the promise (Dehtzsch)." Nev-
ertheless, this connection of Jacob's prediction with
the time then present, is not without significance.
There appears here, in an isolated form, the first
indication that the Israelites, in their return out of
Egypt (when the iniquity of the Amorites shall have
become full, ch. xv. 16), should acquire lands by
conquest with sword and bow. This foresight of Ja-
cob, however, may have had its suggestive oriein in

• (It is, however, si . called in the language of the English
common law. Accord og to Littleton and Blackstone, pur-
chase (to which the Hebrew np and fip'O well cor-
respond) is any mode of ffefting, or acquiring, lands, or other
property, except by descent. Such also is the wide sense
(tf the Greek KTrirTf;. KTvua. — T. L.l

the thought, how two of his sons, in a religions ye<
unholy zeal, had once conquered the entire city of
Shechem. In the germinal fanaticism of such " song
of thunder," the prophetic eye discerns the seed of
a future purer heroism. Thus regarded, the private
acquisitions of the patriarchs in Hebron, and espe-
cially in Shechem, are a kind of symbolical occupa-
tion of the land, in which the promise of God in
typically reaUzed. Beyoud all, in this respect, ia
the designation of Canaan as the home of Israel,
and the strengthening of its home-feeUng, as that
by which, at a later day, the march of Israel, after
the migration from Egypt, is directed. And so, too,
the prediction of Jacob becomes the first established
point for the future partition of Canaan, cti using
that Joseph's children, especially the Ephraimites,
would, at all events, be pointed by a well-understood
indication, to the land of Shechem. On this accotmt,
too, might it have been said, in later times (John iv.
5), that Jacob had given his field at Shechem to hia
son Joseph. That pointing, however, must have
exerted an influence in the whole partition of the
land of Canaan among the twelve tribes. — The
Amorite. — A poetical name for Canaanites generally.

DOCTRINAl AND ETHICAL.

1. In the decline of life, thebehever looks cheer-
fully back upon his entire experiences of the grace
of God, that he may thereby quicken his hopes and
prospects for the future, and foi' eternity.

2. The adoption had for its aim not only to in-
corporate into the people of Israel the sons of Jo-
seph who had been bom in Egyptian relations — not
only to honor and glorify Rachel in her children —
not only to assign to Joseph the double inheritance
as the third part of the birthright — but also to keep
full the tribes to the number twelve. By the adop-
tion of Ephraim and Manasseh, there is also, already,
introduced the spiritual distribution of the tribe of
Levi among all the tribes ; although this turn of
things can only indicate such a dispersion (ch. xlix.).
The historical compensation between the line of Iicah
and that of Rachel, is indicated in this blessing, as
in later times there appears the contrast between
Ephraim and Judah. The Messiah, indeed, is to
come from the tiibe of Judah ; but the first elements
of his Church, to say the least, came out of Gahlee,
the district of the ten tribes, and Pard was from the
tribe of Benjamin.

3. The crosswise position of Jacob's hands has
been interpreted allegorically of the cross of Clirist.
On this account has the occasional appearing of the
cross figure been regarded as momentous ; and yet,
without reason, unless there is kept in view the
general idea, namely, that one direction, or deter-
mination, has been thwarted by an opposing one ; as
here the natural expectation of Joseph in respect to
Manasseh. In the symbolical sense, the form of the
blessing here carries with it no theocratic destiny of
Borrow.

4. Here first appears the imposition of hands in
its great significance for the kingdom of God. The
evident effect, outwardly, is that Jacob makes a dif-
ference in the value of the blessing for both sons.
It is, in the first feature, a symbolic of the blessing,
through the symbol of the hand, especially the right.
Then there is a theocratic inauguration and investiture,
The grandchildren of Jacob are raised to the condi
tion of sons. Thus afterwards does the impositioi

CHAP. XLVIII. 1-22.

649

_jf hands denote a legal consecration, Numb, xxvii.
18-23; Deut. xxiiv. 9. The Impartation thereby
of an actual power of blessing, appears already in
the Old Testament, in its typical beginnings ; but in
the New Testament it comes forth in its full signifi-
^ance, Matt. xix. 13; Acts vL 6. Tie idea in com-
mon of the different applications of the imposition
of hands, is the transfer, or traduction, of the com-
munity of life through the hand. Through this,
the animal offerings became symbolical resignations
of human life, and so, inversely, the sick were re-
stored to health. See the article "Imposition of
Hands," Hebzos's Real-Encyclopedia ; also Keil,
p. 281. On the significance of the hand see also
the citations fisom Passavant by Schroder.

5. On the great place of Ephraim in the life and
history of Israel, compare the History of the Old
Testament.

6. The blessing of Joseph's sons is throughout
denoted as a blessing of Joseph himself in his sons.
We cannot say that this was because Joseph had be-
come an Egyptian. Such service had no more taken
away his theocratic investiture, than the foreign po-
sition of Nehemiah and Daniel had done in their
eases. Even Joseph's bones still belonged to Israel.

7. It is incorrect to regard the effect of Jacob's
benediction as a representation merely of Hebrew
antiquity ; and so is it also when we regard the pro-
phetic signrficance and power of the benediction
alone, as a positive addition to the authority of the
divine promise. The divine promise reveals itself
even in the human life germs. Ephraim's future lay
in the core of Ephraim's life, as laid there by God.

8. The elevated glow of Jacob's spirit, as it
lights up on the hearth of his dead natural life, his
eagle-like clairvoyance with his darkened eye-sight,
reminds us of the similar example in the blessing of
Isaac. The fact of a state of being raised high
ihove the conditions of old age, meets us here in
even a still stronger degree. The possibility and in-
ner truth of such a contrast, wherein the future life
already seems to present itself, is confirmed by man-
ifold facts iu the life of old men when pious and
spiritually quickened.

9. In the threefold designation of God in the
blessing of Jacob, Keil, without reason, finds an an-
ticipation of the trinity (p. 281). But, in fact, this
is the first place in which the previous duality of
Jehovah and his angel begins to assume something
of a trinitarian form. That, however, which is to
be regarded, in its general aspect, is the unfolding
of the revelation coBscioasness iu the blessings be-
fore us, especially the appearance of that conception
of deliverance from all evil.

10. The prophetic bestowment of territory on
Joseph, at the close of the blessing, is the first indi-
cation that Israel shall conquer Canaan by the sword
and the bow. The allusion to Shcchem can only be
regarded as the crystallization-point for the whole
Israelitish acquisition. If Shechem is to be a por-
tion for Ephraim, Judah must be transferred to the
south, and find its point of holding (its habendum et
lenendum) in the grave of Abraham. These deter-
ninations have others for their necessary conse-
{ueuces.

HOMILBTICAIi AKD PEACTICAL.

The benedictions of Jacob. — Jacob almost blind,
fct with an eagle glance in the light of God. — Jo-

seph left out in the numbering of the brethren, y«
obtains his blessing before them. — Joseph's doubU
inheritance. — The settlement of the birthright iu
Israel: 1. In correspondence with the facts, or th«
diverse gifts of God ; 2. as a prevention of envy on
the one side, or of pride on the other ; 3. an indica-
tion of the divine source of the true, or spiritual,
birthright ; 4. a preparation for the universal priesU
hood of the people of God. — The blessing of Jacob
ae given to Ephraun and Mamisseh : 1. The names;
2. the fulness ; 3. the certainty.

1. The adoption of Joseph's sons (vers. 1-7).
Starke : Here, for the first time, is Ephraim preferreii
to Mauasseh. — Herewith, therefore, is the first priv-
ilege of the birthright, namely, the double inherit
ance, taken from Eeuben and given to the two sons
of Joseph, in the same manner as the princehood,
and the magisterial power, is given to the tribe of
Judah, and the priesthood to Levi. — The duty of
visiting the sick, of ordering one's own household,
of remembering kindred and friends when dead. —
Calwer Handbvxh: Observe liow the names of Is-
rael and Jacob are changed. — When the spirit is ele-
vated and strong, the sick body gets a new power
of life, especially for the transaction of high and
holy duties. — Ver. 3. Canaan ; ever Canaan. Egypt
was only his transition-point, and so it must be for
Joseph. — Schroder : They who are blessed of God
can bless in turn.

2. The hlesshi^ of the so7u\ Ephraim and Manas-
seA (vers. 8-16). Starke: The laying on of hands
in the various applications. Among others, in the
condemnation of a malefactor (Lev. xxiv. 14 ; Hist.
Susanna, ver. 34.) [As far as concerns this kind of
hand-imposition, it expresses merely that the wit-
nesses feel themselves stained with the guilt of the
accused, and this guilt, with its stain, they would lay
upon his head (see Lev. v. 1 ). A still deeper com-
prehension of this act of laying on the hands, makes
it an acknowledgment of human community in the
guilt, and a symbolical carrying over of a penitent
guilt-consciousness to the guilty, as that which can
alone impart *o punishment a reconcihng character.
On the meaning of Goel (^Jl'is), see the Dictionaries.]
— Christians are called that they may inherit the
blessing. — Calwer Hwndbuch : Though born in a
foreign land, they are engrafted into the patriarchal
stem. — Schroder : Ha-Blohim, who fed me, or was
my shepherd ; a form of speech dear to all the pa-
triarchs, and, in the deepest sense, to Jacob on ac-
count of his shepherd life with Laban (Ps. cxix.
176). — Heim : He is my redeemer (or, who redeemed
me), my goel. It is the word that Job uses (Job.
xix. 25), when he says, " I know that my redeemer
liveth." '

3. The precedence of Ephraim (vers. 17-19).
Starke: How God sometimes prefers the younger to
the elder, we may see in the case of Shem who was
preferred to Japheth, in the case of Isaac who was
preferred to Ishmael, of Jacob who was preferred to
Esau, of Judah and Joseph who were preferred to
Reuben, of Moses who was preferred to Aaron, and
finally, of David, who was preferred to all h's breth-
ren. God set thee : a form of speech to this day in
use among the Jews. As they greet with it men and
their young companions, t s it is also said to wives
and young women : G(jd make thee as Sarah and
Eebecca. — Cramer: Human wisdom cannot, in di-
vine things, accommodate itself to the foreknowledge,
the election, and the calling of God; but must eve'

546

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

mingle with them its own works, character, and
merit.— Ver. 10. Cramer: When God speaks, the
deed must follow. — Schroder : He fancies that the
iimness of his father's eyes may deceive him, even
as he once deceived his father Isaac.

4. The preference of Joseph {-^^TS. iO-ii). God
distributes his gifts as he wills ; in so doing he
wrongs no man. — "Ver. 22. Citation of various inter-
pretations (some hold that sword and bow mean
merely the impressions on the coin with which he
bought the field at Shechem. Eashi explains the
bow as meaning prayer. There is also an interpre-
tation of it as prophetic). — My God, let me set my
house in order in due season, Ps. xc. 12. — Schroder :
Which Itooh out of the hand of th» Amorite. With
prophetic boldness, he uses the past for the future.
The prophetic impulse, as it appears in this language,
prepares us for that which immediately follows.

[Interpretation op the words Goel, Malak
Haggoel, Redeemer, Angel Redeemer. Gen.
XLViii. 16. — In the Homiletical and Practical, just
above, the reader is referred to the Dictionaries for
the meaning of these words. Their great impor-
tance, both in the patriarchal and the Christian the-
ology, makes proper a more extended examination
of them. The primary sense of the root hni is that
of staining^ or beincf stained^ with blood. Then it
is apphed, metaphorically, to the one who suffers a
brother's or kinsman's blood to go unavenged, on
the ground that he himself is stained with it, — pol-
luted by it, as the idea is afterwards applied to the
land, or civil community, that takes the place of the
individual Blutrdclter in the ancient law. Then it is
given to him officially, and he is called from it iKSri,
or the one who removes the stain by tiiking ven-
geance. Hence it becomes a name for the next of
kin himself, and, later still, it is applied to him as
one who redeems the lost inheritance, — being a
transfer, as we may say, from the criminal to the
civil side of jurisprudence. See Lev. xxv. 25 ; Ruth
iv. 4, 6 : iii. 12 ; Numb. v. 8. This civil sense could
not have been the primary, as it could only come in
after the establishment of property and civil institu-
tions. Gesenius, in making it first, is illogieal as
well as unphilological His referring it to the later
Hebrew, Hebraismo sequiori, has no force. The
word is found, in thus sense of polluted, in Isaiah,
and in the Lamentations of Jeremiah. There having
been a few occasions for such use in Malachi and
Nehemiali, decides nothing as to the earlier senses
of the word. The land-redeeming idea, at aU events,
must be secondary. It is not difficult to explain,
too, how the primary sense might come out in the
vivid language of the prophets, whilst the secondary
meets us oftener in the less impassioned historical
portions of Scripture. Both transitions are clear.
The next of kin who avenges, and the next of kin
who redeems (buys back) the lost inheritance, is the
same person. It is redemption in both legal aspects,
the criminal and the civil, as said before. And so
the shadow of the word, and of the idea, is pre-
served in the legal nomenclature of later times.
Thus in the Greek judicial proceedings, whether in a
criminal or a civil action, the plaintiff was called
5i(i)KLot^^ the pursuer, the defendant cpevywv^ the fleeer.
We find it still in our most modem law language.
The words prosecutor and pursuer (the latter used
in the Scotch law) are remnants of the old idea,
though redeemer has no counterpart.

The term Goel is applied to God, or to a:i angtt
representing God, and this makes the derivation frorr
blood-staining, as above given, seem harsh and uu
suitable. It has led Olshausen, and others, to reject
it when given in the interpretation of Job xix. 25,
where Job says "^n "'bxi , " 1 know that my Goel
my redeemer, liveth." It is an appeal there to some
one as an avenger of his cau'u?, of his blood, we may
say, as against a cruel adversary. Comp. Job xvi.
18, " 0 earth, cover not thou my blood," and the
appeal, in the next verse, to "the witness on high"
(D''ai-232 ■'"ipiu. the same etymologically with the

Arabic JiJoLi , the attesting, or prosecuting angel

on the day of judgment, Koran xi. 21). Whom
could Job have had in mind but that great one who
was bfUeved on from the earUest times, and who
was to deliver man from the power of evih He was
the antagonist of the ivStpontoKTovos, or "man-slayer
from the beginning" (John viii. 44), who plays such
an important part in the introduction to this ancient
poem, or Jobeid, as we may call it. It is this Deliv-
erer that meets us, in some form, in all the old
mythologies. He is the great combatant by whom
is waged the txaxn aSiavaro^, the " immortal strife "
between the powers of good and evil, — " war in
Heaven, Michael and his angels fighting with Satan
and his angels." He was to be of kin to us. The
theanthropio idea can be traced in most of the old
religions, and especially was it an Oriental dogma.
All this points to that ancient hope that was born
of the protevangel, Gen. iii. 15, whatever form it
may have taken according to the varied culture or
cultus of mankind, — whether that of warrior, legis-
lator, benefactor, or of the more spiritual Messiah as
depicted in the Hebrew Scriptures. This Deliverer
of humanity was to be D"1X l^ , Son of Man, and,
at the same time, one of the bene Slohim, Sons of
God, or chief, or firstborn, among them. The patri-
archs knew him as iiNsri "^N^ari , the avenging or
" redeeming angel." The first, or rescuing aspect,
however, is earliest and most predominant. The
other, or the redeeming idea, in the more forensic
sense, came in later. In modem times it has become
almost exclusive. In the patristic theology, how-
ever, the avenging, or rather, rescuing aspect of the
Redeemer's work, had a conspicuous place. He ap-
pears more as a militant hero who fights a great bat-
tle for us, who deUvers us from a powerful foe, when
we " had become the prey of the mighty." Re-
demption consisted in something done lor us, not
forensically merely, but in actual contest, in some
mysterious way, with the great Power of evil, who
seemed to have a claim, or who asserted a claim, to
our allegiance, and whom the Redeemer overcomes
before the forensic work can have its accomplish-
ment.

From the two ideas have come two sets of fig-
ures, the ibrensic and the warlike, as we may call
them, both clearly presented in the Bible, but the
former now chiefly regarded. Hence the ideas of
debt, of satisfaction, of inheritance lost and recov-
ered. These are most true and Scriptural, but they
should not have been allowed to cast the others into
the shade. Much less should they have led any, as
has been lately done, to speak of the patristic view,
in which these figures of rescue are most prominent,
as " the devil theory of the atonement." The re-
demption is explained by both : it is the ransoming

CHAP XLIX, 1-^8.

64')

jf the captive taken in war ; it is the paying of the
oankrupt's heavy debt. We owed ten thousand tal-
ents witliout a farthing to pay ; but we were, none
the less, prisoners to a " strong one " who had to be
bound and despoiled of his prey, — or who had shed
our blood, and who was, therefore, to be pursued
and slain. The forensic language undoubtedly
abounds iu the New Testament, but there is there,
as well as in the Old, much of the other imagery.
Thus Col. i. 13, " Who hath rescued us from the
power of darkness" — the strong Homeric word
m>v(Ta.To, so often used of deliverance on the field
of battle. Compare also Col. ii. 15, " Having spoiled
(stripped of their armor) principalities and powers,"
— evil spirits (see Eph. vi. 12 ; John xii. 81). The
Redeemer did a work in Hades. It is clearly inti-
mated as a fact, 1 Peter iii. 19, though the nature
of it is veiled from us. He made proclamation
(^/ci)pu|e) in Sheol, not a didactic sermon, but an an-
nouncement of deliverance. " Thou wilt call" says
Job, " and I will answer" (Job. xiv. 15). The pa-
triarchs waited there for the coming and the victory
of the bKJn "iS<^'3 , the angel Redeemer. In 1
John iii. 8 it is said that the Son of God came, 'lua
\i(T-n, that he might unbind the works of the devil,
that is, free his captives. In Rom. xi. 26, he is
cnlled 'O PT0MEN02 ; " there shall come forth from
Zion the Deliverer." It is the LXX rendering of
bsia , Is. lix. 20, as in Is. xlviii. 20, and other places.
The petition in the Lord's prayer is ^vam Tinas airh
ToC irovTipov, ^^ rescue us from the evil one." The
rendering deliver would be well enough if the old
sense of the word were kept, but probably to most
minds it suggests rather the idea of prevention, of
keeping safe from, than that of rescue from a mighty
power by which we are carried captive ; and thus
the weaker sense given to ^vaai. obscures the person-
ality that there is in tov Trornpov, the evil one.

These ideas are as much grounded on the Scrip-
ture as the others, and it will not do to treat them
lightly, as " specimens of patristic exegesis," to use

a phrase that has been sneeringly employed. Johi
Bunyan may have known little of patristic int-erpre
tatious, but he was deeply read in the Scripture, and
impressed with the significance of its figures. This
militant view of the Redeemer's work is, therefore,
the ground conception of his greatest book, the
" Holy War, or the Battle for the Town of Mansoul,
between Immanuel and Satan." Such a view, too, is
necessary to give meaning to some of the Messianic
titles in the Old Testament, besides that of the Goel
or Redeemer. Especially is it suggested by the M
Gibbor (^iaa bit.) the hero God, or divine hero, of
Is. ix. 5, who " poured out his soul unto death, and
divided the spoil with the strong," Is. liii. 12. It
may be said, too, that this militant idea is predomi-
nant in Christian feeling and experience, although
the forensic is more adapted to formal articles of
faith. Hence, while we find the one prominent in
creeds, as it ought to be, the other especially appears
in the hymns and liturgies of the church, both an-
cient and modem.

For striking examples of bsJ (Redeemer, in the
sense of rescuer or avenger), see such passages aa
Is. xlix. 26, " Thy Redeemer, the mighty one of
Jacob ; " Is. xliii. 1, "Fear not, for I have redeemed
thee ; " Exod. xv. 13, " thy people whom thou hast
redeemed ; " Exod. vi. 6, " Redeemed you with a
stretched-out arm ; '' Ps. xix. 15, " My rook and my
Redeemer ; " Ps. Ixxviii. 35, " the Most High their
Redeemer ; " Ps. Ixxvii. 16 ; Ps. ciii. 4, " who re-
deemeth thy life from corruption ; " Ps. cxix. 154,
" contend for me in my conflict and redeem me ; "
Jer. 1. 34, pTH D^NS, " their Redeemer is strong,
Jehovah of Hosts is his name; " so Prov. xxiii. 11,
" come not nigh to the field of the orphans, fortheit
Goel is strong." Compare also Hosea xiii. 14, " I
wi'J ransom them from Sheol, D^XSX ^■)?^''r > f™™
Death will I redeem them ; I wiU be thy destruction,
0 Sheol ; " Is. xxxv. 9, " the redeemed shall walk
there ; " Job xix. 25 ; Is. xliv. 22 ; and many other
similar passages. — T. L.J

TENTH gECTION.

JaeobU blessing of his sons. Jvdah and his brethren. JacoWs last arrangements. His burial

in Canaan. Mis death*

Chaptek xlix. 1-33.

1 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may

2 tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. Gather yourselves together, and

3 hear, ye sons of Jacob ; and hearken unto Israel your father. Reuben, lliou art my
first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and

4 the excellency of power: Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel ; because thou wentest

5 up to thy father's bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch. Simeon and

6 Levi are brethren ; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. 0, my soul, coms
not thou into their secret ; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united ; for ie

1 their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall. Cursed
be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel ; I wiU divide them ir

648

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

11

12
13

8 Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. Judah, thou art he whom thj }>re{hren shall praise
thy hand shall he on the neck of thine enemies ; thy father's children shall bow dowr

9 before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp ; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up ; h«
10 stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion ; who shall rouse him up? The

sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh
come ; and unto him shall the gathering of the people he'. Binding his foal unto the
vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine ; he washed his garments in wine, and his
clothes in the blood of the grapes. His eyes shall he red with wine, and his teeth white
with milk. Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea, and he shall he for an havtin

14 of ships; and his border shall he unto Zidon. Issachar is a strong ass, couching down

15 between two burdens. And he saw tliat rest was good, and the land that it was

16 pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute. Dan

17 shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way,
an adder in tlie path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

18, 19 1 have waited for thy salvation, 0 Lord! Gad, a troop shall overcome him; but

20 he shall overcome at the last. Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall

21 yield royal dainties. Naphtali is a hind let loose; he giveth goodly words.

22 Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over

23 the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him, ajid shot at him., and hated him :

24 But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the
hands of the mighty God of Jacob : (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel :)

25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee ; and by the Almighty, who shall
bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, bless-
ings of the breasts and of the womb : The blessings of thy father have prevailed above
the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills : they
shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate
from his brethren. Benjamin shall raven as a wolf; in the morning he shall devour the

28 prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. All these are the twelve tribes of Israel :
and this is it that their father spake unto them, and blessed them ; every one according

29 to his blessing he blessed them. And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be
gathered unto my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of

30 Ephron the Hittite ; In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before
Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the

31 Hittite for a possession of a burying-place. Tliere they buried Abraham and Sarah his

32 wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah. Tiie
purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth.

33 And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet
into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.

26

27

(Tliere is <iuite a ntnnber of rare Hebrew words and phrases in this XlilXth chapter ; but as it is difficult to separata
Ibe philological and textual consideration of them from the more general interpretation, the reader is referred to th«
places in the Exegetical and Critical where they wiU be foun4 discussed, and to marginal notes subjoined.— T. L,]

PEELIMnSTAEY REMAKES.

In this most important and most solemn closing
prophecy of Genesis, there come into consideration :
]. The prophetic development generally; 2. the
character of its contenia ; 3. its poetical form ; 4.
its origin ; 6. the analogies ; 6. the literature ; 1.
Ihe points of particular interest.

1. The prophetic development. The blessing of
Jacob forms the close, the last fuU bloom of the
patriaichal prophecy, or of the theocratic promise of
the patriarchal time. The seed of the protevangel
passes, in its unfolding, through the blessing of
Koah, through the promises given to Abraham (es-
[lecially the closing one of ch. xxii.), and, finally,
through the blessing of Isaac, and the promises made
to Jaco'), to become, at last, the prophetic form of
life, as it is manifested in the future of the twelve

tribes. Thenceforth, in respect to its tenor, is the
Messianic germ more distinctly unfolded than in the
promises hitherto ; whilst the poetic form, which is
so peculiar a feature of the Messianic predictions,
attains in them to the full measure of its bloom.
We shall mistake the meaning of this blessing, un-
less we estimate it according to the theocratic degree
of its development, or, if we do not bear in mind
that it stands midway between the blessing of Isaac
and the Mosaic promises.

In respect to the fundamental ideas contained in
these benedictions, it may be said that the blesshic,
of Judah forms evidently its central point, to which
that of Joseph makes a corresponding contrast.
The spirit of Israel finds its corresponding expression
in the one, the heart of Jacob in the other. The
others group themselves around these, not as isolated
atoms, but in significant relations. The declaraliOM

CHAP. XLIX. 1-83.

u4£

made in respect to Reuben, Simeon, Levi, link them-
Belvea together, and have a direct view to ilie dis-
tinction of Judah. In those of Zebulun and Issachar,
who, as sons of Leah, are placed before the sons of
tje handmaids, there is a reversal of the natural
order of succession, since Zebulun, the younger, pre-
cedes. There seems to have been a motive here
similar to that which led to the preference of Ephraim
to Mauasseh. Zebulun's preference seems to consist
in this, that he has place between two seas, extend-
ing from the Galilean sea to the Mediterranean, an
indication of a richer worldly position. Dan closes
the group which, like a constellation of seven stars,
forms itself around Judah. Then follows the ejac-
ulation (ver. 18), in which there seems to be again a
sound of Judah's destiny. In the natural order,
Naphtali would have come next ; but the blessing
includes both the two sons of Leah's handmaid. Gad
and Asher, between the sons of Rachel's handmaid,
Dan and Napthali. It is not easy to see the reason
of this, unless it was somehow to reinforce the line
of Rachel through Naphtali ; or we may suppose
that the position of the three named before Joseph
led to Joseph and Benjamin. Gad is like Joseph an
invincible hero in defensive war. Asher makes the
prelude to the rich blessing of Joseph in natural
things. Naphtali ranks with Benjamin in impetuous-
ness and decision of character. It is strictly in accord-
ance with the spirit of prophecy, that the picture here
given of tbe future of Israel's tribes should have its
light and shade, its broad features, and its mere points
of gleaming, and that it should be j ust as in determinate
in its chronology. In respect to the nature of its con-
tents, Knobel maintains that this portion of Scripture
is incorrectly called the blessing of Jacob. The bless-
ing of Moses, Deut. xxxiii., is rightly so designated,
because it contains oidy good for the tribes ; whilst
this, on the contrary, has much that is to their dis-
advantage. " Judah and Joseph, as the most im-
portant, are treated in the most favorable manner ;
Naphtali, also, is spoken of favorably in respect to
deeds of heroism, and poetic art, as Asher for his
productive territory. To a tolerable degree the same
may be said of Gad, who, indeed, is overcome, but
overcomes at last ; whilst it is not saying much for
Zebulun that he shall dwell by the seas. What is
declared of Issachar, that he yields hunself to labor
like an ass, or concerning Dan, that like a serpent
he lurks in the path, or of Benjamin, that he shall
he like a ravening wolf, contains, at least, a mingling
of disapprobation," etc. This shows but a poor
comprehension of the prophetic forms of speech.
If, in a good sense, Judah is a lion rampant, why,
in the same sense, may not Benjamin be a wolf, es-
pecially a victorious one, that " in the evening di-
vides the spoil ? " And why should not Dan, who is
judge in Israel, be compared with the serpent In
view of his strategical cunning ? Along with Naph-
tali, the swift-footed deer may also be named, in no
unfavorable way, the strong-boned ass Issachar, who,
in his comfortable love of peace, devotes himself to
peasant service, and to the transport of burdens be-
tween the Galilean sea and the southern regions.
Next to these animal figures, whose characteristics
are to be regarded according to the oriental usage,
md not moralized upon in our occidental way, comes
the figure of the plant : Joseph the fruitful vine, sup-
plemented by the human figure : Joseph, the archer,
or mark for the archer's arrows. Less developed Is
the figure of Asher, the royal purveyor, or of Zebulun
the shipper, or that of Reuben drawn from the insta-

bility of water. Is it an evil doom pronounced upon
Reuben, pointing, as it does, to his sin, that he should
be deposed from the birthright 1 Rather, according
to the Scripture, is it a misfortune when a man em
braces a calling to which he is unequal, as, for ex
ample, Saul and Judas. The prince of the twelve
tribes must be something more than an unstable va-
por. It was, however, by this determination that
Reuben was guarded from his own destruction. He
remains the first below the firsvborn, and, from 1hi«
state of forbearance and protection he may still de-
velop the more moderate blessing prono'.'.ticed
Deut. xxxiii. 6. Simeon and Levi have not, like
Reuben, so repented of their old guilt, that it may
not be again charged upon them, with a malediction
of the deed that may yet become a blessing, if it la
the occasion of chastising, warning and purifying
them. How their dispersion in Israel, which Is im-
posed upon them as a penalty, may be transformed
Into a distinction, is shown in the position of Levi,
and in the blessing later pronounced upon him,
Deut. xxxiii. 8. Through this dispersion, Simeon,
indeed, disappears as a tribe, but he becomes incor-
porated with Judah, the best of the twelve (Judg. i.
3). Benjamin, " the ravening wolf," becomes, in
tlie blessing of Moses, a protector of the beloved of
Jehovah. Zebulun is praised for his maritime posi-
tion ; Issachar, the broad-limbed peasant, rejoices in
his tents. Gad, the fighter in Genesis, becomes, in
the blessing of Moses, a lion Uke Judah ; and so Dan
Is a young lion, ready to spring, as before he was
compared, in a similar manner, to a darting serpent.
Naphtali is still described as full of grace, though in
more expressive language. Asher, who, in Genesis,
is full of bread, is changed, in the Mosaic blessing,
to the " abounding in oil." We need not wonder
therefore, that Joseph, who is ever praised, is com
pared, in the blessing of Moses, to the ox and the
buffalo. In the later benediction, the blessing of
Judah becomes more mysterious, more individual,
more spirituous, whilst yet there is a falling back of
the rich development presented in Genesis. This
designation, therefore : the blessing of Jacob, is well
grounded, besides being expressly confirmed in ver.
28. In regard to the relations, or the perspective
of this prophecy, it is incorrect to say, as Baumgar-
ten and Kurtz do, that the seer here looks at the
time of the Judges as giving the fulness of his pic-
ture. Thus to hmit the prophecy in the olden time,
is to divest it of its character as true prediction, and
make it a mere presagmg. Each prophecy, indeed,
has its own provisional points of aim and rest, be-
longing to the time in whose forms and colors it
clothes itself, yet still, in its last aim, ever points to
the perfection of the kingdom of God. This, more-
over, is here expressed in the very letter, " ninnxa
n^a"'n, literally, at the end of the days, that is, in
the last time, iir' eVx^Toiv rm rnj-fpiv (LXX) — not
the future in general, but the closing future, in fact,
the Messianic time of the completion," etc, (Keil,
p. 284). True it is, that the period from the time of
the Judges to that of David appears as the deter-
minate foreground view of the seer, but this is, itself,
a symbolic configuration, in which he looks through,
and beholds the whole Messianic future, even to its
close, though not in its perfectly developed featiLres.
Just so does the protevangel point already to th«
end, but only In its most general outlines as the sal
vation of the future.

2. 7Tie blessing, in the character of its ccKitenti

050

GENESIS, OE THE FIRST BOOK OF MC'SES.

In each prophecy we must distinguish three capital
points : 1) Its basis in the present, or its point of
departure ; 2) its nearest form of the future ; 3) the
symbolical significance of the same for the wider
fulfilhng of the redemption history. And so here
Israel is at the standpoint of promise as hitherto un-
folded ; ill the prophetic clearness of its illumination,
bo sees the characters of his sens, and the real pro-
phetic as it lies in their individuality. What is more
clear than that Judah already reveals the lion nature,
Joseph that of the fruitful tree, or that Reuben,
Simeon, and Levi do already show clear points of
distinction in their lives. But in the character of the
sons he sees, too, the first unfolding of the tribes in
Canaan, even as it reveals itself from the time of the
Judges to that of David. Then Reuben is no more
the first-born, yet still well provided for in a way
corresponding to his impatient nature. The disper-
sion of Simeon and Levi has already begun. The
tribe of Judah advances more and more towards the
royal dignity. Zebulun has his position, so favorable
for worldly intercourse, between the Galilean and
the Mediterranean seas. Issachar has drawn his lot
in the rich regions of the plain of Jezreel, etc.
But now one would go entirely out of the prophetic
sphere, if he should mistake the theocratic redemp-
tion idea, as it shines through these outlines and
colors, or their symbolical character. This charac-
ter comes clearest into view in Judah.

3. The poetic form. With the sacred appear-
ance of the people of God, the people of the new
world, comes the speech of the new world : that is
its poetry, perfectly developed. There is already the
rhythmical song, the beautiful parallelism, the exu-
berance of figures, the play upon names (vers. 8,
13, 16, 19, 20, 22; accordmg to Knobel also 15 and
11), the pky upon words (vers. 8, 19), the peculiar
forms of expression, the elevation of spirit, the
heart feelings ; and all these form a poetry cor-
•esponding to the greatness of the objects as well
is to the character of the speaker, who shows
so many traits of the human heart in his deep emo-
tion, and in the grandeur of his faith in God.

4. The last remark takes us to the subject of
origin. The reckless Inclination of our times to
disconnect the choicest productions of genius from
the names with which they are associated, and to
ascribe them, in any and every way, to some un-
known author, finds a special occasion for its lawless
criticism in the passage of Scripture now before us.
Nevertheless, the reference of it to Jacob, and in the
form in which it stands, still finds its many and
able supporters. Those who now best represent this
■new are Dehtzsch, Baunigarten, Diestel, Hengsten-
berg, Keil, and others. On the other hand, the as-
cription to Jacob is wholly rejected by De Wette,
Schumann, Bleek, Knobel, and others. This is due,
in part, to the spirit of rationalism, a fundamental
assumption of which is that prophecies must have
arisen after the events they are supposed to predict.
Governed by this, Knobel transfers the origin of the
passage to the time of David, and is inclined, with
Bohlen and others, to ascribe it to the prophet Na-
than. Knobel deems it a weighty objection, that a
" simple nomade " could never have produced any-
thing of the kind, especially an enfeebled and aged
one. This may be carried farther, so as to deny
generally that the patriarchal nomades could have
carried with them anything of the spirit of the Mes-
sianic fuiure ; which would show that this confident
issumption of the critic runs clear into absurdity.

In respect to the last ground see the Analogies. A»
far as concerns the objection of Heiurich and other*
namely, if the patriarch could foretell the future a
all, why did he not go beyond the Davidian period, it
may be said that it is too narrow, too limited in itf
scope, to demand attention. On the question, whetb
er the poem is to be ascribed to the Elohist, or to
the Jehovist, see Knobel, p. 335. As it will not ex-
actly suit either the Elohisc or the Jehovist, Knobel
has to betake himself to his documentary store-
house that he keeps ever lying behind the scenes.
As to what concerns the aije and authority of our
document, a writer who lived at the time of the first
formation of the Aaronic priesthood, would have
hardly ventured to place the tribe of Levi in so
unfavorable a light as that in which it here appears.
And so, too, the tribes of Reuben and Simeon would
never have allowed any Hebrew song-writer to make
such a representation of their ancestors. In respect
to its character, the poem claims for itself not only
a patriarchal age, but also a patriarchal sanction.
Nevertheless, a distinction may be safely made be-
tween the patriarchal memorabilia (whose safe-keep-
ing was doubtless attended to by Joseph) and a ca-
nonical recension which did not venture to change
anything essential.

6. The analogies. The dying Isaac (ch. xxvii.),
the dying Moses (Deut. xxxii.), the dying Joshua
(Josh, xxiv.), the dying Samuel (1 Sam. xii.), the
dying David (2 Sam. xxiii.), in the Old Testament,
the dying Simeon, the dying Paul, and the dying
Peter, in the New, prove for us the fact, that the
spirit of devoted men of God, in anticipation of
death, soars to an elevated consciousness, and either
in priestly admonitions, or prophetic foreseeings, at-
tests its divine nature, its elevation above the common
life, and its anticipation of a new and glorious exist-
ence. The testimony of antiquity is harmonrous in
respect to such facts, — even heathen antiquity. So
declared the dying Socrates, that he regarded him-
self as in that stage of being when men had most of
the foreseeing power (Plato : Apologia Socratis).
Pythagoras taught that the soul sees the future,
when it is departing from the body. In Cicero, and
other writers, we find similar declarations. (See
Knobel, p. 49.) Knobel, however, presents it, as a
grave question, whether the narrator means to assert
a direct gift of prophetic vision in the dying Jacob,
or whether there is not rather intended an immediate
derivation of knowledge from God. This is just the
way In which orthodox interpreters oftentimes place
the divine inspiration in contrast with, and in contra-
diction to, their human preconditionings ; whereas a
rational comprehension of life sees here a union of
natural human states (consequently a more fuUy devel-
oped power of anticipation in the dying) with the Ulu.
minaling spirit of revela tion that shines through them.

6. The literature of the passage, ■me the Introduc-
tion, p. 120. The Catalogue, by Knobel, p. 356.
Note in Keil, p. 286. See Marg. N-jte, p. 661.

1. The division : 1) The introdojticn (vers. 1-2);
2) the group of Judah, or the theocratic numbei
seven, under the leading of the Messianic first-born
(vers. 3-18) : a. The declaratiom that are intro
ductory to Judah, Reuben, Simeon, Levi (vers.
3-7); b. Judah the praised, the pr'nce aiiong
his brethren (ver. 8-12); c. the broth'; s associated
with Judah, as types of the Jewish un' \ irsalism, of
the Jewish ministry, and of the Icw'./i public de-
fence : Zebulun, Issachar, Dan (vers. I? '8V, 3) the
group of Joseph, or the universalisti 'Ji, ypiiim;

•JHAP. XLIX. 1-33.

urii

Qumber five, under the leading of the eirthly first-
born (ver. 19-i1) : a. the tribes that are intrbduo-
tory to Joseph's position, the culture tribes : Gad,
Asher, Naphtali (vers. 19-21); b. Joseph, the de-
voted, as the Nazarite (or the one separated) of his
brethren (vers. 22-26) ; c. Benjamin, the dispenser
and the propagator of the universal blessing of Israel
(ver. 27) ; 4) the closing word, and connected with

t, Jacob's testamentary provision for his burial

vers. 28-33).

[Excursus. — Jacob's Dying Vision op the Tkibes
AND THE Messiah. — There is but one part of the
Scripture to which this blessing of Jacob can be as-
signed, without making it a sheer forgery, and that,
too, a most absurd and inconsistent one. It is the
very place in which it appears. Here it fits perfectly.
It is in harmony with all its surroundings ; whilst
its subjective truthfulness — to say nothing now of its
inspiration, or its veritable prophetic character —
gives it the strongest claim to our credence as a fact
in the spiritual history of the world, or of human
experience. There is pictured to us a very aged
patriarch surrounded by his sons. He has lived an
eventful life. He has had much care and sorrow,
though claiming to have seen visions of the Al-
mighty, and to have conversed with angels. His sons
have given him trouble. Their conduct has led him
to study closely their individual characteristics. He
lives in an age when great importance is attached to
the idea of posterity, and of their fortunes, as the
sources of peoples and races. This is more thought
of than their immediate personal destiny. It is, of
all ages, the farthest removed from that sheer indi-
vidualism, which, whether true or false, is now be-
coming so rife in the world. Men lived in their chil-
dren, for the future, as they looked back " to be
gathered to their fathers," in the past. The idea of
a continued identity of life in families, tribes, and
nations, making them the same historical entities age
after age, is in no book so clearly recognized as in
the Bible, and in no part of the Bible is it more
striking than it is in Genesis, though we are present-
ed there with the very roots of history. Along
with this were the ideas of covenant and promise,
which, whether real or visionary, were most peculiar
to that time, and to this particular family. In such
a subjective world, the patriarch lives. At the ap-
proaching close of his long pilgrimage of one hun-
dred and forty-seven years, he gathers around him
his sons, and his sons' sons, to give them his bless-
ing, or his prophetic sentences, as they were regard-
ed in his day. This is, in itself, another evidence of
inward truthfulness. He had derived from his fathers
the belief, that, at such a time, the parental benedic-
tion, or the contrary, carried with it a great spiritual
importance. It was not confined to this family ;
such a belief was very prevalent in the ancient
world. It was a partial aspect of a still more general
opinion, that the declarations of the dying were pro-
phetic. How much of this do we find in Homer. It
is still in the world. The most sceptical would be
cheered by the blessing, and made uneasy by the
malediction of a departing acquaintance, much more,
of a dying father. Besides this, Jacob had specially
inherited the notion, and the feeling, from his grand-
father Abraham and his father Isaac. Thus affected,
he would no more die without such a benedictory
close, than a loving and prudent father, at the pres-
ent day, could leave the earth without making his
testament. Keep aU this in vew, and think how much

more impressive is tBe scene from its being in a for
eign land, whither they had been driven by famine, and
from which, as the firmly-believed promise assured
them, tbey were eventually to go forth a great people.
Having thus placed before us the accessories of
the vision, we may ask the question, was it real I
that is, subjectively real, if the term is not deemed a
paradox. Were these utterances merely formal sen-
tences ? Was it all a ceremony with the dying oW
man, — a solemn one, indeed, but requiring only cer-
tain usual benedictory formulas. Or did he see some-
thing? that is, was there corresponding to each of
these utterances an actual state of soul, visionary,
ecstatic, clairvoyant — call it what you will, — the pro-
duct of an excited imagination, the movement of a
weak or shattered brain, a delirious dream, or a true
psychological insight, dim indeed, irregular, flitting,
fragmentary, yet real as an action of the soul coming
in close view of the supernatural world, and by the
aid of it, seeing something, however shadowly, of the
successions and dependencies in the natural and his
torical ? Think of it as we may, all that need be
contended for here, as most important in the letter
interpretation, is the inner truthfulness of such a
vision state, and its harmonious connection with the
whole subjective life that had preceded it. This
granted, or established, the outward truth these
visions represent, or are supposed to represent, may
be safely trusted to the credence of the serious
thinker. Such a vision, with such antecedents, and
such surroundings, compels a beUef in higher reali-
ties connected with them; though stiU the vision it-
self, if we may so call it, is to be interpreted pri-
marily in its subjective aspect, leaving the inferences
from it to another department of hermeneutics as be-
longing to theology in general, the analogies of Scrip-
ture, and what may be called its dogmaiic, in distinc-
tion from its purely exegetical interpretation (see
Excursus on the Flood, p. 315 and marginal note).
It may be conceded that commentators have been
too minute in their endeavors to trace in this imagery
a connection with particular events in subsequent
history ; as though Jacob had before him the his-
torical event itself, just as it took place, and invented
the imagery as a mode of setting it forth. Better to
have left it as it was, with no attempt to go beyond
what may be supposed to have beenactuaUy seen by
the dying man — flitting images of his sons, as indi-
vidual persons in some future aspects of their genea-
logical history, — these images reflected from his own
spiritual experience of their characteristics, — truly
prophetic, but not getting far out of their individual
traits, as so well known to him by their conduct.
Though all the pictures are thus more or less pro-
phetic, they are still subordinate to one that stands
out in strongest light — the vision ofone coming from
afar, the Shiloh prophecy, wherein is unfolded the
Messianic idea inherited from his father, — a sight he
catches of the Promised Seed, the one " in whom
all nations should be blessed," the " one to whom the
gathering of the peoples (CBS , in the plural, the
Gentiles) should be." This is the central vision,
coming from the central feeling, and around it all
the rest are gathered. They are to it as the histori-
cal frame to the picture. All their importance comes
from it. Judah is more closely connected with this
central vision than all the rest. Joseph we would
have thought of, though Judah's late noble conduct
had done much to draw the father's heart toward!
him ; but here comes in the thought of something
controlling the merely natural subjective state

052

GENESIS, OE THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

The main thing, however, is tBe Messianic idea re-
garded by itself, and for this the history of Jacob
and his father, the feelings and belief in which he
had lived, that ever-yivid idea of a covienaut God,
that other conception of a Goel, or " Redeeming
angel " delivering from all evil, — the very name sug-
gesting the idea of some human kinsniaDship— afford
in ample ground. He calls this one who is to come
by the mysterious name of Shiloh. Commentators
have given themselves unnecessary trouble about
the exact objective poiot indicated by the word. It
may refer to the great Deliverer, or to the great de-
liverance that would characterize his coming. The
closest examination of this anomalous form shows
that, in some way, there enters into every aspect of
it, whether as proper name, or as epithet, the idea
of peace, stillness, gentleness, and yet of mighty
power. It is perfectly described, Isaiah xlii. 2 : " He
shall not cry, nor Uft up his voice, nor cause it to be
heard in the streets; a bruised reed shall he not
break, and the smoking wick he shaU not quench ;
but he shall bring forth righteousness victoriously."
Why does the dying man speak this unusual word
Shiloh ? Unusual then, — perhaps before unuttered,
— unusual since in the form it takes, although the
verbal root is more common. A reason can hardly
be given for it. It was, most likely, a strange, if
not wholly unknown, name to those who then heard
it uttered. We can trace it to no antecedents. It
was a wondrous, a mysterious name. A startling
dream-like character pervades the whole chapter,
with its sudden transitions, its rapt outpourings, its
quick changes of scene, defying all the canons of
any mere rhetorical or poetical criticism ; hut this
vision aspect appears especially in the unexpected
coming in of this remarkable word Shiloh, and the
extraordinary use that is made of it. It suggests
the mysterious ''t<i5 (rendered secret) of Judg. xiii.
18, the Wonderful, xbo of Isaiah ix. 6, and the m-
eommttnicable one. Gen. xxxii. 30, who says, " why
inquirest thou after my name ? " The patriarch him-
self, perhaps, could not have explained, how or why
he used it, or in what way it came to him, whether by
Bome conscious association, or as having its birth in
a sudden arresting of the mind by some new and
wondrous thought, like that which prompted the
strange ejaculation in verse 18. It was intended lo
be mysterious (we may reverently say who believe in
the prophetical character of the vision), that men
might ponder much upon it, and be the better pre-
pared to understand its glorious import, when it
should be fuUy realized upon the earth. The whole
vision is like other prophecy in this, that it is the
remote appearing strangely as seen from a present
standpoint, and through intervening historical scenes
regarded as more or less near. We cannot reduce
the perspective to chronological order. We can
only seize the prominent point of view in the picture,
and feel that the other parts,with their greater or les-
ser degrees of light and shade, are all subordinate.

So, too, there must not be pressed too closely, in
our exegesis, what is said about Judah, and the
BCeptre, and the PpOO , the ruler's staff, or as other-
wise rendered, " the law-giver, from between his
feet." We cannot square it with the monarchy of
Herod, or any precise historical change of magis-
tracy. We cannot make out, as indicated by it, a
Jewish royalty to a certain period, or a Jewish inde-
pen lence, general or partial, to some other period.
But when we view it as expressing chiefly the rela-

tion of Judah to the other tribes, his surviving as i
tribal name, and giving the name Jews {Judtri) tc
the whole Israelitish people, after the other tribe.<
had lost their historical identity, and when we re-
member about what time even this ceased to be, and
the Jews (Jtidcei) became utterly denationalized po-
litically, whether as an independent or a subject
people, we see a light and a power in the picture
which is umnistakable, — a point of view wMch we
may suppose to have flashed upon the seer's mind,
without regarding it as occupied with any precise
historical dates or dynasties, contemplated merely in
their pohtical aspects. Until here (^3 IS) means
unto and then ceasing, or unto and not after. Judah
shall survive them all, but he too shall disappear
when Shiloh comes, and the " gathering of the peo-
ple" takes place. Then was to be fulfilled that
ancient prayer which was sung by the whole Israel-
itish nation before they lost the world-idea founded
on the patriarchal promises, and the later narrow,
exclusive spirit took full possession of them : " That
thy way may be known in the earth, thy saving
health among all nations, — let the peoples praise
thee, 0 God, let all the peoples praise thee." See
Ps. Ixvii. 3, 4, and other similar passages.

What, then, was the historical date of this writ-
ing, and of the vision it records, whether subjective
or objective, genuine or forged? There has been
a strenuous effort to assign it to a later period. And
why? Because it assumes to prophesy, and all
prophecy must have been written after the events.
This is the canon, the bare dictum rather, to which
everything else must yield. Take it, however, out of
its place in Genesis, and the thoughtful mind cannoi
avoid seeing that there is no other which does not
destroy its subjective character, obliterate all the
marks of its inward truthfulness, and make it not
only a lie, a forgery, but a most unmeaning one.
Had it been made up at any other tune, it would
have had more distinctness of historical reference.
What it told us, whether it had been more or less,
would have had a more unmistakable application.
Had it been all a fiction, made after the supposed
events, they would never have been left in such a
dream-hke, shadowy state, unless on the hypothesis
of such a style being carefully imitated, with a skil-
ful throwing in of the antique coloring, and that,
for reasons elsewhere given (see p. 637), would have
been incredible, we might almost say, inconceivable.
There would have been no such irregularities as we
find, no such shadows ; the dim perspective would
have been filled up ; for in any such case it would
have been a sheer forgery, a conscious lie in every
part, with every word and figure showing design. It
would have given evidence of its being the language
of art rather than of emotion which uses words
simply as the vehicles of its utterance, rather than
with any studied aim of conveying precise concep-
tions, whether true or false. The metaphors which,
even in their incongruities, fit so well into the pic-
ture of the patriarch's dying condition, with its ante-
cedents and surroundings, would have been made
more suggestive of the known historical than of
those individual traits on which they are so evidently
grounded. The young lion, the lioness, the foal
bound to the vine, the strong ass between his two
burdens, the serpent by the way, the adder in the
path, the hind let loose and giving goddly words,
the ravening wolf, in the morning devouring the prey
and at night dividing the spoil — all tliese would
either have been entirely left out, ortley would hav(

CHAP. XLIX. ]-33.

653

been made to mean more, in their particular applica-
tions, as well as in their general bearing. They are
far moretrutliful in the supposed vision of the dying
man, than they would be in such a conscious for-
geiy, even though we might regard the former as
only a dream of delirium. The picture, too, of the
future power to whom " the gathering of the peo-
ples should be," would have been painted in more
gorgeous splendor, inslead of being left like a far-
off light, guiding to a sublime hope, and yet giving
•>o dim a view of the Messianic royalty. Thus to
speak of it is not to disparage its true excellence as
viewed from the place it occupies in the earUest
Scripture. It is, indeed, the whole of it, a divine
Tision, with its central glory, yet irregularly refracted
and reflected to us from a broken and uneven human
mirror. This central light has grown brighter in the
trance of Balaam (Numb. xxiv. 17); how much
clearer still has it become, and higher in the pro-
phetic horizon, as it appears in the nearer visions of
the evangelical Isaiah : " Arise, shine, for thy light
is come, and the glory of Jehovah is rising upon
thee."

Again, when we regard the record in question as
the forgery of a later date, its moral aspect wholly
changes. It is strange that they who talk of prophe-
cies made after tlie event do not see what a moral
stigma they cast upon the supposed makers. It is
usual for this " higher criticism " to speak, or affect
to speak, with great respect of the Hebrew prophets
as very sincere and honest men, upright, professing
a stern morality, in advance of their age, etc. ; but
what are they, on this hypothesis, but base liars,
conscious, circumstantial liars, — yea, the boldest as
well as the most impious of blasphemers ! It is no
case of self-deluding prognostication, or of a fervid
zeal creating in the mind a picture of the future,
which the seer honestly believes as coming from the
Lord. They know that the events are not future,
but that they themselves have falsely and purposely
put themselves in the past. They have simply ante-
dated, or forged an old name, turning history into
prediction, and greatly confusing and exaggerating
it to keep up the imposture. And then the daring
impiety of the thing for men professing such awe of
Jehovah, the Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Saba-
oth, with his immutable truth, his everlasting right-
eousness,— the God who especially abhors falsehood,
" who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, — that
fnistrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh the
diviners mad, that tumeth wise men backward and
maketh their knowledge foolishness, — that oonfirm-
eth the word of his servants, and performeth the
counsel of his messengers." Take, for example, the
prophecies of "the later Isaiah," as this "rational
school " are fond of styling him, and whom they so
greatly praise for the loftiness of his morality. He
lives after the events he assumes to predict, he
knows that they have come to pass, and yet with
what bold blasphemy he throws himself upon Jeho-
vah's prescience as the attestation of his prophetic
power, and challenges the ministers of false religions
to produce anything like it in the objects of their wor-
ship : " Let them bring forth and show us what shall
happen ; let them show the former things, and things
to come, that we may know that ye are gods; who
hath declared /rom the beginning, that we may know ?
and before the time, that we may say, He is true ?
Behold the former things are come to pass, and new
things do I declare ; before they spring forth I tell
you of them " See how this impostor who pretends

to predict a captivity that ie past, represents God u
specially challenging to himself foreknowledge, and
proclaiming it to be the ground of trust in hiu
messenger : " I am God, and there is none like me
declaring the end from the beginning, and from an
cient times the things that are not yet done ; calUng
from the East the man that executeth my counsel
from a far country ; yea, I have spoken it, I will a\ao
briug it to pass."

The absurdity and difficulty of such a hypotheaii
become still more striking when considered in refer
ence to this patriarchal document. Had it been a
concoction of later times, some things in it would
certainly not have appeared as they actually do in
the vision as it has come down to us. Lange has
well shown this In what he says, p. 660, about the
tribes of Levi and Simeon, and those condemning
utterances, which, neither in the times of the judges
nor of the kings, would the tribes of Reuben and
Dan, much less the proud Levitical priesthood, have
ever borne. Above all does such a view become
incredible when this pretended ancient prophecy is
ascribed to Nathan, as is done by Bohlea, Kiiobel and
others. Who was Nathan ? and what is there re-
corded of him that can be supposed to have made
him the fit instrument for such an imposition. We
have but little about him, but that is most distinct.
See 1 Chron. xvii. where he brings to David the mes-
sage concerning the Lord's house, and 2 Sam. xii
The latter passage, especially, presents an unmistak-
able character, warranting a most intense admiratior
of the man, He is no mere theoretical moralist
Seneca wrote some of the choicest ethical treatises,
containing sentiments which some have represented
as vying with, or even surpassing, those of Paul;
and yet he was more than suspected of conniving at
some of the worst crimes of his imperial master
Nero. How different the character, and the attitude,
of the old Hebrew prophet 1 How sternly practical
was he, as well as theoretically holy. The king had
covered over his adultery by marriage. Had Seneca
been there, or some philosophical courtier of his
class, he would have pronounced it well, whilst of
the murder, and the manner of it, he would have
thought himself, perhaps, not called to speak ; see-
ing that such events were not strangers to thrones
and palaces, and a prudential respect for authority
might justiiy silence, when speech, perhaps, might
be useless as well as dangerous. The Hebrew seer
was of another school. He appears before the king,
now in the height of his power, Kabbah fallen, and
all his enemies subdued. He addresses him in that
parable of the poor man and his Iamb, which has
ever challenged, and must continue to challenge, the
admiration of the world. Not by ethical abstrac-
tions, but by a direct appeal to the conscience, lying
oft below the individual's consciousness, yet most
mysteriously representing to him the voice of God,
he uncovers the strange duality of the human soul,
and brings out the monarch's sentence, yea, even
his malediction, upon himself: "As Jehovah liveth,
the man that hath done this thing shall surely die."
Every reader of the Bible is familiar with the scene.
The prophet's interview with the self-forgetting king
is unsurpassed by anything in the world's literature,
historic, epic, or dramatic. The human soul never
appeared purer or loftier than in that wise, that
gentle, and, at the same time, most powerful, rebuke
of royal unrighteousness. This is what we have of
Nathan. And now to think of such a man delib-
erately sitting down to fabricate a lie, to personal*

654

GENESIS, OR THE FiRST BOOK OF MOSES.

the character of old Jacob, the revered father of his
nation, treating with contempt the old records or old
traditions of hig day, making no scruple of rejecting
them, or of altering them in any way to suit his pur-
poses, making them falsely seem prior to events al-
ready past, and with all this, most absurdly as well
as dishonestly, assuming to foist upon his cotempo-
raries, at that later day, what they had never before
heard of as connected with the sacred ancestral
name. Think of him minutely forging the scene
presented by the dying old man, and the sons sur-
rounding his bed, racking his invention, like some
modern Chatterton or Defoe, to find figures, and
speeches, and untique idioms, to put into his mouth,
conscious all the time of lying in the whole and
every part — such inconsistent, unmeaning lying,
too — and then palming it off as an old prophecy!
Incredible ! We could not believe it of the most
BcofSng Sadducee of Jacob's race, how much less of
the truthful, incorruptible, holy Nathan, in name
and character so like the one whom our Saviour
pronounced "an Israehte in whom there was no
guile."

There is no need of going farther in this to meet
the rationalist. The same mode of argument, and
from the same point of view, may be applied to all
their hypotheses of pseudo Jacobs, pseudo Isaiahs,
apocryphal Moses, and personated Jeremiahs. The
later they bring down this patriarchal document, es-
pecially, the greater becomes the wildness and the
absurdity. Tlieir theories of prophecy after the
event, it will bear to be repeated, are utterly incon-
sistent with any moral respect for these old Jewish
lights, whom they affect to admire as far-seeing men,
most patriotic, most humanitarian, elevated in their
views of reform, rising above the prejudices of a
dogmatic legal tradition, righteous beyond the for-
mal worship and superstitions of their times, but not
to be regarded as veritable seers of the future, or as
specially inspired by God in any way different from
all " lofty-minded men," or as assuming tn be such,
except in a rhetorical or poetical way. Most pious
Ere they, most reverent, yet have they no scruple
about announcing in the name of Jehovah events as
foretold which they knew to be past at the time of
the announcement, or to be utterly false as assumed
divine messages. There were, it is true, some men
of old who did this, but in what abhorrence they
were held we learn from Jer. xxiii. 26-32, and 1
Kmgs xxii. 19, 20.

There arises here a sharp issue, as has been al-
ready said, but it cannot be evaded. There is no
honest middle-ground of compilation and tradition
mixed together. The Bible statements are of such
a nature as not to allow the supposition. They are
so peculiar, so linked together, they form such a se-
rial unity, that we must beheve it all a forgery, Na-
than, David, as well as Jacob and his blessing, or we
must give credence to it as being, all together, a
coherent, chronological, consistent history. (See p.
B9, introduction, and marginal note.) It is, through-
rat, delusion, imposture, forgery, nonentity, or it is
Ib^ most serious and truthful chapter in all this
world's history. If the former view staggers even
the most sceptical, — if, in itself, it is more incredible
than any supernatural events recorded in such for-
geries, then must we come back heartily to the old
belief, — the Bible a most truthful book,' — all true
(allowing for textual inaccuracies)— all subjectively
true, at all events, although admitting of human mis-
eonceptions in respect to the science and mediate

causalities of things narrated, or that which often
comes to the same thing, human imperfections ncce»
sarily entering into the language employed as the
medium of their record. In other words, everything
is honestly told, and believed by the writers to be
just as they have told it. Whether it be narratiTe,
description, statistical statement, precept, sentiment,
thought, devotional feeling, pious emotion of any
kind, moral musing, sceptical soliloquizing, as in
Ecclesiastes, passionate expostulation, as in Job, pro-
phetic announcements grounded on visions or voices
believed to come from the Lord, — all is given just aa
it was experienced, known, or believed to be known,
heard, received from accredited witnesses living in
or near the very times, conceived, felt, remembered
seen by the eye of sense, seen in the ecstatic trance,
dreamed in the visions of the night, or in any way
present to their souls as knowledge, thought, mem-
ory, or conception, most carefully and truthfully
recorded. There is no fiction here, no invention, no
art, no " fine writing," no mere aiming at rhetorical
effect, — no use of metaphors, images, or impassioned
language, except as the expression of inward vivid
and emotional states that imperatively demanded
them as the best medium for their utterance.

We must choose between this or the grossest
forgery. The more the issue is distinctly seen, the
more certain, for every thoughtful mind, the only
decision it allows. This human, so appearing, de-
mands the superhuman and divine. This natural,
subjective truthfulness once admitted, thoroughly
and heartily admitted, the supernatural cannot be
excluded. It must come in somewhere in both its
forms, — whether it be the objective supernatural
which the Scripture itself records, or the inward,
spiritual supernatural, still more wonderful, connect-
ed with the very existence of such a book in such a
worid.— T. L.]

EXEGETICATi AND CSITICAl.

1. Yers. 1, 2. The introduction. — That I may
teU you. — He has called them to his dying bed ;
but its highest purpose is that he may tell them how
he himself lives on in them. — That 'which shall
befall you. — According to their dispositions and
character, which he has long known. He announces
to them the destiny which shall befall them as a con-
sequence of their characters as shown in the events
of their lives, but this as seen in the divine light. —
In the last days, Q^ti^n ni-inK3. — The expres
sion is used in reference to the world time as a whole,
and denotes, especially, Che Messianic time of the
completion (Isa. ii. 2 ; Ezek. xxxviii. 8, and other
places ; see Keil, p. 284). — Ye sons of Jacob,
hearken unto Israel your father. — Sons of Ja-
cob are they predominantly ; sons of Israel must
they evermore become. From nature and from
grace, from human disposition and from divine
guidance is their future to be formed.

2. Vers. 3-18. T/ie group of Judah. a. The
blessings (hat are introductory to Judah: Reuben,
Simeon, Levi. — Reuben, thou art my first-bom.
— My strength. The meaning of first-bom explained.
He is the first fruits of his vigor spiritually as well
as bodily. — The excellency of dignity and the
excellency of povrer. — A reference to the dividing
of the birthright into two rights. In the dignity
there lie together the priesthood and the double in-
heritance. The power is the germ of the warhkt

CHAP. XLIX. 1-B3.

655

chieftainship. Further on Jacob disposes of the
power in favor of Judah ; the double inheritance he
giTea to Joseph. The priesthood does not here
specially appear ; and it is this feature that speaks
for the antiquity of the blessing. — Unstable as
water. — The verb used here denotes literally the
bubbling and exhalation of boiling water. Spirit-
ually it denotes a rash and passionate impulsiveness,
LXX, f^v$piaas. For other interpretations see Kno-
bel. This trait of character is immediately ex-
plained : — Because thou wentest up to thy fa-
ther's bed (see ch. xxxv. 22). — This impulsiveness
shows itself likewise in his offer of his two sons as
hostages. Later it shows itself, in the tribe, in the
insurrection of Dathan and Abiram, who desired a
share in the priesthood — a claim which, doubtless,
had reference to the lost birthright of their father.
At a still later period, the tribe of Reuben, and that
of Gad, desire to have their inheritance specially
given them together in the conquered district, on the
other side of Jordan, Numb, xxxii. 1 ; in which case
their request was granted on condition that they
should help tight out the war for the conquest of
Canaan. Through this Reuben gets an isolated po-
sition on the southwestern border, in the pasture
land over the Arnon. Again, in the erection of the
altar at the Jordan, on their return (Jos. xxii.), there
manifests itself the sanae old impetuosity, which
might have occasioned a civil war, had they not suf-
ficiently excused it. — Thou shalt not excel (that
is, thou shalt not have the dignity). See 1 Chron. v.
1. Joseph has the double ioheritance, and, so far,
the mS3 (or birthright) ; whilst Judah became
Drince. To a certain degree, therefore, as Delitzsch
"emarks, the first-born of Rachel comes into the
place of the first-born of Leah. " In order that God's
."ighteous ruling here may not be arbitrarily imitated
by men, the law forbids (Deut. xxi. 15-17) that any
preference should be shown to the first-bom sons of
i beloved wife, over those bom of one less favored."
Delitzsch. The good will, and fraternal fidehty,
which belonged to Reuben's character, appear in
the history of the tribes. Points of interest in the
character of this tribe: the victory, in connection
with the Gadites, over the Amorite king Sihon ; also
over the Gadarenes (1 Chron. v. 8-10). The less
significant blessing of Moses (Deut. xxxiii. 6), sim-
ply indicating the danger of transgression. A re-
proach cast upon them (Judg. v. 15) for their di-
visions, etc., hi the nation's peril. — He went up to
my couch. — Jacob speaks indirectly (of him) in
the third person. Was it because he turned away
from him in displeasure ? We may rather suppose
that he turns himself to the other sons in order to
fix their attention upon his sentence. — Simeon and
Levi. — True brothers in their disposition, as it ap-
peared in their treatment of the Shechemites.
Therefore it is, that they are included in one
declaration. Its most obvious aim is to revoke for
them also their leadership. — Instruments of cru-
elty.— They must have been something else than
swords. Clericus, Knobel, and others, understand
DfllnSs'S as denoting malicious and crafty purpose,
marriage proposals, etc., an explanation that seems
not easy.* — Into their secret — As he would clear
him3elf from their fanaticism, so also, in respect to

* [Cn^nlD'O. There is hardly any warrant for ren-
iering this their habitations, as in our English version. A
better rendering would be swords, hut the one to he pre-
ferred U that ot Lnf . db Dieu, Critica Sacra, p. 22. He de-

the prophetic destiny would he clear his people, and
the Church of God. It is the very nature of a se
oret plot, or of a factious conspiracy, to make itself
of more importance than the community, and Ihaa
to produce disunion.* — Unto their assembly,
mine honor. — My life, or my soul (Ps. vii. 6 ; xvi.
9). The expression here is well chosen. The b»
liever cannot trust his personality, with its divin«
dignity, to a congregation in which secret conspira-
cies, and fanaticism, are allowed to be the ruling
powers. So, too, is the expression b~p »ignificant-
ly chosen, as also the verb HIT'. There is no union,
no communion, between the soul of Israel, and th«
companionship of such fleshly zeal. — They slew a
man. — Man is taken collectively. — A wall (an Ox
Lange more properly renders itf). — They cut the
sinews of the hinder foot of the cattle in order lo
destroy them. This was done after the manner of
war mentioned Josh. xi. 6, 9 ; 2 Sam. viii. 4, with
relation to the horses of the Canaanites and Syrians.
According to ch. xxxiv. 28, they could not have done
it to any cattle that they could carry off with them ;
and this, therefore, must be taken as a supplemental
account. — Cursed be their anger, for it was
fierce (Lange, violent). — They were not personally
cursed, but only their excess and their angry doings
neither are they reproved for simply being angry. —
I will divide them. — A prophetic expression ol
divine authority. So speaks the spirit of Israel,
giving command for the future, as the spirit of Paul,
though far absent in space (1 Cor. v. 3). This dis-
persion was the specific remedy against their insur-
rectionary, wrathful temper. In the first place, they
could not dwell together with others as tribes, and,
secondly, even as single ' tribes must they be broken
up and scattered. Thus it happened to the weakest
of these two tribes (Simeon, Numb. xxvi. 14), in
that it held single towns, as enclosed territory, within
the tribe of Judah (Josh. xix. 1-9) with which it
went to war in company (Judg. i. S-ll), and in
which it seems gradually to have become absorbed.
In the days of Hezekiah, a portion of them made an
expedition to Mount Seir (1 Chron. iv. 42). In the
blessing of Moses (Deut. xxxiii.), Simeon is not
named. Levi, too, had no tribal inheritance, but
only an allotment of cities. At a later day, by rea-
son of his tithe endowment, he is placed in a more
favorable relation to the other tribes ; nevertheless,
he lacked the external independence, and because of
the privations they suffered, they yielded themselves
sometimes, as individuals, to the priestly service of
idolatry. The turning, however, of Levi's dispersion
to a blessing, threw an alleviating light upon the lot

rives it from the Arabi

lie -AjO,

to deceive, practise strata-

gems. The whole phrase would then denote instruments of
violence, their treacheries, equivalent to instruments of vi<>>
lence and treachery. How well this suits the context ifl
easily seen. Late Arabic Version of Smith and Van Dyke,

j^ f? f ■ jL.^. their swords. — T. L.]

* [For verunreinigt in Lange, read veruneinigt.—T. L.]
t [lillj ilTiSS. Our English version, digged down a
wall, \s clearly wrong, aa, to make that sense, it should have
been IIUJ J besides, npS is never used in such a way. It
is applied, Josh. xi. 9, to houghing, as the old English word
is, or to cutting the hamstrings of cattle to disahlo Ihera.
The par:illelism here denotes the intensity of their wrath aa
it raged against man and beast. Thereisno need of referring
(t5"'!< to HamOT alone. It is a general term— mart tftej/ rieio,
ox they Aamsirun^— everything fell before their ferooity.—
T. L.]

656

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

of Simeon, who, together with Benjamin, came into
closest union with Judah.

b. Judah (vers. 8-12). — Judah, thou art he
nrhom thy brethren shall praise. — Luther hap-
pily remarks that Jacob saya this as one who hitherto
had been in vain looking about for the right one :
Judah, thou art the man. For the history of Judah
and the literature pertaining to this blessing, see
Knobbl, p. 362. — Shall praise. — A play upon the
flame Judah, as meaning one who is celebrated. At
a later day this name (Judea, Jews) passes over to
the whole people. Originally it is the name of one
for whoin thanks are given to God. — Thy hand
shall be upon the neck. — The enemies flee or bow
themselves ; as victor, or lord, he lays his hand upon
their necks. His power in peace corresponds to his
greatness in war ; a contrast which, further on, ap-
pears still more strongly. — Shall bow down be-
fore thee. — He, the foremost and strongest against
the foe, shall, therefore, be chief among his brethren.
" That he should be a T53, a prince, among them
(1 Chron v. 2), is his reward for the part he took in
that blessed turn which the history of Israel received
tlirough .foseph." DeUtzsch. — Thy father's chil-
dren.— All of them ; not merely thy mother's sons,
but all thy brethren. — A lion's whelp. — n^5 is to
be distinguished from "i^E3 as quite a young lion.
The expression denotes, therefore, the innate lion-
nature which Judah had shown from his youth up,
not only Judah personally, but the tribe especially.
His faults were no malicious ones ; on the contrary,
he early withstood his brethren in their evU design,
and, at a later period, became their reconcihng me-
diator before Joseph. — From the prey, my son,
thou art gone up. — By Knobel and others ttiis lan-
guage is interpreted of the lion seizing his prey in
the plain, and then carrying it up to his abode in the
mountains (Cant. iv. 8), which seems especially ap-
plicable to Judah, as dn'elling in the hill-country.
We prefer, however, the interpretation of Herder,
Gesenius, and others, who understand the word of
growing, advancing in strength and size, and espe-
cially because it is said ri"iMB, from the prey, in the
sense of through, or by the means of, the prey;
since it is with the prey that the lion goes back to
the hills. At the same time, growth, in warlike
ieeds of heroism, forms a contrast to the quiet yet
fearful ambush of the lion. The old lion is stronger
than the young one ; and more fearful still is the
lioness, especially in defence of her young. So lies
down the strong-grown Judah ; who shall venture to
attack, or drive him up for the chase ? This pro-
phetic lion-figure was especially realized in the royal
and victorious dominion of David ; although even in
the wilderness, the tribe of Judah marched before
the other tribes — a figure of the young lion. — The
sceptre shall not depart from Judah. — The scep-
tre is the mark of royal power. The ruler's staff,
pl>TiZ, seems, from the parallelism, to express the
same thing. The word denotes that which estab-
lishes, makes laws ; hence the ruler's staff. Here,
however, is meant the staff or mace o' the warrior
ch'ef ; and so it would be the ducal, or field-marshal's
staff. In correspondence with this the term i^bn
(at his feet) would seem like an allusion to the army
that follows the chieftain, although the expression
would primarily present the figure of the chief sit-
ling upon his throne, with his sceptre between his
feet In respect to the sceptre, and representations

of princes with the sceptre between their feet, «>f
Knobel, p. 364. If we had to choose, we should
prefer the interpretation of Ewald and others, accord-
ing to which vbjn here, according to the connec-
tion, must mean the people or army. For other ex-
planations see Knobel. Judah is not merely to pog-
sess the sceptre, but also command with it, and rule
with vigor.* — Until Shiloh come. — [Lange trans-
lates, until he (Judah) comes home as the rest-
giver.] The expression "S"!? does not denote tht
temporal terminus where Judah's lordship ceases,
but the ideal terminus where it reaches its gloriouf
perfection. According to the first supposition, the
place has been, in various ways, interpreted of the
Messiah. With the dominion of Herod did the scep-
tre depart from Judah, and, therefore, then must the
Messiah, or Shiloh, have made his appearance. The
different interpretations of the word Shiloh do not
require of us here a more copious exegesis ; we may
simply refer to the commentaries. There are, 1. The
verbal prophetic Messianic interpretations, that
n'b^ii; is the abstract for the concrete (see the verb
nbia), and denotes the author of tranquiUiiy, the
Messiah. This is the old Jewish, the old Catholic,
and the old Protestant interpretation. Those who
still hold it are Hengstenberg, Schroder, Keil and
other?, as also Hoftnanu, according to his later view.
Modifications : a. It is from b^lU flim, and "i, and
so means his son (see, on the contrary, Keil) ; b. the
word stands for ifelU^lb MBS; until he comes to
whom it belongs ; namely, the sceptre. This inter-
pretation is made to depend upon a false application
of the passage Ezek. xxi. 2Y. In a similar way the
LSX, eofs hv lA^p TO. atroKfifjLeva air^, or 3j anoKeiTot
(according to Aquila and others) ; the Vulgate, qvi
ndttendus est, from the supposition of another verb
(nbd); 2. unmessianic interpretations: u. Shiloh
is the same as Shalomo, king Solomon himself (Abu
said and others). — Shiloh denotes the place Silo
(Shiloh), where the ark was set up after the conquest
of Canaan (Josh, xviii. 1); and in the sense until
lie come, that is, generally, until they came (Herder
and Tucli) ; b. Knobel's view : until the rest ( nbu )
comes, and to it shaU the obedience of the people be;
3. typical interpretations : a. Until he comes to rest
(Hofmann's earlier view) ; b. until he comes to Shi-
loh, but in the sense that Shiloh is the type of the
city of the heavenly rest, the type of that into which
Christ has entered ; o. to these we add our inter-
pretation : until he himself comes home (namely,
iVom his warlike career) as the Shiloh, the rest-
bringer, the establisher of peace. Suggestions in
opposition to the preceding interpretations : 1. That
of the persouiil Messiah. The idea was not fully de-
veloped in the time of Jacob. Moreover, by placing
him along with Judah, the connection is interrupted.
Keil charges Kurtz with presumptuously determining
how far, or how much, the patriarch should be able
to prophecy ; but he himself seems to acknowledge
no regular development in the prediction. 2. Shiloh
as a place. That would be, in the first place, a geo-
graphical prediction, from which the mention of

* t"^"^!?? means obedience, revercTU e, and not gathering.
as the TargumB and Jewish commentators give it. This ia
evident from Prov. xxx. 17, CX rin|3^ , where it '.'enotef

filial piety, as also from the Arahic root ^*- , etyroologi.
cally identical with it, and which is verv common. — T. L.1

CHAP. XLIS. 1-33.

657

Sidon greatly differs ; in the second place, until the
conquest of Canaan, Joshua, of the tribe of Ephraim,
was leader, so that the sceptre did not belong to Ju-
dah. This explanation would be more tolerable if
taken in the typical sense of Delitzsch ; only we
would hare to regard Shiloh as the ideal designation
of the city of rest, transcending altogether the con-
ception of Shiloh as a place. But now Keil shows
us that Shiloh can be no appelliitive, but only a
proper name, originally ",ii"'lE. 3. There is finally
the interpretation 'h itrx, which is verbally doing
great violence to the expression by taking it as an
abbreviated or mutilated form. — Other interpretations
demand from us no attention. The grounds of our
own interpretation : 1. That Shiloh, as concrete, may
denote not only one who rests, but also one who
brings or establishes rest (see Keil, p. 290) ; 2. xi3
denotes often a returning home, or forma a contrast
to a former departure from home ; 3. an analogy in
favor of our view, according to which we take nb'iJ
as in apposition with the subject Judah, may be
found in Zach. ix. 9 : " Thy king eometh unto thee,
just " (a righteous one), P^'^IS T\^ niz'^ — that is, in
the attribute of righteous rule ; 4. this explanation
alone denotes the degree of unfoldment which the
prophecy had received in the patriarchal age. First,
the Messiah is implicitly set forth in " the seed of
the woman," then with Seth and Shem, then with
Abraham and his seed, afterward with Jacob and
Israel, and, finally, here with Judah. What, there-
fore, is said verbally of Judah, relates typically to the
Messiah. He is here, in the same full, theocratic
sense, the prince of peace, as in other places Israel
is the sou of God (Hos. xi. 1 ).* — Binding his foal
unto the vine. — The territory o^ Judah is distin-
guished for vineyards and pasture-land, especially
near Hebron and Engedi. On account of the abund-
ance of vines, " they are so little cared for, that the
traveller ties to them his beast. In the oldest times
the ass, together with the camel, was the animal
usually employed in travel ; as the Hebrews seem
not to have had horses for that purpose before the
times of David and Solomon. The ass also suits
better here as the animal for ridingin time of peace."
Knobel. The same : He washes his garment in wine
— that is, wine is produced in such abundance that
it can be applied to such a purpose ; a poetical hy-
perbole, as in Job xxix. 6. On account of the men-
tion of blood, the passage has, in various ways, been
interpreted allegorically of the bloody garment of
David, or of the Messiah (Isa. Ixiii). — His eyes red
with wine. — (Lange translates it dark gleaming.)
He shall be distinguished for dark lustred eyesf
and for white teeth ; a figure of the richest and most
ornate enjoyment ; for there can be no thought here
of debauchery — just as little as there was any idea

* [The best and fullest discussion of the Shiloh prophe-
cy, with a collection and critical examination of the author-
ties, ancient and modem, may be found in Br. Samuel H.
Turner's excellent commentary, modestly entitled, "A Com-
panion to the Book of Gei.esis," pp. 371-388, especially his
comparison of the Jewish Targmns and the old versions. —
T. L.)

t r2'^;^S5 ^h'^h'Dri. The difficulty all vanishes if we

read, with the Samaritan codex, "hib^n (the slightest of
Tariations, il for H). The LXX and Vulgate have evi-
dently followed It — x*^P°^**^°' "' h4>9a\fioi — pulcliriores sunt
ft.ll/i. Compare ■B"' b-'b", Ezck. xxviii. 12 ; ^S"i bbpB.
lf». 1. 2.-T. L.]

42

of drunkenness when the brothers of Joseph beeamt
merry at the banquet, or in the marriage-supper,
John ii.

u. The brothers associated with Judah : Zebulun
Issachar, Dan. Vers. 13-18. — Zebulun, at the
haven of the sea. — Zebulun extends between two
■seas, the Galilean and the Mediterranean, though
not directly touching upon the latter (Josh. xix. 10) ;
we do not, therefore, see why the word D^S^ should
made us think merely of the Mediterranean. The
mention of ships denotes that he had a call to com.
merce; especially when it is said that he extendi
unto Sidon. This blessing (Deut. xxxiii. 19 ; Josn-
PHDS: Ani. V. ], 22; Bell. Jud. iii. 3, 1) is in the
highest sense universalistic (as distinguished from
theocratic). — Issachar, a strong ass. — Literally,
an ass of bone. He possessed a very fruitful district,
especially the beautiful plain of Jezreel (Josh. xiii.
l"? ; comp. Judg. v. 15). In the rich enjoyment of
his land, he willingly bore the burden of labor and
tribute imposed on his agriculture and pasturage.
The figure here employed has nothing mean about
it.* The Oriental ass is a more stately animal
than the Western. " Homer compares Ajax to an
ass ; the stout caliph, Merwan II., was named the aes
of Mesopotamia." Knobel.- — And he saw that
rest was good (Jos. De Bella Jud. iii. 3, 2). —
We are not to think here of servitude " under a
foreign sovereignty ; " yet still the expression tribu-
tary ("las' Dcb) is used of the Canaauites and of
prisoners taken in war; moreover, it may be said
that the Israehtish disposition towards servitude was
especially prominent in this tribe.— Dan shall
judge. — As he is the first son of a handmaid who ia
mentioned, it is the -efore said of him, with empha-
sis, that he shall h ,ire a ful' inheritance, a declara-
tion which avails for the sons like him in this re
spect. It may, however, be well understood of them
on the ground that they were adopted by the legiti-
mate mothers Rachel and Leah. The expression
shall Judge is a play upon the name Dan. He shall
judge as any one of the tribes. By many this ia re-
ferred to his self-government, on the ground of the
tribe's independency (Herder and others). Accord-
ing to others (Ephraim, Knobel) the word relates to
hia transitory supremacy among the twbes ; as in the
days of Samson. At all events, in the life of the
strong Samson there appears that craft in war which
is here especially ascribed to Dan. Nevertheless,
the expression he shall judge denotes, primarily, a
high measure of independence. The tribe of Dan
was crowded in its tract between Ephraim and the
Philistines (see Knobel, p. 369), and, therefore, a
part of it wandered away to the extreme boundary

• [How the merest prejudice, soraetimes, affects our view
of events, and destroys the power of what might otherwise
be most impressive ! There is hardly any miracle in the
Old Testiiment that has more of a significant moial lesson
than the rebuke of Balaam, the mad prophet, by the mouth
of the beast on which he rode- See the use made of it 2
Peter ii. 16. As an example, too, of the supernatural, there
is no more objection to be m;ide to it (except the general
one; than though an angel had spoken fi-om the sky, wbicli
would have been thought nublime, at least. And yet foi
how many mii ds has this miserable modem prejudice, this
unfounded contempt for the animal named, destioyed the
effect of the miracle, and turned all allusion to it into a
standing jewt, as it has also irrationallj^ belittled Hornet's
realty fine comparison. The ignoble view of the animal
has bad the same effect in making an qfendiculum of oui
Saviour's most significant miracle of the demons and thi
swine. Bible interprf;V":rM, ciitics, and especially " ration*
alists," should be above anything of the kind. — T. Ii.l

658

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

on ttie north, surpriecd the Sidonian colony Lais, at
the foot of Lebanon, and established there a new
uit.y, named Dan, on the ruins of the old (Josh. xix.
47 ; Judg. xviii. 1, 21) — Dan shall be a serpent
by the way. — The word "'n'' may stand poetically
for n-in-' (Gesen. § 128, 2), and so the form is to be
regarded; out of which may arise tl)e question,
whether the figure that follows is to be taken in a
medial or in a vicious sense. In respect to this, we
hold that the sense is primarily medial, but that there
may be a vicious allusion. The war stratagems of
Samson are not reckoned to his disadvantage ; and
yet cunning in war passes easily into malicious guile,
as it appears in the figure of the adder, and as it
was actually practised in the surprise of the peace-
ful city Lais. " The viper (cerast) * has in a special
degree this common property of the serpent tribe
(cb. iii 1). It lays itself in holes, and rests in the
road, and falls unexpectedly upon the traveller. It
is of the color of the earth, and there is danger
from the lightest tread (Diod. Sic iii. 49)." Knobel.
The serpent in the path is by the Targumists, and
some church fathers, interpreted of Samson. By
Epliraim, Theodoret, and others, it is referred to
Antichrist ; whereto Luther remarks : Puto diabo-
lum hnjua fahulcE auctorem fuisse (see Keil, p. 298).
It must alwavs seem remarkable that Dan should be
left out in the enumeration of the tribes in the Apoca-
lypse.— I have waited for thy salvation, O
IiOrd, — In the exhaustion of the death-struggle, the
patriarch here utters a sighing interjaculation. Was
it on account of a foresight he had of the future
degradation of the tribe of Dan into the practice of
idolatry, or of its struggle with the Philistines, or
would he declare by it that there was a higher salva-
tion than any achieved by Samson ? In no one of
these ways does the position of the ejaculation seem
to be clearly explained, but only by the supposition
that he makes in it a division among his benedic-
tions, separating thereby the group of Judah from
that of Josepli.

3. Vers. 19-21. TTie group of Joseph- — a. The
tribes that are hdroduetory : Gad, Asher, Naphtali.

— Gad, a troop shaU overcome him We can

only make an attempt to carry into a translation the
repeated play upon words that is here found. Gad
occupied on the other side of the Jordan, and was
in many ways invaded and oppressed by the eastern
hordes, but victoriously drove them back (see 1
Chi on. V. 18 ; xii. 8-15). We must here call to

* ["''5^5123 . Hebrew Dames of animals are eminently
cbaracteristic, as they are, indeed, in all languages, when-
ever they can be traced. It is not enough, thereiore, to re-

fer this to the Syriac root v '=i'=l ^, to crefpt ns Geseniiis

doea. That would only give the generic name serins. This
was evidently a venomous and most malignant serpent. It
is rendered adder in our version ; Vulgate cerastfs. As the
words Double Jin and Ain Wau are closely allied, especial-
ly in their intensive conjugations, this name, as here used,
may help in fixing the meaning of that diihcult word, Cj^tU .
as employed Gen. iii. 1.^ (sec marginal note p. 235). It may
have the sense of lytng in vjait (insidiandi), or of stinging.
Doth of which well suit the passage in Genesis Cat least m
one of its applications, to which the other seems a parono-
mastic accommodation) and the figure intended here. It
was, probably, some thougjit derived from this name, as
denoting a very malignant animal, and a resemblance to the
old serpent, Gen. iii, 15^ that led some of the old interpre-
teiB to connect Dan with Antichrist. If Jacob could be
supposed to have had a glimpse of such an idea, it would
better explain the sudden ejaculation that follows, than any
ether mere historical reference that has been mentioned as
Miggestive of it. — T. LI

mind the brave warriors from Mount Gilead, in thi
time of the Judges, and especially of Jephthah. Ie
this power of defence Gad is akin to Joseph. — Oul
of Asher his bread (shall be) fat. — Asher had
one of the most productive districts by the Mediter-
ranean, extending from Carmel to the Phoenician
boundary, rich in wheat and oil ; but together with
the fertility of his soil, the blessing expresses also
his talent for using and honoring the gifts of nature
in the way of culture. A second feature that is
found in Joseph. But this is also especially true of
Naphtali. — A hind let loose. — There are presented
of him two distinct features: he is a beauteous and
active warrior, comparable to the so much praised
gazelle (2 Sam. ii. 18, etc.). The word nnblT finds
its explanation in Job xxxix. 5 ; see Keil, p. 299. —
The second trait : he giveth goodly words. — The
first has been especially referred to the victory under
Barak, of the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun over
Jabin ; the second to the song of Deborah. At all
events, Naphtali is praised for his rich command of
language. As he himself, like the gazelle, is poet-
ical in his appearance, so also is his speech rich in
poetry. Not without its importance is the reference
to Is. ix. 1, Matt. iv. 15, and the fact that the preach-
ing of the gospel first proceeded from these distiicts.
Yet they did not strictly belong to Naphtali. The
word, by many, is interpreted of the terebinth, " he
is a slender, fast-growing terebinth" (V. Bohlen)
There is but little pertinency in this. The traits of
Naphtali prepare us especially for Joseph.

b. Joseph. Vers. 22-26. Joseph comes before
us: 1. Asa fruit-tree; 2. as an unconquerable ar-
cher ; 3. as the darhng of his father ; 4. as the
Nazarite, or one separated from his brethren. — A
fruitful bough (literally, son of a fruit-tree). — Its
place is by a well in a garden. Its daughters — its
twigs — run over the garden wall. The word STIB
contains an allusion to Ephraim. Other interpretar
tions see in Knobel (n"iB=a^na, ovicula). — The
archers have sorely grieved him. — The figure
does not present to us here the past enmity of the
brethren (to which many refer it), but the enmities
which the tribe of Manasseh had especially to en-
counter from the famed Arabian archere.* Gideon,

• [It is diflicult for us to agree with Dr. Lange here.
The view seems to proceed from a misconception of the true
nature of Jacob's subjective state. What did he see in his vis-
ion ? Was it, as is most likely, the actual figures, such as the
lion going up to the hills, the serpent by the way, the rider
falling backward, an ass lying down, a flying hind, archera
shooting at their object, a sceptre departing, and a people
gatbeiing, a ravening wolf, etc., as supponed representatives
of historical events, so to be interpreted by himself or oth-
ers ; or did be see something like the hLstorical events them-
selves, and invent the metaphors for their expression ? In
the last case, individunl characteristiGS In the sons, as known
to his experience, are no longer the suggestive grounds, but
something entiiely separate and arbitrary. Of was he,
throughout, a mere mechanical uttorer of word.s, having
nothing in actual conception corresponding to them '{ If we
take the former view, then the suggestive ground of this
archer picture was something in Joseph's individual his-
tory, though it may well be regarded as typical, or pre-
figurative, of that of his descendants, — an idea in harmony
with all the Biblical representations of this most peculiar
and typical people. The same ie:narks apply to what Dr.
Lange and others have said in reopect to the ejaculation,
ver. 18, as though it were prompted by some actual view of
Dan'B idolatry, or of Samson fighting with the Philistines,
seen as historical events actually taking place in vision.
Better regard it as entirely disconnected, a <judden crying
out from some emotion having its ori.ein in view of some
salvation higher than these, and for which he had been
waiting, — a torm which can in no way be referred to these
I supposed historical deliverances. Separate from Joseph

CHAP. XLIX. 1-33.

ooS

the vanquisher of the Midianites, belongs especially
here. — His bow abode in strength. — The victo-
rious resistance and enduring strength of Ephraim
and Manasseh. — The mighty (God) of Jacob. —
He who wrestled with Jacob at Peniel, the God El
that strengthened Jacob, has strengthened Joseph ;
he who proves himself the shepherd of his life, his
rock at Bethel on whose support he slept as he pil-
lowed his head upon the stone. In a general way,
Soo, the stone may be taken as denoting his rock-
like firmness. Jacob's wonderful guidance and sup-
port reflects itself in the history of his son. The
bow is the figure of strength, of defence ; so also
the arm. — Who shall bless thee. — The blessings
that are now pronounced. — Blessings of heaven
above : dew, rain, sunshine. — -Of the deep that
• lieth under: fountains, fertilizing waters. — Of the
breasts and of the womb : increase of children.
— The blessings of my progenitors. — D''"in,
Vulgate, which the LXX had changed into B^'iii,
mountains. The word mnn here does not mean
desire, but limit, from nxn . The blessings of Jo-
seph shall extend to the bounds of the ancient hills ;
that is, they "shall rise higher than the eternal hills,
that lift themselves above the earth, — an allusion to
the glorious mountains, most fruitful aa well as beau-
tiful, in Ephraim and Manasseh, in Bashan and in
Oilead. These surpassing blessingS beyond those of
his forefathers, can only be understood of a richer
outward unfolding, and not of deeper or fuller
ground. — That was separated from his breth-
ren (Lange renders, devoted as a Nazarite). —
See Deut. xxxiii. 16. He is a, Nazarite (a separate
one) in both relations — in his personal consecration,
as well as in his historical dignity.

c. Benjamin. Ver. 27. From morning until
evening is he quick, rapacious, powerful. An inti-
mation of the warUke boldness of the tribe (Judg.
V. 14; XX. 16; 1 Chron. viii. 40). Ehud. Saul.
Jonathan. The dividing of the spoil points to bis
higher, nobler nature. Paul, the great spoil-divider,
from the tribe of Benjamin.

4. Vers. 28-33. The closing word. — When he
blessed them.— It was a blessing for all. The com-
mission in relation to his burial is an enlargement
of the earlier one to Joseph. The burial of Leah in
Hebron is here mentioned first. His death a peace-
ful falling to sleep. Though then dying, at that
moment, in Egypt, he goes immediately to the con-
gregation of his people. It cannot, therefore, be the
grave, or the future burying, that is meant.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. The blessing of Jacob. An intervening stage
m the theocratic revelation between the blessing of
Isaac and that of Moses. It is to be tal<en together
with the special blessing upon Joseph in ch. xlviii.

personally, there is nothing in this figure of the archers
fhnt would not about as well mxil any other wars, of any
other tribes, as the conflicts of Manasseh with the Arabians.
Besides, what is to be done with all the rest of the figures
that precede and follow this in the blessing of Joseph, and
which can no more be referred to Manasseh historically
than to some other of the tribes? There is clearly predict-
ed gresit fruitfulness and general prosperity to Joseph, and
in him to the two tribes that were to represent him, but all
this is made the more striking by being suggestively ground-
ed OM the sorrows and persecutions he had individually ex-
perienced. It is the remote seen as compeiisation of the
near. See the remarks on the subjective character of the
Whole vision, in the excursus, p. 662. — T. L,]

The nearest addition is the song of Moses and th«
prophecy of Balaam.

2. The blessing of Jacob denotes already an an^
ticipation of the victory of life over death. As a
prophet, Jacob is lifted over the foreboding of death
His death-bed is made glorious by a Messianic glance.

3. What shall befall you. — What lies in t)\e
innermost experience of man, that befalls him from
the extreme borders of the earth, and out of the far
remote in time. The relation between the heart and
the destiny. In the heart he the issues of life (Prov.
iv. 23).

4. On the geography of the passage, see the Book
of Joshua, and the geography of Palestine. The
blessing of Jacob goes on beyond the whole interven-
ing time of the IsraeUtish nsidence in Egypt, con-
templating the bles.sed people as they are spread
abroad in the holy land. So in prophecy, although
pertaining to all time, the period next following its
utterance forms its peculiar picture of life, or its
foreground, as it were, without being that in which
it finds its close.

5. On the prophetic consecration and illumination
of pious souls in the act of dying, see what is said in
the Exegetical and Critical.

6. Since Judah is denoted as the prince, and Jo-
seph as the Nazarite among his brethren, so evidently
has the whole blessing two middle points. As, more-
over, the declaration : 1 have waited (or 1 wait) for
thy salvation, 0 Lord, cannot be regarded as having
its position arbitrarily, there must be formed by it
two distinct groups : one, seven in number, and the
other, five. The first group has the theocratic Mes-
sianic character, the second, the universalistic. All
tlie single parts of each group are to be referred, sym-
bolically, to their middle point. Both groups, how-
ever, are mutually implicated and connected. Judah's
sceptre avails for all the tribes; Joseph is the
Nazarite for aU his brethren. The first group stands
under the direction of rhe name Jehovah ; the second,
in respect to its character, falls in the province oi
Elohim. Typically, the first is predominantly Davidic,
the second, Solomonic (Joseph the Nazarite among
his brethren) ; the first has its consummation in Christ,
the second, in his church.

Y. The crime of Reuben is actually that of incest ;
its peculiar root, however, was u;8pi ? (the violence of
his temperament). Just a.=! in the Grecian poetry it
is represented as a fountain of gross transgression.

8. In respect to the fanaticism of the brothers
Levi and Simeon, see what is said in the Exegetical,
and ch. xxxiv. In the sentence of Levi's dispersion,
the thought of a special priestly class evidently ap-
pears in the background, yet so that Jacob seems
to let it depend on the future to determine whether
Judah, or Joseph, is to be the priest, or who else.
This shows the great antiquity of the blessing.

9. As the remedy for Reuben's O'Spis, or his reck-
less, effervescent temperament, hes in his disposition
and weakness, as proceeding naturally from such a
disposition, so the remedy for the fanaticism of
Levi and Simeon lies in their dispersion, jr the in-
dividuahzing of the morbidly zealous spirits.

10. Judah — Shiloh. In Isaac's prediction con-
cerning Jacob there was denoted, for the first time,
the Messianic heir of Abraham as ruler, and, there-
fore, the possessor of a kingdom. Here the domin-
ion branches, in Judah, into the contrast of a war-
like and peaceful rule. And, truly, this contrast ap.
pears here in the greatest cleame.s?, as announced
ver. 8. The lion nature of Judah is developed in thi

660

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

Hon throughout, — the lion rampant, the lion resting,
and even the Uonesa watching over the lion's lair.
To the same wide extent goes the warhke leader-
ship, whose ruler's staif, then, is naturally a mar-
shal's staff, and is to remain so until he has achieved
a perfect triumpli. Then he returns home as Shi-
loli, and the people are wholly obedient to him.
Now follows the painting of this picture of peace.
The contrast of the warlike and the peaceful rule
branches out in the governments respectively of
David and Solomon. But Christ is the complete
fulfilling. He is the victoiious chaiiipion, and
the Prince of Peace, in the highest sense;
he is "tlie hon of the tribe of Judah who hiith
overcome," Rev. v. 5. He binds to the vine the
animal on which he rides, as one employed in
peace. As the olive tree dispenses its oil as a
symbol of the spirit, so is the vine a fountain of
inspiration, dispensing a joy of the spirit. The
blessed joy of faith denotes the turning-point to
which the old war-time brings us, and whence the
new time of peace begins. On this account is the
vine presented in its name of honor, np"}\U
(Isai. V. 2 ; Jerein. ii. 21). The washing of his
garment in wine, as the blood of the grape, is
here put in contrast with the warrior's bloody
panoply in which he returns home. In the festi-
?al joy of the new salvation, the painful recollec-
tions of the old time disappear (Isai. ix.). He pre-
pares his festival garment; yet is ornate in the
midst of enjoyment (Ps. civ. 15). The figure thus
approaches that later representation in which Israel
itself is the vine typically, Christ really ; the fairest
imong the children of men.

11. In Zebulun we see denoted the iiniversalistic
aspect, in Issachar tlie willingness for service, in
Dan the tnight of craft in a small worldly power, as
against stronger foes (be wise as serpents), all of
which were needed for the theocratic unfolding of
the group of Judah.

12. 1 have wiiited for thy salvation^ Jehovah, — thy
help — thy deliverance. There comes out strongly
here the conception of salvation ; imd, indeed, as
a future salvation, as a salvation from Jehovah,
which forms the central point and the aim of every
hope of Israel.

13. That a number five forms itself around Jo-
seph should not surprise us, when we take into the
account the significance of this number, and its pe-
culiar universahstic position. In correspondence
with it we see in Gad the valiant defender of culture,
as the boundary guard against the Eastern hordes ;
in Asher the eherisher of *he material culture; in
Naphtali the guardian of the spiritual; in all three,
single traits of Joseph.

14. Joseph's glory. His blessings present the
blessing of Israel predominantly in its earthly as-
pect ; still, in the expressions, the ancient moun-
tains, the eternal hills, there lies a symbolical sig-
nificance that points away beyond tlie hills of
Ephraim and Gilead ; especially when it is consid-
ered that these blessings are to come upon the
head, the crown of the Nazarite, separated, elect,
— the personal prince among his brethren. As Ju-
dah in his hereditary, so is Joseph in his personal
figure. The early figs or bloom of the patriarchal
time. As Melcliizedek was a gleam from the de-
parting primitive time, so was EUas a fiery meteor
with which the Kw period, in its narrower sense,
iwmes to an en4

15. Benjamin, who in the evening divides thi
prey. A wild, turbulent youth, an old age full of
the blessing of sacrifice for others. That dividing
the spoil in the evening is a feature that evidently
passes over into a spiiiiual allusion. Our firai
thought would be of the dividing of the prey
among the young ones, but for this alone the ex-
pression is too strong. He rends all for himself
in the morning, he yields all in the evening ; this
is not a figure of Benjamin only, but of the the-
ocratic Israel ; and, therefore, a most suitable close
(see Isaiah liU. 12).

HOMnXETICAl AND PEACTICAL.

The dying Jacob as prophet. — His blessing tig •
sons: 1. The sons themselves; 2. the districts; S.
the tribes. — The characteristic diversities of the
tribes, a type of the diversity of apostolic gifts.—
Moreover, the severe sentences of Jacob become a
blessing (see the Exegetical). — Judah, thou art he.
— Therein lies : 1. The typical renown of Judah ;
2. the archetypal renown of Christ; 3. the repre-
sentative renown of Christians. — Waiting for the
Lord's salvation, as expressed by the mouth of the
dying: 1. A testimony to their future continuance
in being: 2. a promise for their posterity. — The
blessing of Joseph ; Joseph the personal chief,
Judah the hereditary ; relation between Melchizedek
and Abraham.

1. Vers. 1-2. The introduction. Starke : In
this important chapter Jacob is to be regarded
not only as a father, but, preeminently, as a prophet
of God, — The words of the dying are oftentimes of
greatest weight. — Schroder : A choral song of the
swan. — The last one of the period that is passing
away is called to bless the beginning of the new. —
His blessing is, at the same time, a prophecy. — The
word of God is first addressed to individuals, and
that, too, in deepest confidence. — The trusted of
God become the bearers of his word. — When life's
flame begins to be extingui.'ihed, there appears, at
times, the most vigorous health of the spirit. There
is a change of speech, an elevation of language, in
this condition of clairvoyance.

Passavant : (Herder :) It is a high outlooking, a
heroic announcing in figurative parabolic style; a
poetical letter of donation ; the most ancient poeti-
cal map of Canaan. The poetical mode of speech
not arbitrary, but the self-limitation of excited feel-
ing in a measured form of diction. — Lisco : The
spiritual peculiarities of the sons of Jacob form the
groundwork of the prophecy, and these the father
had sufiBoient opportunity for learning during his long
life. The main tenor is their future life and action
in Canaan, where he points out, prophetically, to each
tribe, its place of residence, and to which he would
direct their look and longing, as persons who were
to regard themselves only as foreigners in Egypt.

2. Vers. 3-18. The group of Judah— vers. 3-T
— a. Reuben, Simeon, Levi. Stakke : Bibl. Tub. :
Parents should punish the faults of their children
seriously and zealously, and not, with untimely fond-
ness, cloak them to their hurt. — Ver. 6. Such cruelly
will their children imitate, as sufficiently shows itself
in the treatment that Christ received from the high
priests who were descended from Levi. — Jacob curses
only their wrath, not their persons, much less theii
descendants (not their wrath simply but its excess),
— ^Levi had no territory but forty-eight citirs. — Private

CHAP. XLIX. 1-33.

601

revenge ia punishable. — Gerlach : The punishment
bere threatened, was fulfilled in respect to Levi, but
changed to a blessing for himself and his people. —
SoHRODEK : The comparison of the grace with which
God prevents us, and of the punishment which fol-
lows guilt, is most painfully humbling (Calvin). —
Mine honor, used for my soul : Because the soul, in
the image of God, makes man higher than the natu-
ral creation. — Simeon and Levi. They were sepa-
rated from each other and dispersed among the
tribes ; and so the power was broken which would
have been their portion in the settlement of the tribal
districts (Zeigler). — (Luther.) By such a proceeding
God intends to obstruct the old nature and the evil
example. It is especially worth mentioning that
Moses exposes here the shame of his own tribe. Thus
clearly appears the historical truthfulness (Calvin.)
(The Rabbins pretend that most of the notaries and
schoolmasters were of the tribe of Simeon).

Vers. 8-12. b. Judah. Stabke: In his pro-
phetic inspiration Jacob makes the announcement
gradually ; He calls Judah : 1. A young lion, who,
though strong, has yet more growth to expect ; 2. an
old strong lion ; 3. a lioness who shuns no danger in
defence of her young. Christ, the true Shiloh, the
Prince of Peace. — Schroder : The power of the
figure increases in the painting ; probably an intima-
tion of that ever-growing warlike power of the tribe,
which has its perfection in the all-triumphant one,
the lion of the tribe of Judah. — Gehlach: Until the
peace, or the rest, shall come. A poetical proper
name of a great descendant of Judah. The outward
blessing here directs the mind to the inexhaustible
fountain of heavenly blessing that shall proceed from
him. — Taube : (Vers. 10-12.) Jacob's blessing
Judah. — A promise relating to Christ and his king-
dom. It promises : 1. The victorious hero for the
establishment of this kingdom ; 2. the Prince of
Peace with his gentle rule for the perfection of this
kingdom.

Vers. 13-18. c. Zebulun, Issachar, and Dan.
Staeke : Zebulun (Isai. ix. 1-2) ; compare Matt. iv.
16-16. Issachar's land. Josephus : Pinguis omnis
etpascuis plena. Ver. 13. It is a glorious gift of
God to dwell by navigable waters. (The tribe of
Dan a type of Antichrist, although Samson himself
was a type of the Lord the Messiah.) — Ver. 18. The
Chaldaic translation : " Our father Jacob does not
say, I wait for the salvation of Gideon, nor for the
salvation of Samson, but the salvation of the Mes-
siah " (Acts iv. 12). — Schroder: Dan. Some inter-
pret : For thy salvation (that of Dan) do I wait upon
the Lord (Judg. xviii. 30 ; 1 Kings xii. 29). Many
church fathers expected that Antichrist would come
out of Dan. The salvation of God is the opposite of
the serpent's poison, and of the fall (Roos). The
omission of Dan, Rev. vii. 5. — Calwee Handhuch :
The tribe of Dan brought in the first idolatry (Judg.
xviii.), and is not in the Revelations among the one
hundred and forty-four who were sealed. — Tadbe :
Oh. xlix. 18 ; xxix. 83. — Jacob's death-bed. — His
confession the confession of Christian experience. —
His end the end of the believer, full of confidence
and hope. — Hofmann: (Ver. 18.) Jacob's dying
ejaculation. — The tenor of his whole pilgrimage. —
Waiting for the salvation of God.

8. Vers. 19-2T. The group of Joseph. — Vers.

19-21. u. Gad, Asher, Naphtali — Staeke: Luther
on Gad. Fulfilled when they assembled the Reubev
ites and the half tribe of Manasseh, as prepared ta
occupy the land of Canaan before the other Israelites
came there. Their neighbors were the Ammonites,
Arabians, etc. These people sometimes invaded this
tribe, and plundered it ; though they also avenged
themselves. — [Comparison of Naphtali : 1) To a hind,
2) to a tree, according to one of two interpretations.]
He giveth goodly words. Most of the apostles who
preached Christ through the world were from tl '
tribe (land of Galilee). — Schroder : (Luther :) Ful-
filled in Deborah and Barak.

Vers. 22-25. b. Joseph. Staeke : Luther :
The blessing of Jacob goes through the kingly his-
tory of Israel. — Schroder : All the enmities of his
brethren, whom the old father (who preferred him to
them) compared, even in his forgiveness, to a battle
array, had only made him stronger (Herder). The
strong one who wrestled with Jacob had made Jo-
seph strong. He who was his stone (ch. ixviii.) was
also the protector of his son (Herder). — Calwer
Handhuch : Joseph has the natural fulness, Judah
the spiritual.

c. Benjamin. Starke : Interpretations of the
prediction as referred to Ehud, Saul, Mordecai,
Esther, Paul. — Scheodee : Luther, after Tertullian :
This may be very appositely interpreted of the Apos-
tle Paul, for he had devoured the holy Stephen like
a wolf, and after that divided the gospel spoils
throughout the world. — Calwer Handhuch: This
blessing of Benjamin is fulfilled by Saul corporeally,
by Paul spiritually.

4. Vers. 28-31. The closing word. Staeke;
Moses says that he blessed each one of them without
exception ; but the blessings of Reuben, Simeon,
and Levi, had fear and shame belonging to them.
They were not, however, without the benediction ;
the curse was only outward ; they still had part in the
Messiah. The punishment ig transformed into a
healthy discipline, especially in the case of Levi.
We never read that Joseph wept amidst all his suf-
ferings (?) ; but the death of his father breaks his
heart. Burial with one's fathers, friends, etc. ; a
desire for this is not wrong; yet still the earth is all
the Lord's. — Schroder : He saw death coming, and
lays himself down to die, as one goes to sleep.*

* [To the literature of this chapter (see p. 650, 6) may be
added a tract just published, by K. Kohler, Berlin, 1867,
entitled Der Segen Jacob's. It is valuable as presenting a
good argument tor the anticiuity of the piece, in opposition
to the theory of its being a later fiction (see p. 9). It is
verv suggestive, truly learned, especially in the Jewish
Midrasbm, in which, however, the writer, though a Jew,
has little faith, even as he shows still less of reverence for
the Scriptures. He holds it to be a very ancient song, yet
does not hesitate to make Jacob a mytli^ Jacob's God a great
idea, and Jacob's sons to be only the names of supposed
tutelar tribal deities (.Sckutzgotttieiten). He rejects, of course,
the derivation of these names as given by the mothers, but
shows himself a much more extravagant etymologist than
Bachel and Leah. Reuben, 'mxi, he turns into 32-01 XI ,
and interprets it as meaning sun-god {Sonnengott, or OoU
dM Slrahls). Jacob himself i& only a Schutzgotlheif, dii
verschiedeTien Sfdmme gemeinsam besckirmend^.. The tract
is valuable and noteworthy as showing the extreme progrcsf
of this " more refined exegesis." It may be regarded as f
specimen of "the higher criticism" evaporated, '^ ffone mj
into Tohu " (Job vi. 18), or of " rationalism " run mad.-
T. L.]

662 GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

ELEVENTH SECTION,

Joteph's trjourninff. Jacobus burial in Canaan. The brothers^ dread of Joseph. Sw word of
peace and imai for them. Joseph's last provision for Ms own return home to Canaan
after death, similar to the provision of his father.

Chapteb L. 1-26.

1 And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed hici

2 And Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm ' his father : and the

3 physicians embalmed Israel. And forty days were fulfilled for him ; for so are fulfilled
the days of those which are embalmed : and the Egyptia,ns mourned for him threescore

A and ten days. And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto tho
house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you,

5 in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die ; in my
grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me.
Now, therefore, let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.

6 And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

7 And Joseph went up to bury his father : and with him went up all the servants of

8 Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt. And all the;
house [attendants, serrants] of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house ; only their

9 little oneSj and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. And
there went up with him both chariots and horsemen ; and it was a very great company.

10 And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad [btiokthom], which is beyond Jordan, and
there they mourned with a great and sore lamentation ; and he made a mourning for

11 his father seven days. And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the
mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians ;

12 wherefore the name of it was called Abel-mizraim, which is beyond Jordan. And his

13 sons did unto him according as he commanded them. For his sons carried him into the
land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham
bought with the field for a possession of a burying-place, of Ephron the Hittite, before

14 Mamre. And Joseph returned into Egypt, he and his brethren, and all that went up

15 with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father. And when Joseph's brethren
saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure bate us, and will

16 certainly requite us all the evil we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto

17 Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying. So shall ye say unto
Joseph, Forgive,' I pray thee, now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they
did unto thee evil ; and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the

18 God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren
also went and fell down before his face; and they said. Behold, we be thy servants

19 [literally, and more pathetically, Behold US, thy servants]. And Joseph said untO them, Fear not,

20 for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me ; but God
meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.

21 Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted

22 them, and spake kindly unto them.^ And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, be and his father's

23 house; and Joseph lived a hundred and ten years. And Joseph saw Ephraim's children
of the third generation : the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were broup-ht

24 up upon Joseph's knees. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die ; and God will surely
visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham,

25 to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying,
86 God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph

lied, being a hundred and ten years old; and they embalnr-1 him; and he was put iv
a coffin [a Baroophagus] in Egypt.

CHAP. L. 1-26.

063

[' Ver. 2.— U3n ocemra only here, and in Cant. ii. 13, where it is applied to the ripening of the flg. The Arabic
■'ti'*' lias also both these senses of ripening and of embalming. The LXX have rendered it jvriufiioirai, to bviry, puttinf
» part of a proceeding for the whole— to prepare hmi for burial. Vulgate— m( arrnnatibm condirenl.—T. L.]

[' Ver. 17.— sua , forgive; literally, lift vf. The figure may be either the lifting up the supposed prostrate face, oj
the lifting off the burden of remembered guilt. It is most expressive either way.— T. L.]

[» Ver. 21.-033 5S 131^ • Eendered, and he spake Icindly unto them. LiteraUy, he spake umto their heart, and
so the LXX have rendered it. He did not merely use good oratorical forms of encouragement, but spoke words coming
from the heart, and which the heart immediately understood. It was the language of deep emotion. Compare the same
expression, I Sam. i. 13, and Is. xl. 2, rendered in the latter place, speak ye com/orfoSiy- literally, speak to the heart oj
Jermalem. It is to be regretted that such intensive expressions of the Hebrew had not been more generally preserved in
our English version. Some of them might have sounded strangely at fliut, but time would have naturalized them, and
Kiven tlem a place among the choicest idioms in our language.— T. L.]

PBELIMINART KEMARKS.

1. As the fundamental idea of the preceding
chapter denoted, with solemn foresight, the future
appearance of Israel in the promised land, so, in the
closing chapter before us, the actual return of Israel
to Canaan is settled, by way of anticipation, in the
burial of Jacob in Canaan, and by the oath which
Joseph gives to his brethren. The spirit of the
theocratic home-feeling in its higher significance, and
of the assurance of their return, breathes through
this whole chapter. Id this. Genesis points beyond,
not only to the exodus of the children of Israel, but
away beyond this also, to the eternal home, as the
goal of God's people.

2. According to Knobel, merely vera. 12, 13 be-
longs to the ground Scripture, while all the rest is
an enlargement made by the Jehovist ; but then the
Jehovist must be supposed to follow the first docu-
ment (see p. SVT, Knobel). As respects this criti-
cism, now, must things themselves be allowed to
speak, especially such things as the strong presence
of Joseph, and other facts of a similar kind !

3. Contents ; 1) The mourning for Jacob's death,
and the preparation of his dead body in Egypt, vers.
1-6. — 2) The mourning procession to Canaan, vers.
7-13. — 3) The breaking out of an old wound. The
fear of Joseph's brothers, and his declaration that
their guilt has been expiated under the government
of God's grace, vers. 14-21.

4. Joseph's life and death. His provision ex-
acted from them by an oath : that he should be
carried home to Canaan at his death, vers. 22-26.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.

1. Vers. 1-6. — ^And Joseph fell. — An inimitably
touching expression of his soul's deep emotion. —

And the forty days were fulfilled For forty

days did the process of embalming continue. Then
follow thirty days, which make the full three-score
and ten days — the time of mourning for a prince.
" The embalming of the body was an Egyptian cus-
tom, practised for pay by a special class of skilled
artists (rapixenTai), to whom the relations gave the
body for that purpose. According to Herodotus,
ii. 86, there were three modes of proceeding, of
which the moat costly was as follows : they drew out
the brain through the nostrils, and filled the cavity
In the head with spices; then they took out the
viscera, and filled the space with all kinds of aromat-
ics, after which they sewed it up. The next step
was to salt the body with natron, and let it lie sev-
enty days, or longer. Then they washed it off,
wrapt it in fine linen, and smeared it with gum.

Finally, the relatives took it back, enclosed it in a
chest, and kept it in a chamber for the dead. We
derive the same information from Diodorus Sic, i.
91, and, moreover, that the taricheutists (theembalm-
ers) were held in high honor, and ranked in the so-
ciety of the priests. In the several districts they
had particular places for their business (Strabo, xvii.
p. 795). They used asphaltum which was brought
from Palestine to Egypt (Diod., ^x. 99 ; Strabo,
xvi. p. 764). From thence, too, they obtained the
spices that were employed (see ch. xxxvii. 25 ; xliii.
11). The intestines they put in a box and east into
the Nile ; doing this because the beUy was regarded
as the seat of sins, especially those of gluttony and
intemperate drinldng. (Poephtr. Abstin., iv. 10.)
See more on this subject in Friedreich {Zur, Bibel,
ii. p. 199). See also Winer, Realworterh., 'Em-
balming.' Jacob was prepared as a mummy. Jo-
seph in the same manner, ver. 26. This is related of
no other Hebrew. The embalming mentioned later
among the Jews was of a different kind (John xix.
39)." Knobel. The mourning for Aaron and Moses
was observed thirty days. — Speak in the ears of
Pharaoh. — On an occasion so peculiar he lets oth-
ers speak for him ; moreover it was unseemly to ap-
pear before the king in mourning. — The grave
■which I have digged for me. — This is not at va-
riance with the supposition that Abraham had pre-
viously bought the cave. In this cave of Machpelah
Jacob had, at a later time, made a special prepara-
.tion of a grave for himself. It is a conjecture of
Von Bohlen, with Onkel and others, that !l"i3
here, should be rendered bought; but there is no
need of it.

2. Vers. 7-13. The great mourning procession
of the Egyptians here proceeded, on the one hand,
from their recognition of Joseph's high position, and,
on the other, from their love of funeral festivity
(Hengstenberg). — Threshing-floor of Atad. — So
called from inS, thorn, because, perhaps, surround-
ed by thorn-bushes. — Seven days. — The usual
time of mourning. The place is called by Hierony-
mus, Bethagla. Concerning the late discovered
traces of the place, lying not far from the northern
end of the Dead Sea, see Knobel, p. 379. It is this
side of Jordan, though the account says beyond
Jordan. The expression is explained, when, with
the older commentators, we tiike into view that thi
traditionary mention arising from the old position of
tiie Israelites, had become fixed. Bunsen would re-
move the seeming difficulty by maintaining that
■j^Til ^3S3 actually means this side of Jordan.
Deiitzscb and Keil suppose that the place denoted ia
not identical with Bethagla, but actually lay on tht
other side of Jordan. There probably did the Egyp

664

GENESIS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.

tian mouming-train remain behind, after having gone
round the Dead Sea ; whilst the eona of Jacob, ac-
cording to ver. 13, actually entered Canaan proper.
The difficult question, why the mouming-train did
not take the usual direct way from Egypt to Hebron,
is answered by saying, that on the usual route they
would have to guard themselves against encounters
with warMke tribes; and this is supported by the
fact, that? the children of Israel, likewise, at a later
day, had to avoid the direct route on the western
side. Moreover, the march was in some respects
typical, presenting an anticipation, as it were, of the
later journey. Even at that time the Canaanites at-
tentively watched the mourning procession ; but
they had no presentiment of its significance for the
later time, and were especially quiet as they looked
on during this " grievous mourning of the Egyp-
tians."

3. Vers. 14-21. — And when Joseph's breth-
ren 8at7. — The father had stood as a powerful me-
diator between them and Joseph; and now con-
science again wakes up. lu their message to him
they appeal to their lather's words, and there is no
ground lor what Knobel says, that this was a mere
pretext. Joseph's weeping testifies to an elevated
and noble soul. Once they had sold him for a slave,
and now they offer themselves as his servants. This
is the last atonement. Joseph's answer contains the
full reconciliation. Am I in the place of God ? Can
I by my own will change his purposes ? God has
turned the judgment into a dehveranee, and in this
must they find peace and reconciliation. God has
forgiven them ; and, therefore, he himself can no
longer retain their sins ; nor would he ; since that
would be to put himself judicially in the place of the
forgiving God. — What he says, ver. 20, gives us the
grand golden key to his whole life's history — yea,
it is the geim of all theodicy in the world's his-
tory.

4. Vers. 22-26. — The third generation. — That
is, great-grandchildren. The dead bodies were placed
in chests of sycamore wood, and kept in the cham-
bers of the dead. So Joseph's body was kept. In
the exodus of Israel it was carried along (Exod. xiii.
19), and laid in the field of Jacob at Shechem (Josh,
ixiv. 32).

DOCTEINAL AXD ETHICAL.

1. We have denoted this chapter as the chapter
of the home feeling. It is a trait that breathes
through it. Canaan the home-land of Israel — type
of the heavenly home.

2. Joseph's disposition, mourning, and truthful-
ness.

S. With wonderful propriety does Joseph unite
bi his own person the laraelitish truthfulness with
that which was of most value in the Egyptian cus-
toms and usages.

4. The mourning-train of Jacob, a presignal of
Israel's return to Canaan.

5. As God makes Genesis glorious in the begin-
ning, by the account of his creation, — so here, at
the end, by a display of his providence (ver. 20).

6. The admonitions of conscience.

1. Perfect love casteth out fear. Joseph's word
of peace for his brethren.

8. Joseph's provision an act of faith. Pointing
■>;> the exodus.

HOMrLBTICAl AND PEACTlCAIi.

Consecrated death. — Consecrated mourning
The consecrated mourning usage. The pious mourn
ing procession. The divine sighing for home. Thi
dead Jacob draws beforehand the living Israel to Car
naan. Before all is the dying Christ. — The way of
our future wonderfully prepared : 1. In the mourn
ing-train ; 2. in the exodus of the spirits ; 3. in th«
going forth of the heart in its longing and sighing
for home.

Mrst Section. (Vers. 1-6.) Starke: Extract
from Herodotus ii. 85, 86, on the Egyptian mourn-
ing usage?, and the embalming of the dead. — Bibl.
Tub. : The bodies of the dead are rightly honored
when they are buried in the earth, with the common
usages, when they are not superstitious ; but they
are not to be exposed lor spiritual reverence, or car-
ried about for that purpose, or have ascribed to them
any miracle-working power. Though we may weep
for the dead, it must not be with us as it is with the
heathen, who have no hope — Calwer Handbuch .
Egypt swarmed with physicians, because there was
one specially for each disease.

Second Section. (Vers. 7-13.) Starke ; Thus
was there almost royal honor done to Jacob in hia
death ; since for the dead Egyptian kings they used
to mourn for seventy-two days. — Schroder : In thia
there was fulfilled the promise made ch. xlvi. 4 : Ja-
cob was literally brought back from Egypt to Ca-
naan ; since for his body did God prepare this pro-
phetic journey.

7%ii d Section. (Vera. 14r-21.) Starke : Attend-
ance upon the dead to their place of rest ia a Chris-
tian act. — Ver. 16. TJiei/ sent a Tnessenger., saying ^
It was probably Benjamin whom they sent. — Hall:
To one who means good, there can be nothing more
offensive than suspicion. — The same : The tie of re-
ligion is much stricter than that of nature. — Ver.
20. Lange : The history of Joseph and his brethren
an example of the wonderful providence of God. —
Bibl. Tub. : The wicked plots of wicked men against
the pious, God turns to their best good.

Gerlaoh : The revelation of the most wonder-
fully glorious decree of God's love and almighty
power, which man cannot frustrate, yea, even the
transform.ition of evil into blessing and salvation —
this appears to have been fulfilled throughout the
entire life of Joseph. His feeling, so greatly removed
from the revenge which his brothers still thought
him capable of, goes far beyond them. He speaka
to their heart. His words drop like balm upon a
wound. It is a beautiful pictorial expression which
elsewhere occurs. — With an act of faith of the dying
Jacob, connecting the first book of Mob.es with the
second, this history closes, and thereby points to the
fulfilling of the promise that now follows. — Schro-
der ; As we have one father, they would say, so have
we one God, our father's God ; forgive us, therefore,
for God's sake, the God of our father. They make
mention of servitude as their deserved punishment,
with reference to their evil deed to Joseph (Baum-
garten).

Fourth Section. (Vers. 22-26.) Starke : It is
not probable that, at that time, the brothers were all
living. [In that case the meaning would have refer-
ence to the heads of families. — To the wood out of
which the coflSns of the dead were made, there seems
to have been ascribed the property of being incor-
ruptible ? — Core pans m of Joseph with Christ in i

CHAP. L. 1-26.

rsb

ieries of resemblances ] — God does not suffer fidelity
to parents, or love and kindly deeds to one's own
people, to go unrewarded. — Bibl. Wirt. : God is wont,
sometimes, even in this life, to recompense to believ-
ers their cross and misery. That is the best thought
of death, to remember the promise of God and his
gracious redemption. — Schroder : It all ends with
the coffin, the mourning for the dead, the funeral
procession, and the glance into the future life. The
age of promise is over; there follows now a silent
chasm of four hundred years, until out of the rushes
•f the Nile there is lifted up a weeping infant in a

little reed-fornied arlc. The ige of law begins,
which endures for fifteen hundjed years. Then in
Bethlehem-Ephratah is there bom another infant,
and with him begins the happy time, the day of light,
and quickening grace (Erummacher). — Calweb
Handbuch: His place as primn minister of Egypt
had not extinguished Joseph's faith in the divine
promise. He shared in the faith ; he is to be a co-
heir, a sharer in the inheritance. — Lisco : And so
speaks Joseph yet, through faith, unto his people,
though he has long been dead, and in his grave. —
Heim : Joseph closed bis life with an act of faith.

/